Wunderbar98

Major hardware components on the new system tested well using a Linux live-CD. The revised Windows 98 install completed the other day appears to have run through clean. Think revising the installation procedure to limit RAM to 512 MB via SYSTEM.INI was key, BEFORE hitting the out of memory error. After Windows 98 installation, reverted the SYSTEM.INI change and installed RLoew's memory patch. The system now recognizes 1.5 GB RAM and is not using any SYSTEM.INI modifications. Now all hardware drivers install without issue. First time using ATI graphics with Windows 98. When the ATI installer recommends DirectX, what it really means is install DirectX before the graphic driver. From poor memory, usually install the graphic drivers first, then DirectX after the graphic drivers are observed to work well. Everything now runs snappy and fast, Windows 98 on steroids. Scandisk is clean and the system is defragged. Quite a bit of fragmentation after the Windows, drivers and DirectX install. Will see if the household printer can be tricked to run in Windows 98, otherwise this install will probably just be used for QEMU testing. It would make an excellent gaming rig for processor intensive Windows 98 era games. Would most likely need a slowdown utility for DOS games.

Hi ClassicNick. If you mean during normal runtime, after installation, don't know. Maybe restrictive, yet Windows 98 thus far to me seems to run best within it's natural limitations. Maybe someone more experienced can provide feedback. Unfortunately my first install on 'pimped' hardware proved fatal. My go to Windows 98 install on much lesser, maybe more Windows 98 friendly hardware, runs circles around it, aside from the RAM limitation for QEMU testing. Did a reformat and fresh install yesterday, will keep trying some new stuff. The QEMU project will have to wait. Never had an install go so flaky, thought it improved, then worse again. All sorts of wierd problems, the OS was not usable: IRQ conflict, D: drive (CD-ROM) disappeared, reboots rebooted twice, very slow boot, shutdown hang, system hesitated and stalled during the simplest of tasks, yuck. Unfortunately this is untested hardware with driver's never trialed. Don't know yet if it was a bad install, bad configuration, crappy drivers or flaky hardware. Will keep at it, curious to learn more. This latest install just used SYSTEM.INI -> [386Enh] -> MaxPhysPage=20000 during the install, no [vcache] entry or other config changes, and the install seemed to run through cleanly. Maybe also the key is to use the CD to boot to DOS during the first installer reboot to make the config change, BEFORE hitting the memory error failed boot, as this may have caused a corrupted installation. Nice quick article here on [vcache] if anyone's interested (no JavaScript needed). https://www.computerhope.com/jargon/v/vcache.htm

Most free time today spent on my 2001 19" ViewSonic E90 CRT monitor. Got it for free and used it for years, including heavy KMV switch addiction. The original owner hesitated to give it away as he used it for graphic work and liked it so much but upgraded to a flat panel and needed space. This old CRT still provides a nice crisp image and beautiful colour. Went to turn it on this morning, green power light but no image, not even brightness. Reconnecting exterior cables did not help. A backup monitor worked fine, so it wasn't the KVM switch. Took the 'dead' monitor apart. It is well cared for and the exterior is vacuum dusted weekly. There was still, however, almost 20 years of dust inside, even a dead moth. Used an electrical meter to test main fuse resistance, it was fine. Cleaned the interior with a paint brush and vacuum cleaner. Carefully reseated all obvious reachable connections. No obvious damage, burnout, etc. The monitor works again and has been flawless all evening! Probably just dumb luck, could have been a temporarily flaky connection. Suspect just fully unplugging it for over an hour allowed the capacitors and power supply to fully reset. Electronics are finicky, something new can break in less than a year, a trivial fix might last for an hour or 20 years. Often there is very little that can be fixed with these monitors, unless you're an electrical engineer/tech and have a well stocked parts room. There are, however, a few simple items including: electrical cord and power switch repair, main fuse replacement (some need soldering), interior cleaning to prevent overheating, connection checks. There are usually only four screws and the entire housing slips off. Anyone working on these monitors should be familiar with the risks of working around capacitors, they can be lethal. Be very cautious, use tools and brushes that are non-conductive. Better yet, leave the unit unplugged overnight and work on it the next day. CRT monitors have a bad reputation for power consumption and are difficult to properly recycle but the embodied energy has already been spent. In my relatively colder climate it's heating season for 6-8 months per year, few shoulder season months and a couple air conditioning months. For the most part the extra heat production is not wasted, keeps the office warm. Sometimes in the summer i swap with a small low energy flat panel display. Came across this very interesting long read article (>10 minutes) for anyone interested in vintage CRTs. https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/6/16973914/tvs-crt-restoration-led-gaming-vintage

