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I figured what the problem was, it had nothing to do with the OS. I had 2x4GB + 2x2GB RAM, after I removed the 2x2GB the computer was taking the same time as before to boot. I don't know why but apparently this was making the i7 870 boot slower while not affecting the i5 650. Now everything is fine.

I'm feeling: Neutral

BurnAware v.14.4 (Released May 27, 2021) seems no longer compatible with Windows XP: https://www.burnaware.com/download.html True Burner v.7.4 still seems compatible: https://www.glorylogic.com/true-burner.html but to the download web-page they declare that it is compatible from Vista: https://www.glorylogic.com/download.html

im feeling: glad

Only the updroots.sst file has the changed content, the other files have not changed.

Are you looking for a HDD caddy? Maybe HDDcaddy.com would do (nomen est omen) : https://hddcaddy.com/ jaclaz

Hello! Try this: https://www.bleachbit.org/ There are some good opinions about it here: https://alternativeto.net/software/bleachbit/about/ Cheers.

Thanks for all responses, sorry for late reply. Your expertise @Deomsh is always appreciated, thank-you for the edit and for showing your work, wonderful, helps me understand better. Yes @Gansangriff and @RainyShadow the folder dates are by far the easiest method to quick glance determine install date. My C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM.DAT file (hidden) also indicates created date unknown. Nothing wrong with installing Windows 98 on New Years Eve, a wonderful way to spend an evening. Thank-you very much for your custom executable @UCyborg and script @Drugwash, they both work great. AIDA64 Extreme software wasn't trialed, download too big just for this purpose. If anyone's interested AutoHotkey was discussed on this thread before and is useful for lots of different stuff. The Windows 98 installation timestamp correlates with the creation of the C:\WINDOWS subfolders. If anyone cares my data below. Registry: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion 01 a9 82 4e Oldest files: C:\MSDOS.--- (hidden file) April 02, 2019 9:05:20 PM C:\SYSTEM.1ST (hidden file) April 02, 2019 9:12:04 PM Oldest folders: C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND|CURSORS|HELP|INF|JAVA|SYSTEM32 April 02, 2019 9:08 PM @UCyborg executable (4kb) output: Win9x installation timestamp: 4/2/2019 9:08:02 PM @Drugwash AutoHotkey script (4kb) output: Your windows 9x system was installed on 2019.04.02, 21:08:02 (manual formatting) Tuesday 2 April 2019, 21:08:02

German Amazon good for you? I also tried the turkish Amazon, which should be closer, but the damn thing don't have a translator. And i didn't see IDE in any product name there, you will have to check those one by one. OK, i found one locally

https://en.m.wikibooks.org/wiki/First_steps_towards_system_programming_under_MS-DOS_7/Selected_drivers

Yeah, it's best to use system's own APIs to perform the conversions. I built an AHK script that basically does what UCyborg's exe does. Only difference is that the output format can be tweaked by editing the dFormat and tFormat strings in the beginning of the script, or leaving them blank for using system default date/time formats (uncomment subsequent line by removing the semicolon). An interesting thing is that Wine (my version 5.14 devel) has the 9x binary value wrong, showing 1997.11.28, 16.09.02 - which most likely is the release date of Windows98, not the date Wine has first been installed on this system. But considering how they screwed up the memory retrieval as well it's no wonder. Anyway, here's the script, hope it serves some purpose. (minor doc error: functions mention LOCALE_SYSTEM_DEFAULT - which is 0x800 - but actually they use LOCALE_USER_DEFAULT - 0x400) WinInstDate.ahk

I think in Windows 8.x is still possible to take control over the telemetry. If you are answering what build of Windows 10, go for ltsb 2015/ltsb 2016/ltsc 2019.

Coded a quick tool to read it, run it from DOS prompt. win9xinstdate.zip AIDA64 Extreme isn't free, but there's a trial version that reads it. Currently latest version 6.33.5700 still runs on Windows 98, but you need to download ZIP package.

The article gives a link to the DOS date/time format. But following this link gave me a 403 Forbidden Error. Luckily the link is stored in the Wayback-machine. First 2004-entry gives information below (and a nice picture, not nice anymore in the quote): "Number four: The DOS date/time format The DOS date/time format is a bitmask: 24 16 8 0 +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ |Y|Y|Y|Y|Y|Y|Y|M| |M|M|M|D|D|D|D|D| |h|h|h|h|h|m|m|m| |m|m|m|s|s|s|s|s| +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ \___________/\________/\_________/ \________/\____________/\_________/ year month day hour minute second The year is stored as an offset from 1980. Seconds are stored in two-second increments. (So if the "second" value is 15, it actually represents 30 seconds.) These values are recorded in local time. November 26, 2002 at 7:25p PST = 0x2D7A9B20. To convert these values to something readable, convert it to a FILETIME via DosDateTimeToFileTime, then convert the FILETIME to something readable." https://web.archive.org/web/20040614163825/http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing/archive/2003/09/05/54806.aspx EDIT: this looks like the 'math' needed (hex-binary-decimal, done with a converter-website). Please correct me if I'm wrong. MS-DOS DATE/TIME FORMAT LITTLE ENDIAN: 20 9B 7A 2D HEX: 0x2D7A9B20 BIN: [0010110] [1011] [11010] [10011] [011001] [00000] DOS: [yyyyyyy] [mmmm] [ddddd] [hhhhh] [mmmmmm] [sssss] DEC: [22] [11] [26] [19] [25] [0] DATE+TIME: 2002 / 11 / 26 / 7:25:00 pm BTW I added the Little Endian bytes. Excercise in behalf of Wunderbar, no calculator needed: Little Endian: 01 a9 82 4e Hexa-decimal: 0x4E82A901 Decimal => Binairy 4 0100 E=14 1110 8 1000 2 0010 A=10 1010 9 1001 0 0000 1 0001 yyyyyy 0100111 = 39 mmmm 0100 = 04 ddddd 00010 = 02 hhhhh 10101 = 21 mmmmmm 001000 = 08 sssss 00001 = 01 = x2 1980+39 => 2019/04/02 9:08:02 pm

uninstall it