Don Phillipson wrote:
Win98SE has been left behind by several web formats
(especially those with flash video) and updated PDF
formats.
I have yet to come across a pdf file that Acrobat Reader 6 can't open.
And I have yet to find a pdf exploit that FUNCTIONS PROPERLY on a win-98
system when opened with Acrobat Reader 6.
Besides - there is always Foxit and other third-party readers.
Opera 10.61 is a special release - designed specifically to be
compatible with windows 98.
There is also the KernelEx project, which provides API-level
compatibility for win-98 for a number of "NT-only" applications, such as
Firefox 3.x and Adobe Flash 10.x.
By installing KernelEx, there is no real problem for a win-98 system to
watch videos on Hulu, youtube, and for Google Streetview to function
perfectly.
WinXP can be configured to be almost as fast, and can be
updated in these respects.
Windows XP was a horribly vulnerable operating system for the first 5
years of it's life. That fact is almost universally ignored by those
that favor NT over win-9x.
It was XP, that was foisted on consumers in the fall of 2001, that is to
blame for the moderm botnet and spam problem that the world has today.
The malware industry is now hard to kill because it got such a boost and
entrenched by the opportunities that XP-SP0/SP1 gave during the years
2002 - 2006.
It was more important that Micro$haft replace windows 98/me with a
registerable operating system in the form of XP with the WGA mechanism
than insure that it wasn't a vulnerable and exploitable OS in the hands
of consumers.
Windows 98 was never vulnerable to the 6 or 7 different network worms
that have emerged over the past 10 years. It was a joke that if you
took a fresh install of windows 2k or XP and connect to the internet to
perform your first WindowsUpdate session that your system would likely
become infected before the update was finished. This was known as
"Windows Survival Time" and was measured in minutes (usually 10 to 20
minutes).
The vast majority of IE6 exploits do not function properly on win-98
systems. But if you wanted your IE6 to be as up-to-date as possible on
a win-98 system, then no problem. Simply download and install the
IE6-SP1 rollups that Macro$haft released for win-2K (yes, they function
just fine on a win-98 system).
Windows 98 is compatible with hard drives up to and usually exceeding 1
tb in size (I've installed win-98 on a 500 gb SATA hard drive attached
to an Asrock motherboard) and win-98 has a "hard" limit of a little over
1gb of usable memory, and there are third-party patches that allow it to
use a full 4 gb of installed ram.
Those that are interested in knowing just what win-98 is capable of
today are advised to read the win-9x/me forums on msfn.org.
http://www.msfn.org/board/forum/8-windows-959898seme/
http://www.msfn.org/board/forum/91-w...5064080d84d140