Thank-you Deomsh for the link, interesting, amazing the tweaking. That site is a wonderful resource, actually overwhelming. I ended up doing a re-install of Windows 98, wanted a re-do with all these memory issues to hopefully clarify and streamline my procedure. Hi ClassicNick, are you referring to the SYSTEM.CB file modifications described in 'Usher's Method' earlier? The file is apparently just used in graphic safe mode and does not affect regular graphic mode runtime.

Thank-you for confirming that loblo, so far so good :) Forgot to mention earlier regarding memory management, also reduced the AGP aperture size in the BIOS to 32 MB (lowest possible). This was occasionally noted in threads to help with memory management. Overall the system is much smoother now, pretty snappy. Amazing how much tweaking we all put into these old systems! Couldn't get the graphic driver to work, don't usually have problems with drivers. The card is labeled 'ATI OEM Xpert 2000 Pro 32 MB'. Tried both '413.7192' and '413.01.8006 (Beta)' from the 'Rage 128 (Pro)' section. Query if this has something to do with 'OEM' hardware. All hardware on this system was previously untested prior to the Windows 98 install. https://soggi.org/drivers/ati.htm#Rage128 Didn't want to lose much time on it or shuffle another graphic card so ended up installing a Universal VESA Graphic Driver. This may be a good option for anyone setting up a quick system or if a proper driver can't be found and the system won't be used for gaming. The last release was 2014 - new software for Windows 9x! Works okay, poor scrolling behaviour as noted on the website. Just use Page Up/Down keys instead of mouse scroll and disable 'Show window contents while dragging' via Control Panel -> Display Properties -> Effects tab. On this hardware max resolution is 1280 x 1024 x 32 bit true colour. VBEMP 9x Project Universal VESA/VBE Video Display Driver (for Windows 9x Architecture) https://bearwindows.zcm.com.au/vbe9x.htm

The 'SYSTEM.INI 1024 MB RAM Limitation Configuration' post above was good for getting Windows 98 installed, otherwise it would likely have been necessary to remove any physical RAM exceeding 512 MB. The C:\Windows\SYSTEM.INI 'MaxPhysPage=40000' (~1 GB) entry can be lowered to 20000 (512 MB) or 30000 as desired to limit system RAM to the operating system. Forum members have also played with the SYSTEM.INI 'MaxFileCache' entry, going as high as MaxFileCache=524288. After playing for a couple days, system performance was disappointing. This included being unable to open a COMMAND.COM window (memory error), being unable to boot into graphic safe mode, general poor and inconsistent system performance. The resulting installation did not create what i thought were default C:\CONFIG.SYS file entries: DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\HIMEM.SYS DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\EMM386.EXE And 'Usher's Method', discussed on this forum, was needed to allow booting into graphic safe mode. Modify C:\Windows\SYSTEM.CB file with the following entries. I believe this is by default a read-only file. In a graphic boot, just right-click the file and uncheck 'Read-only' before modifying. [386Enh] EMMExclude=C000-CFFF MaxPhysPage=20000 [vcache] MinFileCache=2048 MaxFileCache=65536 Memory management was a significant challenge to me already working with DOS. Now working with more RAM than native Windows 98 was designed for has provided additional complication. Due to poor system performance, R. Loew's patch was applied, relatively simple fix. The system now shows 1.5 GB RAM. The above C:\Windows\SYSTEM.INI entries were then deleted, as they were found to over-ride the patch. Unsure whether the SYSTEM.CB file changes should be reverted, haven't tested, doesn't seem to cause any issue. Thus far the system is running better, smoother, still not rocket fast as expected though but it's a fresh install without a lot of tweaks. For anyone interested, R. Loew's patch was linked in the post above and there is lots of memory discussion linked in this thread: https://msfn.org/board/topic/118097-day-to-day-running-win-9xme-with-more-than-1-gib-ram/ I've read members happily using Windows 98 with a 2.66 GHz Pentium 4. If i understand correctly, R. Loew, bless his soul, thought Windows 98 could access a maximum of 4 GB memory. For example, 3 GB RAM plus a 1 GB Page File. Anyway lots of information in the link above if someone wants to spend all day reading about Windows 98 memory issues.

