98 Guy wrote:
Bill in Co wrote:

What he said was somewhat confusing.

That doesn't prove he hasn't installed KernelEx;

I wasn't trying to prove that he did, or didn't, install Kex - because
as I tried to show, his comments and claims about his experiences with
Firefox and Opera are conflicting.

The fact that he mentioned using FF 3.5 implies he HAS installed
KernerEx, unless you know for a fact that FF 3.5 can be installed
without it, which I don't think is the case..

I thought I made it clear in my last post that you can't install any
version of FF 3.x without having Kex.

Then he must have KernelEx installed.

"and the latest versions dont run in Win98"

Which is only true if you don't have Kex.

Perhaps.

No, it's true.

The last version of Opera that was fully supported on Windows 98/ME is
9.64 (March 2009). The 10.xx versions are generally stable without
KernelEX, except 10.5x and 10.60 (those versions have a bug). The bug
was fixed with version 10.61. You can't install / run version 11 and
higher without Kex.

I'll raise you one, and state that using Win98 in 2013 -
is a bit too limited. Well, maybe not for you,

I have access to Micro$oft technet and I have the CD's and license keys
for many different versions of Windows. Windows NT 4.1, Windows 2k,
XP, 2003, etc. Server versions, all versions of 7 (home, premium, 32/64
bit, etc). I have PC's based on motherboards with 1 gb ram, Socket-775
Intel Pentiums (2.5 to 3.5 ghz).

If I found that win-98 was too limited, there is no financial or
technical barrier to start using some other version.

By "too limited", I meant the bigger picture, not necessarily the "inherent"
limitations of the OS: I can't even install several good (and even older)
fundamental audio and video restoration apps, as I mentioned I wasn't
talking about games or Facebook (ugh). But those audio and video
restoration apps are essential for me for cleaning up such files for my own
use. (Most of the interesting stuff on YouTube needs "a bit" (cough) of
restoration work, if you want it in good shape).

NOTE: I'm not saying, or even implying, that those apps couldn't have been
written for W98, just that they weren't, so it's a non-issue. Heck, even
something as good as the near oldest version of Adobe Audition (which
improved on Cool Edit Pro) can't be used, and there is nothing available
that is installable on W98 that can do all it can do.

The other thing I don't miss about W98 was the (much) more frequent blue
screens (I mean, with all my varous software installations and
customizations), which I rarely see with XP.

What I do find limiting is the direct access that the NT line of OS's
give me to files and settings. Far too many games played with user
accounts, rights, ownerships and permissions. I enjoy not having to
deal with that **** on Win-98.

I have Administrator access to everything as the sole user, so that seems to
be a non issue for me (but I don't play games on the computer, so I don't
know about that).

and don't even get me started on the limitations with the various
browsers (regardless of KernelEx, in many instances),

The vast majority of commercial websites I visit, I visit to either read
something (a story linked off Drudge or Zerohedge for example) or watch
something (flash video). Firefox 2 will frequently mung up the
formatting of the page (the formatting of miscellaneous junk surrounding
the item of interest)

I don't want to deal with that, either. Egads. Too much Don Quixote
stuff.

but the items I want to read or the flash player
box that will show the video I want to watch will show up just fine.
That includes UStream and Youtube.

The sites that I do interact with (forums on various topics) are
rendered quite well with FF2, as are weather-related sites (real-time
doppler radar, satellite view, forcasts, etc). I will also have several
Forex graphs up on my screen at any given time (investing.com) and they
are rendered quite well - interactive java graphs actually.

I have no interest in twitter or fecebook, so I have no idea how those
garbage sites interact with win-98.

And the limited USB and SATA support.

Any USB thumb-drives that I've ever bought (from 512 mb to 32 gb) I can
plug in and use on my win-98 systems - without having to seek out and
install a driver for each one. And I would argue that the thumb drive
is going to be the most common type of USB device to be plugged into any
computer these days.

As for SATA support, you can walk into any big-box computer retailer,
even today, and buy a $15 PCI sata card that will be fully compatible
with win-98 and you will be able to connect and use any SATA hard drive
up to 2 tb in size.

Any motherboard with a socket 478 intel CPU that has integrated SATA
controller will be fully supported with drivers under windows 98. Even
a few boards with Socket 775 (with VIA chipset) will have SATA drivers
for win-98.

I have been connecting, formatting, and using SATA hard drives on my
win-98 systems since 2007, and I have written many posts here in this
newsgroup explaining and detailing my experiences. There is no "137 gb"
limitation when it comes to Windows-98 and SATA hard drives.