pangoomis

I haven't had any issues with my GTX 1050 Ti, the standard VGA driver in 98SE worked fine...apart from the usual graphical artefacts. What are your PC specs? Can you try the 1070/98SE on different machines?

Hello Andrea, I can't really think of a reason why it would not work on Windows 7 for you. Try disabling User Account Control, it might help. I haven't personally tested Welcome.exe on other operating systems like 2000/XP/Vista/8 or 8.1. Only on Windows 7 and Linux using Wine (which all worked) and Windows 10 (which did not work). I'm currently quite busy, so don't have any time to make tests of my own, maybe in some distant future.

I've discovered by accident, that this topic was featured by Andrea Borman in her video and on her blog (with detailed instructions)...I am as surprised as you are Internet is a strange place I wish Andrea all good in her life. http://andreaborman2.blogspot.com/2019/09/windows-98-welcome-exe-on-windows-8.html

Following this guide is enough, telemetry in Windows 7 is added on, not built-in: https://www.askwoody.com/forums/topic/2000012-neutralize-telemetry-sustain-win-7-8-1-monthly-rollup-model/

Although this is possibly a hardcoded restriction made by NVIDIA (and without editing driver files, you can't do much with it), try using the oldest drivers that support the 1660 Ti (419.17), from here: https://www.nvidia.com/download/driverResults.aspx/143338/

Can you also try a different GPU/integrated GPU?

Windows Defender in Windows 7 and Windows Vista is anti-spyware only. In Windows 7 it is more hidden than in Windows Vista, why? I don't really know. It doesn't even show up in the taskbar IIRC. Using built-in Windows Defender only in Windows 7/Vista is not really recommended, as it is considered deprecated. Microsoft expects you to install Microsoft Security Essentials to get full anti-virus like experience like you see in Windows 8/8.1/10. And make it easier to actually find it. And it will be in the taskbar. More information here: https://support.microsoft.com/en-my/help/14210/security-essentials-download https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Security_Essentials

Can you post the hardware ID of the video adapter? (Open the Run dialog, and type "hwinfo /ui" and look for the DEV and VEN numbers relating to the video adapter. Try these drivers: https://www.driverguide.com/driver/detail.php?driverid=52155&si=f94d44a5cb70b589995b41edf95522a3

Those are redirects to the same (modern?) update website/server, look how they are pinging the same IP address in your screenshot.

Raw DOS mode require raw DOS Audio drivers for those old games...which for HD Audio are non-existent. There are modern DOS utilities that can work with HD Audio such as MPXPLAY, but for old games - not a chance. Best bet is to use a PCI SoundBlaster/Yamaha/ESS/Aureal soundcard which has pure DOS drivers which emulate SB16/AdLib/OPL which those old games expect. For real DOS sound experience, an ISA soundcard is the best bet, whenever you like it or not. Once all the focus went into making WDM drivers once PCI soundcards appeared, pure DOS drivers emulating old SB16 often were an afterthought (especially in the case of SB Live and alike). And there is no hope once we got to PCI-E. No wonder people just want to use PCem/86Box/DOSBox for good DOS experience with sound, as doing it on modern hardware natively is impossible, and old hardware suited for it can be expensive these days. Look here for more details: https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=59532

Go to Sounds and Audio Devices in Control Panel and see if the right audio devices is set as default. Also check the IDT controls in Control Panel as well. Also a stupid question: are the laptop speakers actually working in other OSes?

XP SP3 (and SP0/1/2) does not come built-in with any .NET Frameworks.

It's a workaround, as all the major work is done on the "server", which runs newest Chrome, nothing too different than using a virtual machine.

