Installing Win98 question

[Bardman]

OK, some quick background first:

I've got an old Pent 75 computer that has been laying around awhile.... I had even installed Linux on it in hopes of making it a file/ web server for the house.

Well, I recently figured it'd do me better with Win98 (probably the newest OS it can handle) in my son's room (he's 5) to run some games, surf him to toondisney.com, and copy pics from his $40 digital camera that Santa brought him.

I re-partitioned & Reformatted the drive, installed Win98 from an OEM CD, and when It got to the reboot stage of install, it asks me "Type the name of the command interpreter (e.g., c:\windows\command.com)" and gives me a c> prompt

What do I type in as the command interpreter???:shrug:

I've tried pretty much everything so far, and can't get past this screen.... HELP!

[MarkA]

Sounds like, without seeing it, the install failed. Try reinstalling again. Anyways, you were probably right with Linux - I'd expect it to work better for you.

[Bardman]

Zac, I've done the install 3 times now (twice from the CD and once from the Hard Drive after copying the \win98 folder off the CD to the windows\Cabs directory I created.

All 3 installs resulted in the same screen asking for the command interpreter.

I guess I need to find another Win98 CD?

[Bogy]

Bardman, the command interpreter for win98 is command.com. That is what you type in. Since it keeps asking for it, and I am going to assume that you typed it in, it is obviously missing. You did remember to make the HD a systems disk when you reformatted?

[boomerang]

You'll need to boot from a boot floppy that contains fdisk.

At the prompt, type fdisk/mbr and your master boot record will be rewritten. This will remove the LILO boot loader that still remains from your Linux install.

[James_F]

Good call. I'm sure that will fix it.

[Bob Haller]

I was told 98 is not a good choice for under a pentium 166. Is vthere any truth in this?

[Bardman]

Boomerang, You're the Man!!!!!

the fdisk/mbr did the trick, i've now got the "getting ready to run Win98 for the first time" screen.

Bob, It does run slower than molasses, but I don't see ANY support of 95 anymore.

[Bogy]

Minimum system requirements for Win98 is a 486DX/66 MHz or higher processor, with 24 MB of RAM. YMMV. We all know this is not what it really takes for it not to be slow, buy my son is making do with a P75 running Win 98. Shoot, until about a year ago that is what I was using at church. I'm all the way up to a P133 now. Anybody need a tax deduction. I know a church you can donate your old castoff computer to. Anything over P133. :D

[gcutler]

Originally posted by Bardman
Bob, It does run slower than molasses, but I don't see ANY support of 95 anymore.

95 has not been supported since end of 2000. Each OS gets 5 years of support and then hits the road. So Win98 gets its walking papers around the end of 2003 (I may be wrong about the date, but MS's web support site will announce it eventually). The patch files do dissappear off the web site as well. So if you want to apply the Win98 patch stuff, do it now as they may be unavailable before you know it.

[MarkA]

" It does run slower than molasses"

Is that a surprise? Linux really is a much better choice (as long as you don't run KDE or GNOME), and can use the internet just fine. (Not so sure about the toy digital camera, but I assume you have another computer you can download the pics on, then use file sharing to put them on your son's computer where he can play with them in the GIMP)

BTW, if you think I'm crazy for suggesting Linux for a 5-yr old, that's your right. But while Linux is harder to setup, I don't believe it's harder to use.

[James_F]

Originally posted by Zac
BTW, if you think I'm crazy for suggesting Linux for a 5-yr old, that's your right. But while Linux is harder to setup, I don't believe it's harder to use.

I doubt his kids will be running the GIMP. :rolleyes:

[MarkA]

I dunno. I've taught my (then 7 year old) cousin how to use it to mess up pictures:) And he thought it was awesome!

[boomerang]

Hey, glad I could help!

[James_F]

Originally posted by Zac
I dunno. I've taught my (then 7 year old) cousin how to use it to mess up pictures:) And he thought it was awesome!

But educational titles are few....

[MarkA]

Practically non-existant :)

[CoriBright]

Support for Windows98 and 98se ends June 2003.

http://www.activewin.com/bugs/productend.shtml

Cari
www.coribright.com

[gcutler]

Originally posted by CoriBright
Support for Windows98 and 98se ends June 2003.

Yeesh, Alot sooner than I thought. And I know there are many companies dragging their feet with replacing the OS. It wouldn't be such a problem if they didn't upgrade other SW, but plenty of upgraded APPs might require a OS patch down the line :(

[Bogy]

Interesting that they are ending support for Win 98 when it is still for sale. Think they will stop selling it and supporting at the same time?

[CoriBright]

Microsoft required all registered OEM resellers to return every single unsold copy of Win98 and 98se last year some time. The OEM resellers are not supposed to be selling it at all now! They can lose their registration if they're caught!

