This is getting tiring. Sometimes proof is all that is required. Googling "How much RAM will Windows 98" brought up this as the 2nd link. There are links to MS knowledge base articles as well.

@Zssfssz, I'm sure this will be an interesting exercise for you. When you have tried it please let us know how you go.

A free virtual machine application is the solution. As stated above a few times.
You have no reason to hate it. It is the proper solution.

A virtual machine emulates older, simple hardware. It is a program that software creates a computer. You can run a new OS and the old OS at the same time. You can drag and drop between on some versions too.

If you insist, you should consider an old computer to install it on. There is about a zero chance to get it running on a modern good system.

As stated above, Windows98 does not recognise SATA drives and has a maximum limit of 8GB for the FAT32 file system. This presents problems for the installer on modern machines. Also recognition of modern hardware such as network devices is problematic.
You can run Windows98 in a virtual machine. It works OK in VirtualBox (although programs using DirectX are very slow, making some games all but unplayable) but there are no guest additions available. It does not work in qemu-kvm.
The Windows98 operating system did not implement the halt instruction, so if you run it in a virtual machine you will see high CPU usage. You can fix this by installing software that implements the halt instruction such as Rain 2.0.
In the past, it was necessary to install graphics drivers when using Windows98 in VirtualBox, but this is no longer necessary.

@ Zssfssz

I suggest you find a way to get the latest windows OS even if you have to borrow money from family and friends. windows 98 is dead to microsoft.

Not sure if windows 8 consumer preview is still available for download but you should check before installing windows 98.

BTW, the windows 98 disc is not bootable like windows XP disc is so you will need a boot floppy disc to load windows 98.

and a new computer




No way Jose.

I think you need even DOS 6.22 installed before you can proceed. I remember something that the standard procedure for installing W98 was DOS 6.0, upgrade to 6.22 and then insert the W98 disk en run INSTALL.EXE. Oh and you need the proper CDROM drivers installed in order to access the disk. Maybe that was why I always needed DOS 6.22.

Talking about DOS and descendants like DOS 7 etc., don't hit <TAB> all the time when you cannot remember the filename, it doesn't do a thing.

jlinkels

Back in the days when I used Win98 I never had such problems. I installed it so often that I could recite my product key and it always started right of the bootable Win98-CD. No need for boot floppies or a DOS install.

depending on where you live you can get a 3year newer than W98 for about $20.00 whole system
that said

the only problems I can think of you running in to with W98 on a newer computer
would be support for the larger HDDs and RAMs of the newer computers
the newer CPUs will run the old machine code NO PROBLEMS

I think he had an upgrade disk in the day it was cheaper to buy an up grade disk than a home copy of 98

I've seen the '512MB+ RAM causes problems' with Win9X more than a few times. Not that I ever saw the point of running Win9X on 512MB+ systems, 2K/XP were nicer all round with that amoumnt of RAM.

AFAIK Win9X will run on 2.7GHz+ systems. I'm pretty sure I've seen it run on a P4 3.0GHz. The newer or faster the CPU is the more likely you will have problems though. Maybe you were thinking of the 2.1GHz+ issue?

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=312108

Yes, agreed, you will have serious issues even finding drivers for chipsets after some point. Exactly when that point is varies (IIRC you can get Win9X chipset drivers for systems that support some dualcores, eg intel 915, but if you try to run a dual-core its not properly suppoted, some single core CPUs are supported with that chipset and 9X)

Or run winXP, drop it back to 'classic' mode (looks pretty similar to 9X) and use 'compatibility mode' for 9X programs.

Nope, 9X is CD bootable. Theres a few reason why you might have had issues, the most common is win9X only supports a single channel for IDE until you have installed the chipset drivers. So if you have your HDD on IDE channel 0 and CD on IDE channel 1 it wont install. The other common one is that you've got a CD drive hooked up to some controller (eg the classic 'Soundblaster card being used as a CD controller')

Yes, seems that my memory played games with me, I was pretty sure that it was 2.7GHz.

7, 1, easy mistake to make.

You might very well be right, my memory is a bit fuzzy about those kind of things. I do remember I was running a PC business at the time. Installing W98 on consumer PC's and NT4.0 on business machines. And which each upgrade or release (like W98 SE) I thought "Wow, isn't Windows a great product, always on the move, heading into the right direction." Altough it would be nice if I did not have to restart 30 times during an installation.

jlinkels

If I was trying to remember the win9X stuff from the last time I did a 9X install on my own hardware, I'd probably be fuzzy as well. But I was working doing win98/win98SE/ME installs only a few years ago. Well, up until I told them I wouldnt do any more 9X (or 2K/XP either) installs without seeing the papaerwork from microsoft they said they had. Only lasted there 3 more days before I was fired.....