= Installing and Running Windows 98 with > 512 MB RAM = A brief guide on installing and running Windows 98 on systems with > 512 MB RAM, using a bootable Windows 98 CD to install to hard drive. Physically removing RAM modules exceeding 512 MB is not necessary and may not even be possible (ie. 1 GB RAM modules). It is, however, important to temporarily restrict available RAM during the Windows 98 installation process. After installation a memory patch is applied to maximize available RAM. On this test system the steps below resulted in a stable installation and system, YMMV. Keep RAM in system and load Windows 98 installation CD. Change BIOS or use keyboard shortcut (eg. F8) to boot from CD. Select 'Boot computer with CD-ROM support. Use 'fdisk' and 'format' commands as usual to partition and format the hard drive. Ensure the primary DOS partition (C: drive) is marked active. IMPORTANT! A typical Windows 98 install requires rebooting at least twice. Once after most system files are copied to hard drive and again when configuring hardware. The first reboot is the most crucial so pay attention during the installation process. IMPORTANT! Install Windows 98 as normal and reboot when directed. Keep the Windows 98 CD in the CD-ROM drive. Upon the first reboot do NOT let the system boot to the normal 'Running Windows for the first time' screen. If the system has > 512 MB RAM it won't happen, instead a black screen with a failed low memory error will be encountered. Allowing the system to boot to the low memory error screen was found to result in an unstable installation. If a low memory error was encountered, it is strongly recommended to abort the installation, reformat the partition and re-start the installation process from the very beginning. Trust me it is time well spent :) Assuming the first reboot is caught in time, at the beginning of the reboot select 'Boot from CD-ROM'. Select 'Boot computer with CD-ROM support'. The system will boot to an A: drive prompt. Entering ECHO %PATH% confirms C: drive executables are not available. echo %path% To use Windows DOS editor 'edit', change to C: drive. c: Change to DOS directory where the 'edit' command is located. cd c:\windows\command Edit the SYSTEM.INI file using 'edit'. edit c:\windows\system.ini Add MaxPhysPage=20000 at the top of the [386enh] section of the SYSTEM.INI file. This will temporarily restrict Windows 98 to 512 MB RAM, it's natural limitation, to allow for a successful installation. [386enh] MaxPhysPage=20000 Save the SYSTEM.INI file, close edit. Press Ctrl-Alt-Delete to reboot. Resume and complete the Windows 98 installation. Control Panel -> System will display 512 MB RAM due to the SYSTEM.INI -> MaxPhysPage=20000 entry. IMPORTANT! After a successful installation, remove the MaxPhysPage=20000 entry from C:\Windows\SYSTEM.INI. IMPORTANT! Before rebooting, apply R. Loew's patch as directed in it's MANUAL.TXT file. This will activate > 512 MB RAM on the system. Note R. Loew believed Windows 98 is able to access a maximum of 4 GB memory, a combination of physical RAM and any Page File. R. Loew's memory patch can be direct downloaded from below (no JavaScript needed). https://rloewelectronics.com/distribute/PATCHMEM/PRO7.2/PATCHMEM.ZIP After applying the memory patch, reboot and review Control Panel -> System for available RAM. IMPORTANT! Add the following permanent [386Enh] and [vcache] entries to the C:\Windows\SYSTEM.CB file to allow access to graphic safe mode. This is known as 'Usher's Method' and is detailed in this forum. [386Enh] EMMExclude=C000-CFFF MaxPhysPage=20000 [vcache] MinFileCache=2048 MaxFileCache=65536 Some users experiment with SYSTEM.INI file [386Enh] -> MaxPhysPage and [vcache] -> MaxFileCache entries. Thus far no customizations have been made on this test system.

