Upgrade from W98 to W98se

Is there any way to upgrade a W98 system to W98se using a "full" Windows 98SE CDROM? I tried to use mine, and eventually I get a message that says something to the effect that it has detected that there is already an OS, and I need a Windows 98SE Upgrade disk.

 

That the answer but I'd rename the file instead of deleting it. Just in case something goes wrong.

 

Thanks everyone for your input. All sounds good, and I sure wish I could try it, but my CDROM is now malfunctioning

Will try it as soon as I fix it.

Thanks again.

 

bert7,
All you have to do is use the find files command and find win.com and rename to win.old then find setupx.dll and rename setupx.old close find . Put 98se cd in cd drive and follow the install keep the same windows directory and everything will work just fine . No file lose! Install is quick and efficient.
Let us know how it does for you. I have been doing it for several years this way.



Houston

 

OK, thanks.

I still haven't be able to get my CDROM drive to work. I wish it were just "dead ", it might be easier to fix. But, it's really weird. I put in the W98se CD, and it thinks it's an audio CD. If I look at the "files" it shows two of them....something like "Track01 ", and "Track02 ". I tried to "play" them, but of course they do not "play" since it is all bogus. If I put it in another PC, it shows just what I would expect...the W98se stuff. Sigh.

 

Sounds like you have assigned your cd drive as a audio drive. Suggestion, same your music files to another folder then uninstall the media or music play program (you can reinstall after system is repaired) . That should get your cd drive back to default drive status.

Hope this helps. Keep us posted.
Houston

 

You need to install the 98Se from dos to get a good upgrade install. Installing while in windows will give you problems down the road, among them is that not all the files being updated properly. And you will not have to worry about how windows reads the CD.
Boot up with a floppy, don't have one? Go to Bootdisk's and download a file that will create one for you. Doubleclick the file with a floppy in the drive, if you copy the file to the floppy it will not work.
Choose with CD rom support, when it is done booting, there is a message giving you the drive letter for the CD. It will not be the normal letter. Use this letter in place of the X below.
Do these commands at the prompt, pressing Enter at the end of each line.
ren c:\windows\win.com win.old
ren c:\windows\system\setupx.dll setupx.old
X:\win98\setup

 

OK, I went to bootdisk.com, downloaded, and created a bootable floppy, and it boots the PC just fine. Thanks, but....I must still have a problem with my CDROM. I removed it via the device manager, but then windows couldn't find it again. So, I went out to the website for MITSUMI, and got a driver, and was able to install it, and it is there after I reboot. However, when I boot from the floppy, I can see the files on the CDROM, but only "sort of ". If I do a "dir" for the CDROM (dir g, I get a listing of all of the files, and I can see "setup.exe" since it is near the end of the listing. But, if I do "dir g:\setup.exe ", I get "file not found" Also, if I do "G:\SETUP ", I get "bad command..." Sheesh!

Furthermore, if I boot all the way to windows I, and insert my OEM W98SE CD, it shows up in explorer, and I can click on it, and see the files, But if click on one of them, say setup.exe, the CDROM lite flickers and flickers for a long time, then the drive will chatter some. The light will flicker some more, and eventually I go to a "blue screen" that says: "Error reading drive F: ...(more text)...If the CDROM is still in the drive, it may require cleaning." Well, the same CDROM is OK in other PCs I have. ?????????????

I cannot recover from that situation. The system won't respond to CTRL-ALT-DEL (other than to give me ye old "system is busy" blue screen). I then have to power cycle the PC. Once it is back up, explorer will not see a CD that has been inserted into the CDROM drive.

 

Sorry everyone, please ignore my previous post. I dug out an old 486 PC I have, removed the CDROM drive from it, and installed it in the PC in question. Now, I seem to have a working CDROM drive. It does "struggle" a bit, though....it spins a few seconds then stops, then spins, and stops. When I tried to install my NIC driver, windows wanted a CD besides the floppy which came with the NIC. When I inserted the CD, and clicked OK, it did find files on it for a while. Then, I got a message to the effect that it could not find a file on the CD. I clicked "OK" to that, the CDROM drive spun and stopped, spun and stopped, and then I got the message again. After a few iterrations of that nonsense, it started to find files again, and the installation process continued. Anyway, it finally completed, and my NIC is back.

I guess I'll try the windows upgrade, and see if I can make it through that process.

Fingers are crossed.

 

Finger crossing did not help. This drive has the same problem as the other one: can do "dir g:" and get listing of entire drive, but not "dir g:\setup.exe" (or any other single file).

Tried "edit a:\autoexec.bat" (just to make sure that there was an "edit" command), and was able to do that. However, "edit g:\setup.txt" fails (even though I could see a "setup.txt" from the "dir g:" listing).

 

OK, I still have not solved the problem with the CDROM, but I've been able to avoid it for now by coping the contents of the CD onto the "E: partition" on my hard drive by coping across the network.

So, I've done as "Houston" and "markp62" have suggested, and I got to the point where it is asking me where I want to do the install. It is defaulting to "C:\WINDOWS.000 ". Houston had said to "...keep the same windows directory... ". If use that default (C:\WINDOWS.000) that the installation has chosen, will I be "keeping the same windows directory "? C:\WINDOWS is where my current OS is.

 

The answer to your question is no. If it defaults to c:\windows.000 and you want to keep your previous installation you have to change it to c:\windows. Otherwise, you'll end up with a clean install of windows and you'll have to reinstall all the software you had on the old windows. So, if you dont' want all that trouble, change it to c:\windows.

 

Thanks much.