There're always going to be copies of it on EBay .... at least for the foreseeable future. Hell, there are still copies of Windows95 a, b and c going on EBay!!!

Just like OfficeXP won't install on Windows95, the forthcoming Office11 (or whatever it will be called) will only install on WIndows2000 and WindowsXP. Won't even install on WindowsME.

Cari
www.coribright.com

[gcutler]

Bogy, Can you still buy it from MS? Or is it just on the shelves at some stores? MS usually always withdrawn selling the SW (at least for home users) when a new version comes out. 98 is out, 95 disappears from the shelves, ME is out 98 disappears and XP then ME disappears. I don't think you can buy a new home machine with anything but XP-Home. The business world because of corporate standards may have higher demands, that is why you can still buy a Dell or HP or IBM with Win2000 Pro instead of XP-Pro.

[Bardman]

UGh,

I've gotten through the install and have come to the screen asking for the Product Key off the book... which of course I threw away years ago when I got my new machine with ME on it..... I might just need to aquire one of these ebay Win98 CDs to get the stinkin' Product Key to use my Windows...

this has gotten to be a royal pain... just to keep my 5 year old off "my" computer!!!

[Bogy]

I saw Win 98 on the shelf in Office Depot yesterday. It may be that they don't actually have any copies in stock and it was just a forgotten display box.

[CoriBright]

Far as I'm aware you can't buy Win98 from MS... however if you are a volume licensed customer you can purchase (say) WindowsXP Pro licenses and install Windows2000 Pro on the PCs. This is only applicable for volume licensed folks though, not for us mere mortals who get the more usual retail boxes.

MS still sell WindowME through their http://shop.microsoft.com store in the US. (Now, given a choice between XP and ME, just who is still purchasing WinME???!!)

I'm still fully convinced that a HUGE percentage of folks moved over to XP because of the NTFS file system and its support of file sizes larger than 4gb and the much higher percentage of those recording TV and editing their home video on their hard drives. 4gb seems nothing these days. I uncompressed an avi file the other day to find out it went to 17gb!

Now, if I can save up for a Media Center XP PC AND get a 921 as well, there's no end to the possibilitiies!

Cari
www.coribright.com

[gcutler]

Originally posted by CoriBright
I'm still fully convinced that a HUGE percentage of folks moved over to XP because of the NTFS file system and its support of file sizes larger than 4gb and the much higher percentage of those recording TV and editing their home video on their hard drives. 4gb seems nothing these days. I uncompressed an avi file the other day to find out it went to 17gb!

Now, if I can save up for a Media Center XP PC AND get a 921 as well, there's no end to the possibilitiies!

Cari
www.coribright.com

I don't think that many people care too much about the 4GB limit or XP (at least most of the people I know, but none of those people are doing DV editing) But anyone doing DVD authoring or any DV editing definately need that extra boost from XP

17GB, gee that's only like a little under 90 minutes :D

One thing I have found is that some of my favorite DV utilities will still break up the file into 4GB size anyway. I'm using XP-Home, but when I use Dazzle's Movie Star Pro 5.2, the AVI file or MPEG file will auto break at 4GB as they built in that convenience for 98 and ME users (the next major release will play nicer with XP) And my VOBtoAVI converter will also do that as well (but I think at 2GB max files). Luckily the SW vendors are now starting to change their SW with XP-Home starting to flood the DV side of things.

Having done everything else but DV on 98, I can't imagine DV on 98 was a pleasant experience. :p

[MarkA]

The 4GB break in MovieStar is one of many frustrations with the program. It also has a tendancy to crash when you try to edit DV video that has errors (from the source tape being damaged, etc.).

[gcutler]

Luckily XP dosen't reqire a reboot as much as 98 or ME, as the crashing of Moviestar occurred enough to not want to reboot XP every time. But since I upgraded to Moviestar 5.2 the crashes are less. But the 4GB limit will not be changed till next major release. :(

[MarkA]

I've only used MovieStar on XP (just the basic version, it came with the Dazzle FireWire card I got a good deal on). I found it OKAY for proper DV video. But when I tried to edit video I'd copied using my DV camera from a VHS tape - it was another story altogether. It crashed constantly (because there were sync glitches in it, this could also happen with a damaged DV tape). Other programs were all fine!

[gcutler]

Try the updated version, it works much better than the version you are describing. I've actually gone in and edited out the messed up portions of VHS to DV with Moviestar, so they have fixed alot of what you describe.

[MarkA]

This was with the latest patch on their site. MovieStar 5.2. It works fine, though slow compared to other programs like Ulead VideoStudio on DV recorded with the DV camera. But even the slightest glitch in the video sync causes a crash maybe half the time when you try to edit that clip.