Thanks for all responses. Got the new Windows 98 install running well using artificial 1 GB limitation via SYSTEM.INI. Thanks for the confirmation cc333 on R. Loews memory patch, that it allows using more than 1 GB RAM in Windows 98. Will QEMU test modern browser emulation with 1 GB limitation first, if problematic will try R. Loew's software. Windows 2000 is great, don't need to sell me, hope to install it someday soon. Only problem is no DOS games, otherwise swell, smooth, polished and very stable. Still own Windows 2000 Pro, wish i had kept on with it and never started with XP. Thanks for feedback DosFreak, now understand WebOne Proxy better. None of my Windows systems are allowed to network. Newest Windows releases in the house are XP, which won't be replaced once they die due to hardware failure or re-activation hassles. The WebOne Proxy page mentioned XP systems now also have TLS issues. Sad, guess the OS is almost 20 years old now too, why @roytam1 is giving it some love. Regarding QEMU testing with Windows XP, personally hope to never install XP again, reason for this thread. Setting up a virtual disk image would also be a hassle, prolonged process of installing and setting up XP vs a small single Tiny Core ISO file ready to go. The proposed Tiny Core attempt will hopefully allow using a non-modified browser newer than Firefox 45. All software will also be unrestricted open source instead of Windows XP EULA violations if sharing emulation images. Thanks also for @roytam1's link, note to others it needs JavaScript to view and access the links. Noticed @roytam1 released a new RetroZilla just yesterday! Exciting, haven't checked it out yet or reviewed a changelog. Too many Windows 98 developments to track :) https://o.rths.ml/gpc/files1.rt/home.html -> rzbrowser-tls12-20200127.7z Hi Bruninho. Interesting how everyone computes differently. SeaMonkey is the only browser used for banking here. Left Firefox a long time ago with the major UI changes, sync and pocket. As mentioned before, filtering 'http' in a modern Firefox 'about:config' is enough to turn me off. IIRC Pale Moon dropped support for non-SSE2 capable processors quite some time ago, SeaMonkey stayed with it until only recently. Don't want to use an Apple, Google or Microsoft browser or closed source like Opera. So really not that many choices left when it comes to a full featured modern browser on older hardware. Me wishes ClassicNick that nothing i did on a computer required security. For me running JavaScript is a no, no, only when absolutely necessary. Older hardware users or those seeking performance should use extensions like NoScript or QuickJava, as JavaScript processing will cripple the CPU. NoScript allows selective JavaScript processing, so running two browsers concurrently will no longer be required. Older browsers also can't handle complex modern JavaScript properly, resulting in processing issues and even browser crashes. More importantly, running JavaScript allows unauthorized code execution, probably a bigger security risk than most other factors. If you want to test NoScript with RetroZilla, download link below. https://msfn.org/board/topic/177106-running-vanilla-windows-98-in-2020/page/15/?tab=comments#comment-1174709

Never encountered this Windows 98 setup error before 'Setup can not install Windows 98' with 'Error detected trying to read or write to your hard disk'. Simple solution in the BIOS -> Integrated Peripherals -> IDE Function -> ensure IDE DMA Transfer Access is enabled. This appears to have been disabled by default on this motherboard, after replacing CMOS battery, using Phoenix Award BIOS v4.1. So with similar errors, try checking out the BIOS IDE settings, maybe it helps someone out.

Hi Bruninho. Was thinking of you recently, getting latest SeaMonkey running in Windows 2000. Personal preference is to do banking type activities from a newer GNU/Linux release. If i didn't use Linux, however, a buttoned-down Windows 2000 with latest SeaMonkey wouldn't be a bad deal, everyone needs to decide for themselves. I would use Windows 2000 any day of the week over later Windows offerings, some of which border the definition of spyware, hidden behind a fancy EULA. Not sure about Apple, they've had their issues too. Trying to get the latest SeaMonkey running in Windows 98 using virtualization, presently struggling with hardware.

Took a look at the WebOne Proxy link @DosFreak, looks like an interesting project. Unless mistaken, however, the goal appears to make super-retro browsers work in newer Windows OSs. Minimum system requirements appear to be Windows XP, preferably Windows 7. Pretty much the opposite of what i hope to trial, using an old OS to run the newest possible unmodified browser. https://github.com/atauenis/webone The modified Firefox 45 browsers you mentioned a page back from @roytam1 look like they were coded for Windows XP. I would consider them vanilla if they were specifically modified for vanilla Windows 98, but me thinks XP. Without @siria the link magician i probably couldn't even find the download link for these browsers. If you suspect they were modified for Windows 98 i would be happy to test install. Vanilla Windows 98 is presently stuck in the Firefox v2 era.

