First post, by Zup
- Rank
- Oldbie
I'm installing Windows 98SE on an old laptop, and my question is about the software to install on it. I've got a list of what software do I want to install, but I need information about what versions works fine on Windows 98. I don't want to install kernelex to maintain it "clean".
This is my wishlist, with all the information I've found.
- Direct X: DirectX 9.0 (December 2006).
- File Manager: Total Commander still supports Windows 98. I've installed 7.50a because I bought it on CD.
- Web browser: Firefox 2.0.0.20.
- PDF printer: PDF Creator 1.2.3. Note that Image2PDF requires .NET 2.0.
- File compressor: 7-zip 9.22.
- Photo retouch: Gimp 2.2.17. Requires GTK 2.6.9.
- Text processor: Abiword 2.4.6.
- Spreadsheet: Gnumeric 1.4.3-rc4.
- Text editor: Notepad ++ 5.9.0 (non-unicode).
- PDF Viewer: FoxIt Reader 2.0.1606. I know for sure that 3.x don't work, but I don't know if 2.3 does.
- Terminal: Putty still supports Windows 98. MSI installer don't work, but they provide a .exe installer that works.
- FTP Client: LeechFTP 1.3.
- Multimedia viewer: VLC 0.8.6i (but requires unicows, not included).
- Picture viewer: XnView 2.13.
- System/disk cleaner: CCleaner 2.36.1233
- Willem EPROM burner: 0.97ja (last version to support PCB 3.5).
- Floppy disk read/write: I'm going to use CPDWrite, but that's a DOS tool.
- Hex editor: HxD still supports Windows 98.
Other interesting software (I won't install on my computer, but keep it handy):
- Mail: Thunderbird 2.0.0.24
- Image viewer: IrfanView still supports Windows 98.
- Runtime Java: Sun Java 1.6.07
- Runtime .NET: Microsoft .NET 2.0.
- CD/DVD burn: cdrtfe and ImgBurn still supports Windows 98. Infrarecorder 0.44.0 works, but I'm not sure that's the latest version. Nero 6.x is supported, but I consider that 4.x and 5.x were lighter.
- PDF viewer: Adobe Acrobat Reader 6.0.
- Multimedia viewer: Windows Media Player 9.0 (Wndows 98SE) and Media Player Classic 6.4.9.0.
- Web browser: Internet Explorer 6 SP1, Opera 10.10, Netscape Navigator 9.0.0.6. Chrome has no compatible versions.
- Office Suite: OpenOffice 2.4.3 y StarOffice 8. LibreOffice has no compatible versions.
- FTP client: Filezilla 2.3.3309
- PDF printer: CutePDF and PDF995 still supports Windows 98.
- MP3 player: Winamp 5.35 (but any version on 2.x branch, like 2.95 is better suited).
- Diablo II: I've installed it from CDs and updated via battlenet to find out that 1.14 requires PSAPI.DLL (a DLL mostly found on NT kernels). Patch 1.12 don't need that DLL and is the first version that don't need CDs to play.
Microsoft software and updates:
- Web browser: Internet Explorer 6 SP1.
- Multimedia viewer: Windows Media Player 9 (7.1 on 98FE).
- Office Suite: Microsoft Office XP (Office 97 recommended), Microsoft Works 8.0 (7 on 98 FE).
(Underlined versions are the last versions that officially supported Windows 98)
I need some help to complete this list. Finding information about game requirements is easy, but there is not much information about app requirements (if you're looking for OLD versions). I'd like to maintain my system kernelex-free, so I'm looking for "pure" Windows 98 versions.
Also, looking this thread, the wikipedia article about DirectX and the thread about web browsers for any OS, I wonder if there is a site that puts all this information together and everybody can search. There are sites (oldversions) that stores old versions of apps, but they usually don't store this kind of information.
I have traveled across the universe and through the years to find Her.
Sometimes going all the way is just a start...