win98SE as minimum windows requirement

Hi,

Nowadays, more and more hardware manufacuterers are stating win98SE as the
minimum required version of windows to let the hardware run. PQI
(manufacturer of my USB memorystick) is an example. But the drivers also
work perfectly with my original Win98.

I was wondering, is this always the case, or are there actually cases where
win98SE works and win98 first edition does not?

Halfgaar
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On Tue, 07 Oct 2003 21:15:23 +0200, Knowing that it was a Hollywood
invention that lemmings jump off cliffs Halfgaar
wrote :

Hi,

Nowadays, more and more hardware manufacuterers are stating win98SE as the
minimum required version of windows to let the hardware run. PQI
(manufacturer of my USB memorystick) is an example. But the drivers also
work perfectly with my original Win98.

I was wondering, is this always the case, or are there actually cases where
win98SE works and win98 first edition does not?

Halfgaar

Yes if there's no driver support for the hardware in win98.




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Shep© wrote:

Hi,

Nowadays, more and more hardware manufacuterers are stating win98SE as the
minimum required version of windows to let the hardware run. PQI
(manufacturer of my USB memorystick) is an example. But the drivers also
work perfectly with my original Win98.

I was wondering, is this always the case, or are there actually cases
where win98SE works and win98 first edition does not?

Halfgaar

Yes if there's no driver support for the hardware in win98.


Yes what, it is always the case the win98SE driver works in FE, or yes there
are cases that FE does not work.

As I said, my USB memorystick doesn't support win98FE officially, but it
does work perfectly in FE. So, is this SE demand bogus?

Halfgaar
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To send me, Halfgaar, email, remove remove from my email address.

On Tue, 07 Oct 2003 23:00:40 +0200, Knowing that it was a Hollywood
invention that lemmings jump off cliffs Halfgaar
wrote :

Shep© wrote:

Hi,

Nowadays, more and more hardware manufacuterers are stating win98SE as the
minimum required version of windows to let the hardware run. PQI
(manufacturer of my USB memorystick) is an example. But the drivers also
work perfectly with my original Win98.

I was wondering, is this always the case, or are there actually cases
where win98SE works and win98 first edition does not?

Halfgaar

Yes if there's no driver support for the hardware in win98.


Yes what, it is always the case the win98SE driver works in FE, or yes there
are cases that FE does not work.

As I said, my USB memorystick doesn't support win98FE officially, but it
does work perfectly in FE. So, is this SE demand bogus?

Halfgaar

If the hardware maker's don't design a driver for Win98 gold(1st
edition) then it's,"Pot-luck" if the win98SE drivers will work.In many
cases they do but the hardware maker's are just covering there A** or
they don't support the older O/S.This will occur more and more as time
goes by and users move on to newer O/S IMHO.
HTH




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It's a G not a J in jmx to reply
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On Tue, 07 Oct 2003 21:15:23 +0200, Halfgaar
wrote:

Hi,

Nowadays, more and more hardware manufacuterers are stating win98SE as the
minimum required version of windows to let the hardware run. PQI
(manufacturer of my USB memorystick) is an example. But the drivers also
work perfectly with my original Win98.

I was wondering, is this always the case, or are there actually cases where
win98SE works and win98 first edition does not?

Halfgaar

WIn98 had initial WDM support, but it was still a bit buggy in some
cases. Win98SE had better WDM support, but there was a Microsoft
patch that updated 98SE to the abilities of WinME... I don't think
that patch will install on WinFE, but maybe manually? (I have no
idea.)

So, the same driver installable on FE, might not work right until SE,
or SE patched to ME-level. Or, if the installer front-end checks for
OS version, the driver might not install at all, even if it "might've"
worked if it had installed.

Basically, hardware vendors want to cover their asses and minimize
customer returns... to that end they only officially support the OS
they are comfortable will work, if product is installed by average
end-users.


Dave

On Wed, 08 Oct 2003 00:10:57 -0400, Stacey wrote:

kony wrote:



but there was a Microsoft
patch that updated 98SE to the abilities of WinME.

Now there's a scary thought...


LOL.

Just the same screwed-up driver model, further extended by XP.

The patch might be helpful for folks trying to get nForce (or other
modern, hardware accelerated) sound working on Win98SE, for example.


Dave

Halfgaar wrote in message ...

