I recently purchased a Dell Dimension 2400. I was looking to do a Windows 98 and XP dual-boot, but after I remembered that KernelEx is a thing, I decided to stick with 98 only. When I tried installing Windows 98 and installing all of the drivers, there was a driver conflict between the 'Intel(R) Extreme Graphics 2' driver and another driver (Windows did not tell me what the other driver in question was, but I am pretty sure it was the 'Realtek AC-97 Audio driver'). The computer was released in 2003 and came with Microsoft Windows XP and the right hardware to be able to run Windows 9x.

Today, I decided to try Microsoft Windows Millennium Edition (ME) in hopes that it would work a little better, and also because it has some cool stuff such as Windows Movie Maker and System Restore (I am aware that it does not have a "Restart in MS-DOS mode" action. I will use the built-in MS-DOS prompt, because it works fine with what I plan on using with MS-DOS). Windows 9x does run, and Windows 3.1 can even run on this thing (it just does not have any drivers). Windows ME shut down the PC and did not successfully boot with the Intel Extreme Graphics driver, so I had to boot into Safe Mode and remove it. When I try installing the audio (Realtek AC-97) driver, it does not work but shows up in Device Manager.

I have seen with the Dell Optiplex GX-260 that the BIOS messes up driver support for Windows 9x, forcing a BIOS flash downgrade for the PC, and it made me wonder if it is the same case for this computer also. It also took me a long time to find these drivers, because somebody password-protected their driver archive and did not give the password. RetroTechChris had the drivers, which I installed, and some worked. Internet, USB, and Chipset drivers work, but Audio and Video do not. I planned on playing video games on this setup, and those + Internet are the most important drivers for me to have working on this system. Does anyone know what I can do to fix this problem? I am in desperate need of help, and I am thankful for any help I can get, because seeing others just install the drivers and they magically work while I get smacked in the face with errors makes me frustrated.