Win 98 Critical updates

Just thought I would drop a line and let who ever didnt know that I found 2 new critical updates this am.

~FIREDANCER~

 

I found this third party service pack for Windows 98SE on Neowin.net. It includes all the official Microsoft updates (only installs what you need) plus a few other tweaks the author thought helpful. Be sure to back up before you use it just in case!

http://exuberant.ms11.net/98sesp.html

 

HeyJeff --Wonder why you would not want to go to Windows Update and get what MS considers Critical Updates rather than using a third-party site? MS is still offering them for Win98, if they are Critical.

 

It had a few other tweaks that the author provided. I doubt Microsoft does anything to truely optimize 98 anymore and I think this guy really has an interest in making it better (if only by bits and pieces).

 

I can vouch for that Windows 98 2nd ed SP1.5. I used to manually install every update one by one that I had previously downloaded and saved to a cd. What order and which ones was always guess work, and waiting for Windows Update, which no longer includes alot of non-critical but helpful updates was torture.

I now first install the official Security Updates Cd (which Microsoft stopped supplying recently), then run the SP 1.5. Then it's a simple matter of going to Windows Update for the few recent ones that are left.

I do return a few settings back to the defaults, however. For one, he sets whether you registered Windows yet to 1. Nice, but I like to register myself and do not install the firewall and connect until after installing the updates. The only thing it seems to interfere with is that Welcome To Windows screen. It still thinks you haven't registered and if you click to register, the reg program says you've already registered! Since I want things perfect, I use regedit and go to Local Machine-Software-Microsoft-Windows-Current Version. Don't recall exactly, but I think clicking on Current Version instead of the plus icon gives you the screen where you can scroll down to registered and change the value back to 0. Then you can register through Welcome To Windows.

Change 2: He sets the limit memory property. I just use 512 MB so that setting is not necessary for me. (Anything over 512 and he's correct to set that.) I uncheck that (believe it's in the System Properties advanced dialog. Get there by right clicking My Computer and choosing Properties or through the Control Panel).

Change 3: He adds Conservative Swapfile Usage = 1 and Limit DMA to 64 to the System.ini file, as well as a MaxFileCache specific setting there under Vcache. I like letting Windows handle it, as these settings return the OS to using the Windows 95 way of managing memory. This was helpful with Windows 98 Gold, but Microsoft improved things enough in Second Edition to make it preferable to leave these alone. The MaxFileCache is necessary only if you have more than 512 MB of memory (otherwise Windows might not boot!) I go to Run and type in sysedit. I then go to the System.ini tab and remove the added lines.

That's it, though! Other than those few choices which are so easily returned to the default, the package is terrific. I also enjoy the Windows 2000/Me desktop color scheme and the Windows 2000/Me icons. You'll also notice that when you click the Start button, the description "WINDOWS 98 SECOND EDITION" is displayed boldly as on 2000/Me. If something upsets the icons, just reinstall the service pack. It won't hurt, as the updates are all official Windows Updates and will only install if they're needed. He just packed them all up and scripted them to run one after the other in an appropriate order. But it will fix the icons back for you. You'll have to redo those few settings after rebooting, otherwise the icons don't work right. He puts them all over the place so it's easier to just run the pack install to get them back.

I also install the Windows Me Scandisk and Defrag programs, as they are updated and run much faster. (They are 32 bit slimmed down versions of Norton SpeedDisk as opposed to the 16 bit ones written by Norton for Windows 98. So, instead of 1, 2 or more hours to defrag it's done in 10 minutes to a half hour and does exactly the same thing, just in a faster 32 Bit program. ScanDisk also is fixed in Windows Me for larger drives. The Windows Update for the original ScanDisk is in the SP2, but I like faster!