Nowadays, more and more hardware manufacuterers are stating
win98SE as the minimum required version of windows

I was wondering, is this always the case, or are there actually
cases where win98SE works and win98 first edition does not?

Those IOGear brand GIC220U 2-port USB 2.0 cards that Fry's often
features for free after $10 rebate, if they're the version based on
the ALi USB 2.0 chip, as almost all are now. The box of the one I got
said that Win98 was OK for it, but it worked only in USB 1.1 mode, and
it turned out that the box was outdated and meant for the older
version of the card, based on the much better NEC USB 2.0 chip
(pictures on that box).

Halfgaar writes:

Nowadays, more and more hardware manufacuterers are stating win98SE as the
minimum required version of windows to let the hardware run. PQI
(manufacturer of my USB memorystick) is an example. But the drivers also
work perfectly with my original Win98.

I was wondering, is this always the case, or are there actually cases where
win98SE works and win98 first edition does not?

It's probably either a question of where the vendor chose to spend its
compatibility test resources, or whether there is at least one place
in the drivers where the code uses an API documented in W98SE but
not in W98gold. Or both.

Supporting software that you claim to work on a given platform requires
that you test just about every pathological combination possible. It's
not a simple "put it on Charlie's machine and if it works, ship it."
Quality product testing is expensive, and the vendor may have chosen
to do testing only on W98SE and later platforms because it saw little
return on investment for testing on earlier machines.

And the list of APIs changes at each new major product release. If there
is at least one place anywhere in the code that uses an API that is
documented in Win98SE but is not in Win98 gold, that's a showstopper for
supporting the code on Win98 gold. It may be that the vast majority of
users would never cause that API to be invoked (and so might never have
any situation in which the code fails under WIN98), but the code is
still not compatible with Win98 gold.

Joe Morris

Halfgaar wrote:

kony wrote:

WIn98 had initial WDM support, but it was still a bit buggy in some
cases. Win98SE had better WDM support, but there was a Microsoft
patch that updated 98SE to the abilities of WinME... I don't think
that patch will install on WinFE, but maybe manually? (I have no
idea.)

This patch, will it cripple win98SE so that it will be as bad as ME? Is it
still available? And is it a normal patch, or one of those annoying
service packs?

Maybe I should upgrade to win98SE sometime. I don't want to have to
upgrade to 2000 or XP, because then a lot of things I want to do won't
work anymore.


Maybe I'm wrong but I always thought service pack 1 for 98 was supposed to
be the same as 98SE? If not you should be able to find someone who will
sell you 98SE pretty cheap now.
--

Stacey

On Wed, 08 Oct 2003 10:36:04 +0200, Halfgaar
wrote:

kony wrote:

WIn98 had initial WDM support, but it was still a bit buggy in some
cases. Win98SE had better WDM support, but there was a Microsoft
patch that updated 98SE to the abilities of WinME... I don't think
that patch will install on WinFE, but maybe manually? (I have no
idea.)

This patch, will it cripple win98SE so that it will be as bad as ME? Is it
still available? And is it a normal patch, or one of those annoying service
packs?

The patch I was referring to just gives 98SE the same WDM audio
"level" as ME, nothing more, not the other crap added by WinME.
Basically it's just a few files updated IIRC, though I have no idea if
those files could be replaced on a Win98FE install or if they'd be
inoperable with other earlier file versions from FE.

http://www.google.com/search?q=242937usa8.exe

If your problem isn't audio or persists (or gets worse) after using
the files in this patch, you may also need install the service pack,
other updates. I don't recall the exact differences, but after fully
patched Win98FE is nearly transformed into 98SE, though IIRC there
were a couple of features still lacking like ICS (internet connection
sharing) and something else (I can't remember).

Naturally you'd want to make backups of the install before making such
changes, in case something goes wrong... at least one or two of
Mickey's patches could lock out a Win98 system from booting even into
safe mode. One such patch had something to do with 1394 support,
replaced the systray.exe file with a buggy later version.


Maybe I should upgrade to win98SE sometime. I don't want to have to upgrade
to 2000 or XP, because then a lot of things I want to do won't work
anymore.

Win98SE is the best for a legacy-compatible Windows system. I'll
probably always have a few boxes running Win98SE for that reason, but
it also doesn't hurt that it's far less expensive, these days it's not
hard to come upon OEM boxes with licenses.

Dave