Hardware assembled, needed new CMOS battery, added a CD-ROM drive. MSI main board, most everything's nForce, not sure that's good. The MSI site still has Windows 98 drivers for ethernet, audio, etc. Graphic card is ATI Xpert 2000 Pro 32 MB, will hunt driver. Still lots of Windows 98 drivers available online, try to get them direct from manufacturers site if possible. En masse 1.5 GB (3 modules) memtest from a Linux live-CD showed problems. Took some time to clean module contacts, then individually re-tested, finally en masse tested again, all good. Slow 10 GB rust drive prepped, fails SMART so SMART check was disabled in BIOS to allow unhindered boot. Sounds like there's sand inside! Used this noisy drive for years for business fax, hope it finishes another mission. Maintaining retro hardware is fun and rewarding. A little loving care and cleaning goes a long way. These RAM modules had some corrosion, easily removed with a soft, clean cotton cloth and isopropyl alcohol. After prolonged runtime, 2-3 years on a heavy use system, the power supply unit gets removed, dismantled, dry brushed and vacuumed clean. They get disgustingly dusty, are a fire hazard and stop providing cooling airflow. Helps keep them alive a long time. Heavy use systems also get a thorough tower cleaning: remove and clean in and around motherboard, remove and clean all cards and slots, re-seat all connections, re-seat CPU with fresh thermal paste. Old thermal paste is removed with alcohol and a clean cloth or cotton tips. Rarely cooling fan bearings need 1/2 a drop of light machine oil. Alcohol also works well to remove glue residue from unwanted case and component stickers/labels. The alcohol dries immediately and leaves no trace chemical. In BIOS usually activate a CPU temperature warning alarm between 60-70 degrees. Started Windows 98 install, already out of memory issues even after reducing to 1 GB physical RAM, will post more later. Tried system.ini modifications without success, maybe R. Loew's RAM limitation patch? Trying to test Windows 98's limits has been a good experience, as most users now have hardware greatly exceeding this stuff.

Thanks again for feedback. Agreed DosFreak with software not much is impossible, this vanilla install is happily using YouTube, usually just a combination of creativity, improved configuration and new code. Thanks for the WebOne Proxy link, bookmarked for later. Using the modern browsers proposed, a proxy is not necessary or desired. Just to clear up confusion ClassicNick. This motherboard only supports 384 MB RAM, why another tower build is necessary. Just dragged up the hardware, will test RAM soon, install Windows 98, etc. Hopefully 1.8 GHz with 1 GB RAM, probably not SSE2 capable. Vanilla Windows 98 -> QEMU v0.8.2 -> TinyCore-7.2.iso -> SeaMonkey v2.46 -> manually bump to SeaMonkey latest. Anyone with maxed out Windows 98 hardware and an emulator could test immediately. The Tiny Core ISO is only ~17 MB to hopefully reduce load. The SeaMonkey trialed would be the latest, v2.49.4 (non-SSE2) or v2.49.5 (with SSE2). Tiny Core can also be used to build whatever Firefox version is desired, unless the script has broken, seemed to work for Firefox v49. Enhanced Windows 98 systems should be able to use a more recent emulator, preferrably accelerated. Newer emulators may be able to use newer Tiny Core releases. My setup gets boot errors and kernel panics after v7.2. Unlikely performance will be acceptable, won't know until it's tested. Emulation performance has always been disappointing in the past, prefer multi-boot, just want to test. For me the test isn't to load yet another browser, patched and slightly newer. It's to load a browser i would feel comfortable using for banking. Also i would like the browser binaries to be retrieved from the source website, not third party. Everyone needs to decide for themselves which browser is acceptable for banking type activities. To me this is the last link to determine whether Windows 98 can be made a fully viable all day, every day OS in 2020.

As always thanks for all responses and information. Thanks for the feedback ClassicNick. This system is only 800 MHz with 384 MB RAM. Windows 98 needs about 80 MB to boot then allocated the rest to QEMU. Then there's QEMU's overhead, the guest OS, then Firefox v49, actually loaded but not usable. Technically Windows 98 just loaded QEMU, QEMU helped load Firefox. Firefox is piggy, uses more RAM than any OS used in the house. SeaMonkey was loaded during a seperate trial, leaner than Firefox, still not functional. 384 MB doesn't go far when layering graphic OSs. Thanks again for the feedback DosFreak. I haven't tried that browser, want to use a more recent, unmodified browser from source to see if it will run. Doublechecked a part assembled basement box, Athlon 2500 XP (query 1.8 GHz) with ATI Rage Pro 32 MB, should have 1 GB RAM. If not suitable there's other stuff down there but don't own a processor faster than 1.6-1.8 GHz. Hope to setup and test soon but will take some time. Since vanilla Windows 98 is still quite functional today, thanks largely to a useful non-JavaScript browser (RetroZilla v2.2), the experiment is to see if there's any way to run a modern browser for occasional email and banking without setting up multi-boot. Basically Windows 98 as primary OS. For me the ultimate test is a reasonably responsive SeaMonkey v2.49 (latest), probably too much to ask.

