cannie

For the moment and in the near future you may use Windows 98 even in Vista compatible motherboards as explained in other threads. You may also use doubleboot, running XP to do your work and Windows 98 even without drivers to repair, update and switch in a few minutes between the active XP primary unit and its clone. For this purpose Windows 98 has an inmense value in terms of security and reliability.

An excellent definition. But all efforts are directed to make it a foolish terminal in the hands of soft and hardware providers. User's ignorance pays: no need of PC reviews at all, only ads.

After installing a new version of some products on Windows XP I realized that the previous version was better for me than the upgrade. Improvements are almost in all cases done at the cost of something, and for me the cost was higher than the presumed advantages of it. When I tried to reinstall the previous version, I found that I was not allowed to go back. I had been caught into the "valve system" which only allows you to go forward and never backwards, without any previous warning. There are also commercial interests behind viruses, no doubt about it. Putting together all these things, and some others that you all know, concludes that you are being manipulated, no matter who in the hell might be behind the manipulation. And there are no legal limits to these hitlerian methods to "promote the development of science". So you realize that you have to protect yourself. Thanks to Windows 98 I did not even bother to investigate what had happened in any case. I simply switched to it and, while still doing my job in the foreground, completely rebuilt in the background the XP partition. Computing world is a no-laws-land and Windows 98 is an excellent weapon to defend yourself from manipulators. That's why it has so many enemies.

IMHO most of the "improvements" are directed towards forcing the user to be more and more dependent and in the hands of the "improvers". In this matter "new" and "better" are words with very different and in many occasions even opposite meanings.

Even without any drivers Windows 98 can be installed and may be an essential security for Windows XP. I have dedicated many hours to study it, and the results are here: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=129983 and here: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=118623

It was you who gave me the main idea for XP cloning (post number 5). Thanks to you, dencorso!.

The structure of the first post has been reviewed and made more clear in some points to make it easier to understand. HTH

I'd rather use both than any of both.

IMO if you are really interested in loading Windows 98 you could also check the possibility of installing an ATA/PATA HD. Maybe your motherboard allows it. HTH

After some experiences, it seems convenient to include this command in the first post tutorial batch file, because the batch file doesn't work if the MBR has not been created previously, so it is convenient to check the MBR in any case before running the bootpart.exe commands, in special to avoid surprises to newbies. HTH.

Sorry, this thread is into the Windows 98 section and that post is about using Windows 98 to clone and repair itself and also to clone and repair XP. Your question should be made into the XP section, I'm afraid.

To be picky, it's grub4dos, not "legacy" grub. jaclaz That's what I really meant. I never used the legacy version: I've just followed your instructions, and only simplified the name. Thank you!

The Microsoft doubleboot solution reflects my own experience and works perfect, AFAIK, being valid to choose only among Microsoft products. After trying grub I find it to be an excellent option, allowing you a lot of possibilities.

After several essays and using the same instruments the XP cloning procedure has been considerably simplified, as you may see in the modified first post of this thread. HTH.

I was sure I had read it before, but I could not remember where. Thanks!

Thank you! PS: Is this the program mentioned by rloew, or there's another one?

Where can I download your patch from? Thanks.

Hi, jaclaz! According to your suggestions about the last paragraph of the first post, I have removed the fdisk/mbr mention. In fact , it is only needed when the mbr is damaged, and that is not normal. I've nevertheless preserved the last instruction to prevent a failure in the case that any of the BOOTSECT.W98, boot.ini or msdos.sys files may not exist or be corrupted (it has already happened to me), being easy to restore the copy in case of need. I finally created a batch file including all orders to make things easier, leaving a pause between them to give the user the possibility of supervising the process and be aware i.e. of any error in the redaction of the batch file. Thanks a lot for everything!

Being almost impossible to collect in the first post each and every excellent idea, I have modified also the "Remarks" so that any reader knows that more detailed explanations can be found in your documented posts all along this thread. Thank you very much to you all again!

"Four eyes see more than two". Thanks, jaclaz!

The first post has been completed with a D paragraph to help those who suffer from damaged partition diseases. Cheers.

First post has been updated to include interesting new ideas. HTH

Wonderful and incredibly easy! Thanks!

I wonder if anybody knows any trick to install Windows 98 after XP. At first it seems impossible: you must always follow the opposite order.

I've learnt a lot from you both. Thank you very much, jaclaz and MDGx!