ActiveDesktop is definately not dead. I tried once in Windows XP and it seems that ActiveDesktop is allways active and the "disable" option is just hidden (sometimes when it freezes and I "reset" it, it gives me that message abou ActiveDesktop being disabled, it seem that MS simply updated ActiveDesktop so it wouldn't look worse with JPGs and corrected the most evident bugs).

Also, when I meant "updated" system files my intention was to say "bugfixed". In fact, 98SE2ME just copies many ME files (newer with less bugs) in 98SE, because, in fact, ME is just an updated and more bloated version of 98se. If you disable (or minimize) the bloat, you stay with the updated part 😀

I found a site that has a util for download that specs up 98SE to ME without the bloat and other issues - self extracting - but requires ME disc (which fetch a few pennies too many on Australian ebay).

http://exuberant.ms11.net/98sesp.html

Related forum:

http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showforum=91

Will try this soon.

1. I want stability since I will be using the machine to write up a doctoral thesis using MS Word.
2. I want to play a small handful of games such as Albion, Ultima Underworld 2, Redguard 3dfx, and Turrican (works on my K6 700Mhz fine) and some early Direct X games on an Asus P3b-f running somewhere between 400-900Mhz with 512mb RAM.

The main idea is to be able to swap between work and dos gaming.

The best solution to swap between work and gaming would be a bootmanager. Seriously, if you really want to write a doc. thesis and play vintage games on the same machine, do it on different operating and file systems, otherwise you may encounter strange problems lurking behind every corner.
I've seen many people doing extensive work on Win9x using Word, but usually they ended up doing everything twice.

swaaye wrote:

Win95C is best for 486. It's a ton faster cuz IE isn't really integrated yet. Installing IE6 may ruin this advantage though.

No, you pretty much have to go back to Windows 95A to be free of IE integration. This is why 98Lite uses the Shell files from 95A in its fastest modes. (Was Windows 98 optimized to run on the 686 (P2/3) core?)

buckrogers wrote:

I found a site that has a util for download that specs up 98SE to ME without the bloat and other issues - self extracting - but requires ME disc (which fetch a few pennies too many on Australian ebay).

http://exuberant.ms11.net/98sesp.html

Um, that's just the Unofficial 98SE Service Pack, which if I am not mistaken consists entirely of repackaged updates freely available from Microsoft and does not in fact require ME (and is thus quite nice indeed!). 98SE2ME was discussed elsewhere in the thread.

Anyway, if you use Windows 9x, it is aboslutely essential to keep an eye on your system resources, because you can easily deplete them without warning and completely crash Windows! I used TClockEx to keep my free system resources conveniently displayed in my system tray.

Still, 95C is FAR faster on a 486 than 98SE. 95C comes with IE3 built-in but it's just nothing like what happens when IE5 is built-in among all the other extras in 98SE. I used both on the same 486. I've installed IE5.5 SP2 (highest you can go) on 95C and I think it was still a lot quicker than 98SE with IE6. I have a 486 VLB machine right now that handles 95C/IE5.5 with only 16MB RAM pretty well. 95C is the best 95 there is unless you want to mess with the massive problems of 95A. Hell you need at least OSR2 or you don't have FAT32 support 🤣.

Actually I believe 95 is 386 or 486 optimized while 98 moves to a Pentium P5 optimization. There is some old talk about this on my favorite resource, Google Groups.

It's too bad that Firefox is such an UNBELIEVABLE dog on even a overclocked Pentium Pro 200 1MB @ 233 (I have one). Even in XP on that machine, where Firefox runs best in a NT OS and the PPro can push the numbers best, it's so awfully slow compared to IE.

swaaye wrote:

Still, 95C is FAR faster on a 486 than 98SE. 95C comes with IE3 built-in but it's just nothing like what happens when IE5 is built-in among all the other extras in 98SE.

Isn't that IE4 in 95C?

It's too bad that Firefox is such an UNBELIEVABLE dog on even a overclocked Pentium Pro 200 1MB @ 233 (I have one). Even in XP on that machine, where Firefox runs best in a NT OS and the PPro can push the numbers best, it's so awfully slow compared to IE.

Go for Opera!

It also depends on which hardware you got. Windows 98 SE can directly support BX chipset and Windows ME directly supports i820 chipset. For i820 chipset, you have to install chipset drivers for Windows 98 SE. I can say that, with chipset drivers installed i820 is not really as fast as BX chipset and vice versa. i820 chipset works much better with Windows ME but BX is not. They both prepared for home users for the available hardware of that time.

I was a second year high schooler when this thread was last active. Was it necessary to necro it?

People still searches those in this forum. Why not? I have used those hardware at that time, more than 25 years passed for me over them. Those times are offline times for internet not many people have computers at homes, today not many people really was a PC user at that time, you had better read new technology forums than....

When being obsolete, administration does not allow for adding new posts as you know! Still trying to compete those time losses, Modified BIOSes for ASUS P3B-F, P3V4X, P3V133, CUBX, CUBX-E/L and P3C-E we are bios modding for those old computers. As a point of view, we are trying to solve problems of that time still today, because we are not able to communicate with others much for troubles over the internet. 🙁

Closed. Old thread is old.
Start your own thread that already includes the information from this one if you feel it necessary to do so.