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I love my W98. Strategies for the Future?

Discussion in 'Legacy Windows' started by edward1c, 2003/03/28.

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  1. 2003/04/09
    samson

    samson Inactive

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    It took me many months to get my buggy MS software surrounded with firewalls etc. so it couldn't do any harm. Now that all my soldiers are in place, I'm not not NOT going to install XP and start all over!

    My biggest problem will come when I have to reinstall Windows. With no support from MS, I'll be stuck with an unpatched IE 5.00 which is what's on my CD. Third-party software will have to suffice. I like Opera anyway.

    If I had Win98 (not SE), I'd be a little concerned about potential Y2K problems after a reinstall. I don't know if that will be a problem, just that MS's site says that SE included Y2K fixes. I think a service pack for Win98 is still available on CD, but not for Win98SE.
     
    samson,
    #21
  2. 2003/04/09
    Deloris

    Deloris Inactive

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    samson,
    Opera has it's own security flaws, but not as many as IE, I don't think. :)

    I started working months ago on 98 & 98SE at getting individual downloads that can be installed later while they were still available. When they stopped making individual downloads available, I figured out another way to get what I needed, and save it. I know I probably don't have every critical update there is, but I have most of them on CD's, and hopefully enough to keep me going for quite some time yet.

    What you can do is get a program that will make an image file of the OS you are operating right now, and put it on CD. Also put a copy on a logical partition on the hard drive set up especially for containing OS image files.

    Drive Image works in DOS from a virtual floppy on the hard drive for restoring a troublesome OS that you just can't seem to fix, & also uses Rescue Floppy's of it's program in the event of a crash to restore the image.

    Acronis 6.0 works in the regular Windows environment without the need for DOS, or Floppy. I've never used Acronis, & don't know how to use it, but I hear it is quite good. With Acronis, if necessary, I imagine you could reinstall a basic OS, then use it to restore the image you had saved, thus replacing the basic OS with the optimized one you have now. Of course, someone who uses Acronis would know what to do. I'm just guessing.

    Naturally, I would imagine that Drive Image can't read an Acronis image file, & visa versa. So whichever one you made the image with, you'd have to use that one to restore it.

    These programs aren't free, but well worth the money if you want to keep what you have.

    Of course, all non OS data on any logicals should be backed up regularly on CD's as well. Even My Documents.

    I have the My Documents folder on another logical partition. It is constantly changing, so keeping it with the image file would make it outdated when restoring an image.

    Restoring a good image sure beats the heck out of reinstalling everything from scratch. That's for sure.:D
     
    Deloris,
    #22


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  4. 2003/04/10
    Christer

    Christer Geek Member Staff

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    I agree with Deloris that this is the way to do it.
    I´m currently using WinME which has been somewhat tricky to get running smoothly and even now, in 6-9 months interval, it needs to be reinstalled. For this purpose I use Norton Ghost and have created an Image of the system partition, which I keep on a different partition for convenience and burned to CDs in case of the "big one ".
    It takes some 10-15 minutes to restore the OS from the Image.

    Since You´d like to preserve Your Win98 for the future, I´d recommend buying Norton Ghost 2003 (only because I haven´t used any of the others and in concequence know nothing about them), install it on the current system and make the neccessary Ghost Boot Disks. This means that these are available later and NG doesn´t need to be installed on the HardDrive for imaging.

    During the last month or even week of Win98 support, I´d make a clean installation of Win98 on a freshly formatted partition.
    Next, I´d connect to the Internet and run Windows Update until everything is up to date. I´d check all drivers that might need updating.
    Finally, I´d configure it the way I want it and defragment the partition.

    Now, I´d make NG Image #1, before installing anything else. This Image would be of the OS only.

    When the above is successfully accomplished, I´d install Office and other applications that I know I´d like to have for keeps.
    As with the OS, I´d get and install all updates.

    A new defragmentation and NG Image #2. This Image would include all applications that never gets replaced.

    Now, I´d install everything else, such as Norton Ghost (to be able to use Ghost Explorer and other utilities within NG), Firewall, Anti Virus, Anti Spy Ware and other software that come in new versions quite often.
    This means that I won´t have to remove old versions, clean the registry and so on before installing new versions. I´d just restore the OS using Image #2.
    I don´t have too much of this kind of software but if I had, it would mean reinstalling a few old ones when getting one of them in a new version but that´s a small inconvenience I´m willing to accept.

    After defragmentation, I´d make NG Image #3.

    Images #1 and #2 would be copied to CDs but Image #3, which is likely to be replaced on a more or less regular basis, could stay on the HardDrive for convenience.

    Well, this is my few eurocents worth,
    Christer
     
    Last edited: 2003/04/10
    Christer,
    #23
  5. 2003/04/10
    samson

    samson Inactive

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    I'm not familiar with Drive Image or Acronis. It sounds like that's something I should have done when my OS installation was new and clean. Now that Windows has been running for 3-4 years, I'd guess that to do it right I'd have to format and reinstall everything first? Hmmm, another one of those things that should be done but probably won't until it's forced.

    Opera has had a few security problems discovered recently, but they were fixed right away. Fixed with a new version even, not a hot fix that disappears later.
     
    samson,
    #24
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