Got QEMU to boot OS, install and painfully load Firefox v49.0.2, as well as SeaMonkey v2.46. This is the last Firefox that apparently runs on a non-SSE2 capable processor. The SeaMonkey install should have been easy to update manually to v2.49 but alas this system does not have the horsepower. All RAM was quickly exhausted and the CPU can't handle the throughput. Took more than one hour to open either browser. Tried to lean out prefs.js, like disabling auto update checker, still no major difference. Couldn't even load 'about:' to screenshot the browser version from the Windows 98 desktop. Will put this project aside for now. If anyone wants the files or notes let me know. Hope to put together a faster tower this year and retest, low priority project. Don't even know what Windows 98's native hardware limits are. From forum posts and elsewhere i've read anywhere from a 1.8 GHz Pentium 4 to Windows 95 running 2.1 GHz, probably patched. Apparently single core processing only. RAM not sure either, query 1 GB?

Forum member roytam1 kindly provided TCPMP media player, tested good for YouTube MP4s over the last couple days. It works in Windows 95 and 98, download link below to help keep the player alive. It is lightweight, full featured and does not require installation. Just unzip to an appropriate directory. For me this execuatable path is good for 9xweb's YouTube playback configuration. vidPlayer1="c:/program files/tcpmp/player.exe" If a new 9xweb release is needed TCPMP will likely be added as the default player. It plays MP4 out of the box. Minor settings configuration may be required to get video to display, etc. It can be set to autoplay and autoclose on completion, nice for YouTube surfing. Still untested whether 9xweb works in Windows 95, if someone knows, please tell (confirmed to work in Windows 95). For comparison, TCPMP launches faster than VLC and SMPlayers 'mplayer.exe', even when bypassing SMPlayer. It is also the easiest to configure. Based on simple monitoring of Process Explorer's CPU meter, it requires more resources than SMPlayer's MPlayer but makes up for it with a nice full-featured display and GUI settings. As an all around player TCPMP is probably best of the three. Only on lesser hardware, if playback isn't smooth, would SMPlayer's mplayer be the better option. TCPMP_Win95.zip (2.27 MB, no JavaScript needed). http://s000.tinyupload.com/index.php?file_id=26236836007896588087 Edit: 9xweb script confirmed to work in Windows 95.

The Enhanced Cygwin-Lite post back one page (page 17) was modified. The Bugs section recommendation to periodically run 'exec bash' to reset the Bash environment was removed, as this was found to create multiple Bash instances, not good. The recommendation was modified to below. If experiencing instability it may be useful to periodically reset the Bash environment by exiting Cygwin-Lite and it's COMMAND.COM window.

Bochs v2.3.7 installed and ran on vanilla Windows 98. The menu bar provides some GUI and the software is very configurable. It initiated the BIOS, found the ISO, started to load an OS but never successfully booted any kernels, aside from the built-in sampler. Tried several ISOs, many many different configurations, reviewed log outputs, numerous forum posts, still no luck. Should anyone want to play, downloads in RetroZilla without JavaScript, just change View -> Use Style -> None. https://sourceforge.net/projects/bochs/files/bochs/2.3.7 Bochs v2.0.2 also installed and ran on vanilla Windows 98. Similar failures noted, too fatigued to keep troubleshooting. Same RetroZilla download procedure as above. https://sourceforge.net/projects/bochs/files/bochs/2.0.2 Frustrating yet still fun to try something new. Will stick with the old QEMU release that's been working, thanks for trying to help.

Thanks DosFreak. You may want to paste your last post as a new thread, maybe even member project for emulation, so it doesn't get buried. Will seek and try Bochs v2.3.7 later. The others will probably pass, don't want a graphic manager and want to try without kernel extensions, as per thread title. If HEX editing is required, to me the software isn't natively programmed for the OS, just want to keep it pure. Thanks again for your suggestions.

