digitaldoofus wrote:

.....I thought either OS could still allow booting into "pure DOS", but I have read that an SE setup might be more difficult (if not impossible) to access and properly configure its DOS to run some vintage games.....

What you've described here sounds more like Windows ME

No, I guess you're talking about Windows 98FE (First Edition) which is what I still have btw
and you (digitaldoofus) are right, Win98SE was a step backwards as far as dos games compatibility was/is concerned
so I would definitely favor 98FE over 98SE, not to speak of WinME.

I never knew that 🤣, thanks for informing me 😉

Btw, I once had 98FE. I got so many blue screens when I used it, I've never ever been tempted to use it again so I never bothered to look at 98FE again

98SE is the ultimate Win9x version in terms of stability and functionality, followed by 95 OSR2 (i think it was called) if your machine is too slow to run 98. 98SE needs slighly more resources than 95 IIRC. You can find unofficial update packs for 98SE on the web with OS updates, tweaks, etc. .

This forum is bookmarked by yours truely 😉

http://www.msfn.org/board/forum/8-windows-959 … d8500fbdcad41cf

@gidierre: Can you describe a little about what additional problems Win98SE caused? (compared to the First Edition?). I'm just curious what area SE messed up, that was "right" for DOS games in the First Edition?

heh. I haven't used 98FE since 98SE came out. Never looked back and never noticed any extra compatibility problems.

Windows ME was the one that was a bitch because of how it tried to hide DOS (a curious idea overall). I've haven't touched that one for many years because there are few reasons to bother with it. XP blows it out of the water for stability and 98SE is much easier to deal with for 9x+DOS gaming.

ME does have advantages of it's own, though obviously not in the field of DOS. I went from 98FE to ME and that was a VAST improvement for me. You really need to tweak ME in order to get it stable.
It's easier to use then 98SE (more build in hardware drivers support, reads any USB drive out of the box, faster boot times, to name a few).
I use ME on my systems that I intend to use for older windows games like Unreal. Also it runs much lighter then the NT5x family windows

I'm sure most people will prefer a patched 98SE over a tweaked ME, it's just a personal preference for me. Most DOS games seem to work perfectly fine in ME anyway. Atleast when I used it.

(yes yes, go ahead and flame on 😜 )

No I don't hate ME but it definitely wasn't really a big improvement over 98SE. I don't really see a good reason to use it over 98SE, that's all. If I want to play games that won't work in XP, 98SE also gives me easy access to DOS so that's just what I use for my needs. Something like that. 😀

Did you know that MS had a project for a NT consumer OS before XP? It was codenamed Neptune. It's a light XP essentially, sort of a stripped down 2K, but it didn't go anywhere. Instead as an interim solution before XP, they released ME. You can actually find a Neptune test release out on the web if you dig around.

I thought it was really annoying that they tried to hide DOS in ME. As if they didn't want you to know that it was just yet another rework of the flawed 95 tech. 9x and friends are really nasty OSs that I'm glad went away. 😉

Ah yes, Neptune! I actually installed it on one of my systems a couple years ago, just for kicks.
It's similar to 2k but has some features not found in any other version of windows.

Took me a while to find it though. I was using the 5111 release with the timebomb removed.
Funny note, if you put a Neptune cd in your cdrom drive with XP installed, it will ask you if you want to upgrade! 😜

Edit:One thing is true indeed, XP is WAY more stable then any 9x I ever used!
Even if you got 9x running stably, it takes very little to make it crash and burn.
Personally I use ME on systems using a CPU of around 400Mhz to 800Mhz and 192MB or more RAM.
ME is quite easy to setup, having a lot of drivers out of the box, including USB mass storage drivers!
I remember installing 98SE I actually had to burn the unofficial service pack to a cd because my USB driver stick wasn't recognized -_-

Edit:One thing is true indeed, XP is WAY more stable then any 9x I ever used!