Look here: https://www.digitalcitizen.life/where-find-most-windows-10s-native-icons

You're probably out of luck, according to Intel: https://downloadmirror.intel.com/28876/eng/ReleaseNotes_WiFi_21.20.0.pdf Best bet is to use a cheap USB WiFi dongle...

https://winaero.com/blog/how-to-take-ownership-and-get-full-access-to-files-and-folders-in-windows-10/

Try using Rufus and formatting the thumbdrive with the MS-DOS option (this option is not available on Windows 10, so you would need a PC with an older operating system like Windows 8.1 or 7), or you can use a virtual machine like VirtualBox with Windows 8.1/7 to format the flashdrive with the MS-DOS option. Rufus uses own hex hacks for IO.SYS and COMMAND.COM to make a Windows ME (MS-DOS 8.0) bootable flashdrive, and this option is the most reliable for me, and never caused any problems. When you've done that, download FDISK and FORMAT.COM from here (use No Ramdrive folder) and copy it to flash drive, you can also download SYS or any other file if that makes it easier for you...or all the files (except io.sys and command.com - those have to be from Rufus itself) https://www.allbootdisks.com/disk_contents/download/me.html

I've never used FreeDOS version of SYS, if it works, it would be easier for OP. I never got Win9x setup to work correctly on FreeDOS.

Ivy Bridge seems to be the last chipset with official XP drivers, as seen on my ThinkPad X230 which is based on it: https://pcsupport.lenovo.com/us/en/products/laptops-and-netbooks/thinkpad-x-series-laptops/thinkpad-x230/downloads Haswell IGP's have drivers for Windows XP as well, but those seem to work only for desktops, not laptops: https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/22875/Intel-HD-Graphics-driver-for-Windows-XP32-Embedded

FreeDOS doesn't work well with Windows 98 setup program. You need to have MS-DOS from either Windows 98SE or ME bootdisk to make setup program work correctly. Sadly, you can't just replace the files, as FreeDOS MBR you have now expects KERNEL.SYS, not IO.SYS. Make a bootable USB/CD/floppy of 98SE or ME bootdisk, and use it to FDISK, FORMAT, and copy system files (COMMAND.COM and IO.SYS) to the drive with the installation files. Make sure to mark the partition as active in FDISK, if you have problems with this, use /ACTOK switch with fdisk. Also make sure the partition is less than 127GB. Use percentage, instead of fixed size number in FDISK to help with that. Do note that FDISK shows wrong numbers for large disks, so just ignore them. You can also try using HIMEMX.EXE with the /MAX=524288 parameter to limit the RAM to 512MB, as 98SE works best with 512MB of RAM or below with NO errors. Also don't forget to use "/p i" switch so you don't have ACPI errors with modern PCs.

Hearts from 3x/9x do not use a central server like Internet Games do, should be fine forever, I think it's like a LAN thingy...

Try disabling (if not already) the Password Protected Sharing on all computers: https://winaero.com/blog/password-protected-sharing-windows-10/

Seems like a normal behaviour. I have a PCI-E x1 USB 2.0 card (not USB 3.0) for 98SE, and the driver for it (USBPORT.SYS) is also at the top of my DPC list, as well as dxgkrnl.sys and nvlddmkm.sys, as I have a NVIDIA card as well. Nothing to be worry about, the only way to remove this is to either disable the Firewire card in Device Manager or remove such card.

Aren't there better solutions to cut down the Windows size? How about removing UWP? Or cutting down WinSxS of duplicate files? I won't try to find logic in Microsoft's decisions from now on, I was really trying, but they somehow always find a way to get to a new low...like AAA game companies Not that OEMs are any smarter forcing full Windows 10 installations on devices with 16/32GB of storage. Many complains arise when people try to update them to newest Windows 10 iterations... Remember that System Restore is turned off by default in Windows 10.

@luweitest Run the setup with the /p i switch, there's a space between p and i. It should solve most setup issues. Also try to put HIMEMX.EXE in CONFIG.SYS, download HIMEMX from here: https://sourceforge.net/projects/himemx/ It solves many problems with Windows 98 on more modern PCs You also have to limit the RAM via MaxPhysPage iv you're not doing that already (1GB or less). For graphic drivers, you can also use VBEMP from here: http://www.navozhdeniye.narod.ru/vbe9x.htm For sound, as ruthan mentioned, use a cheap USB Sound Card, Windows 98 has drivers for it builtin.