Thanks roytam1 for the link. Quick tested TCPMP with two YouTube MP4s in vanilla Windows 98, both worked. Nice and lightweight, no installation required. On this system only issue was no video, just sound. Quick configuration change: DirectDraw -> activate Use blitting instead of overlay. Although not fully tested, everything seemed in working order. Pretty full-featured, this is a nice replacement in vanilla Windows 98 for bloaty but good VLC v0.8.6d. Thanks again.

Thanks for the information DosFreak. Bochs v2.6.6 looked interesting. It installed but failed to launch expecting a newer version of Windows. Linked below if anyone wants to check it out. It can be downloaded with RetroZilla v2.2 without JavaScript provided View -> User Style is changed to None. https://sourceforge.net/projects/bochs/files/bochs/2.6.6/ QEMU Manager not required, prefer configuring by hand. Closest found to QEMU v0.11.1 was Qemu-0.11.0-windows-Lite.zip but it fails indicating QEMU.EXE linked to missing export WS2_32.DLL. http://lassauge.free.fr/qemu/release/?M=D As mentioned QEMU v0.8.2 was the most recent version thus far found to run. Running Windows 98 as host does appear to provide poor performance, maybe it's emulation in general though, which seems to waste a lot of CPU cycles. Will keep digging, agree multi-boot is best, just want to try things out.

Just looking for some emulation or virtualization advice. Would prefer open source. Playing around with emulating newer web browsers using a GNU/Linux base. Been using QEMU, only very old versions work. Using vanilla Windows 98 and Windows 98 in general seems to be limiting. So far i will stick with an old QEMU v0.8.2 (2003-2005 era). Performance is poor but so is my hardware. Tried several v0.9.x QEMUs and they fail to run. I've been unable to find any QEMU releases to test between these v0.8.2 and v0.9.x. On top of that, looks like KQEMU accelerator is only for NT-based systems? Information from an old KQEMU readme: KQEMU is supported on x86 or x86_64 Linux 2.4 or 2.6 hosts. Experimental versions are available for FreeBSD and Windows NT/2000/2003/XP Any advice appreciated, thanks.

Hi Mr.Ruskie. If this is a serious request please start a new thread with more specifics and an appropriate title. For dial up you need a modem, not a network card. Provide more information exactly what you've tried and where you're stuck.

For anyone using YouTube via 9xweb in vanilla Windows 98, both SMPlayer/MPlayer v0.6.7 and VLC v0.8.6d work, discussed in and around this post: https://msfn.org/board/topic/177106-running-vanilla-windows-98-in-2020/page/5/?tab=comments#comment-1173021 TinyUpload is working again (yeah), even *.exe files up to 50 MB per file..so dangerous :) In case other links go down here are the goods. The player files should be readily available elsewhere, codecs might be harder to obtain. The files are untouched from original download other than renaming. No JavaScript required. SMPlayer v0.6.7 (SMPlayer_0.6.7.exe, 13.0 MB): http://s000.tinyupload.com/index.php?file_id=32421385938599921768 Codecs for SMPlayer's mplayer (SMPlayer_MPlayer_codecs.zip, 9.57 MB). In a default install, extract files into C:\Program Files\SMPlayer\mplayer\codecs: http://s000.tinyupload.com/index.php?file_id=33821390908445725051 VLC v0.8.6d (VLC_0.8.6d.exe, 9.34 MB): http://s000.tinyupload.com/index.php?file_id=34990583317191199660 Directing the 9xweb script to launch SMPlayer's 'mplayer', the default USER CONFIG entry, instead of 'smplayer' improves video launch time considerably. For SMPlayer's mplayer: f key toggles full screen, number 3/4 keys adjust brightness, arrow keys skip back and forth, spacebar pauses, q key exits. An 800 MHz system, 32 MB AGP graphics, 1152 x 864 resolution and 16-bit colour can play Format 18 videos full screen. Lesser hardware may need to use a smaller window, enable skipped frames, etc.

Unfortunately most of these Windows 98 threads are outdated and it is not always clear whether this is vanilla or with kernel extensions. This thread indicates BSPlayer v2.x: https://msfn.org/board/topic/105936-last-versions-of-software-for-windows-98se/?tab=comments#comment-701548 Don't know if useful, long thread on media playing: https://msfn.org/board/topic/153566-windows-98-as-high-quality-video-player/