D'uh... (; Of course it is. All Win9x versions up to and including ME are basically a continuation of the ancient "DOS with a GUI on top" technology. Windows NT and all its offspring are completely different from that. Hence the name: "NT" = "New Technology". Read this for more enlightenment (; .

If you want some REALLY good info, try msfn.org 😉 😉 😉

Well, news (and a few alibi articles) =! information. I don't have much time to read news about Windows OS's because i have to spend my time actually working with them and earning money that way. But to each his own i guess. (;

ADDiCT wrote:

Well, news (and a few alibi articles) =! information. I don't have much time to read news about Windows OS's because i have to spend my time actually working with them and earning money that way. But to each his own i guess. (;

News == information 😜
Whenever you do have the time (and want to learn what enormous possibilities these old OS's have nowadays), I'd highly suggest you read what is actually posted there 😉 . Including the many downloads that can be obtained from there.
For the record, I've build over a hundred of (mainly older) computer systems from scratch, scrapped hundreds of computers and fixed and troubleshooted over a hundred computer systems for clients.
Apart from that, I've build over 20 computer systems as a hobbie with OS's ranging from DOS all the way to windows 7 (excluding Vista proper, mind you! 😜 ) including 98 Beta 3, Neptune, Vista beta and server 2003.
I own about 20 original MS windows disks (not counting floppies!) including keys (give or take) and know my way around nlite.
I've build custom install disks for myself and for others, having tested them in Virtual PC and in the flesh

Mind you, I don't need a wiki page to tell me what to do hehe

digitaldoofus wrote:

@gidierre: Can you describe a little about what additional problems Win98SE caused? (compared to the First Edition?). I'm just curious what area SE messed up, that was "right" for DOS games in the First Edition?

while in general to avoid any misunderstandings I'll say it's understood SE was an obvious "progress" vs. FE
imho I still maintain it didn't strike me as such as far as dos gaming went

currently it's much better to use Dosbox or ScummVM when feasible (read: Lucasarts stuff and some more)
otherwise I still have virtualpc/vmware installations of dos 6.22/win3.11/win95 [95a] and win98 [FE of course]

to strictly answer your question, well it's been 11 years now, but even if unable to recollect a single feature as I realize you'd like to know, I tell you I remember having (or I should say, deciding) to reformat (sic!) in spring (?) 1999 just to revert to Win98FE from a SE "upgrade" for no other reason than I found it suited me best with all my dos games
and I don't think I'd have gone through all that for nothing 😜

sorry, though, for being unable to pinpoint a single flaw in it
I do remember being somewhat pissed off by it like when I noticed that WinME had "hidden" the beloved dos 7.10 (or was it 8.0?) from view...

gidierre wrote:

...to strictly answer your question, well it's been 11 years now, but even if unable to recollect a single feature as I realize […]
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digitaldoofus wrote:

@gidierre: Can you describe a little about what additional problems Win98SE caused? (compared to the First Edition?). I'm just curious what area SE messed up, that was "right" for DOS games in the First Edition?

...to strictly answer your question, well it's been 11 years now, but even if unable to recollect a single feature as I realize you'd like to know, I tell you I remember having (or I should say, deciding) to reformat (sic!) in spring (?) 1999 just to revert to Win98FE from a SE "upgrade" for no other reason than I found it suited me best with all my dos games
and I don't think I'd have gone through all that for nothing 😜
...

No problem, it's understandable after so much time to not remember "specifics". Like I mentioned, I have read from at least one other source that 98FE is in some situations more friendly to (at least some) DOS games or their installations. I guess it might even come down to a specific PC as to what works best, 98FE or SE (with SE being probably preferred if DOS games work the same on both OS's).

Hell I've heard Vista is better for old games than Windows XP.

Don't believe everything you hear.

DosFreak wrote:

Hell I've heard Vista is better for old games than Windows XP.

Wohhhhh! I've never heard that one. Source?

😉

fe and se have the same dos compatibility as far as i know. se just has more recent things like usb flash capabilities and other 3rd party stuff.