Win98 Problem

Good day

I have an Amilo 1818 laptop, 3g Ram,1.86mhz running Vista. I am sick to death of Vista and have wiped it off. I decided I would like to put on a copy of W98SE
which I did. However when I boot up after the initial start I get "Insufficient memory to initialise windows" which there is not. It goes on to say clean the
Config. sys and Autexec.bat of the problem. There is no Autobat on the hard drive as I have opened the system on dos prompt and only setver.exe in config.sys.
This I removed .
Will W98 run on faster pcs or is there a way to fix this problem. Thanks in advance for any help.

 

The issue here is the amount of physical ram in question. You have 3gb. 98SE can work up to and above that level but with certain riders.

The other limitation that you could have with 98SE is the HDD that can be detected and which might be limited to 137gb. So your HD is 300gb but 98SE would only show 137GiB.

In the first instance, 98SE can run very easily with up to 1gb of ram with perhaps a requirement to tweak the sysedit file.

2. 98SE can be made to run with greater amounts of ram but require a number of more advanced tweaks to include downloading some other third party progs.

3. R Lowe wrote a fee paying patch years ago enabling 98SE to overcome the HD ceiling. A couple of years ago he also wrote a ram patch so that 98SE could address large amounts of ram. I think he has systems that run >3gb of ram. This patch is considered the best all-in-one solution by many (I have not tried it - yet).

I triple boot a system with 98SE and would remind you that memory management is not very good. I can see what you are saying but would suggest that you would be disappointed in part at least with 98SE.

If you want to change from Vista which was never considered much good then go to XP which will work a dream.

Alternatively, you could always install a Virtual Machine (VM) on you Vista laptop and install XP on the VM. I use VirtualBox but there is also amongst others VMWare (which I have never tried).

FYG, I run 98SE with 1GB ram and 250GB HD with a AMD SanDiego 4000+ (which is also o'ced) but as I said took some effort to get their.

Good Luck

EDIT: 98SE would also not detect dual core cpu (or at least not the second core)

 

I agree with risk_reversal try running windows XP instead of Win 98SE. The amount of ram you got and HDD windows xp should detect it no problems but with windows 98 SE they could be problems with large HDD and Ram.

 

Hi People

Thanks to both of you. I rather suspected 98 had been left behind in the hardware speed increases etc. I think the VM suggestion is the one that I will follow. I have XP on another machine and have loaded it but the old age problem of verification rears its head and 30 days later its useless. It makes me cross that as I can only use one machine at a time I can not dual load. Roll on the opposition but they will probably be as bad.
I may now go to Ubuntu for that machine for net purposes and just use Vista in VM .

Again my thanks.

 

VMs run amazingly well provided your hardware spec is up to the job - particularly RAM. Each VM grabs a chunk of RAM for its own use, leaving the host system with whatever is left. Vista needs a minimum of 1GB in a VM, so you need a minimum of 2GB in the base system. VMware is superb, but unlike VirtualBox the free version doesn't do snapshots.

 

Earthling, quick questions as regards VMWare (free).

1. Presumably there is functionality for a shared folder between host and client.

2. Does VMWare's VM have functionality for wifi.

3. As regards optical media, will VMware's VM detect other than data ie if you put in a music cd will it play it.

Don't mean to hijack this thread.

Good Luck

PS as regards using Linux, I have Puppy installed on my system which I really like especially (100mb) as I could get the wifi to work which can sometimes be awkward with some other flavours of Linux

 

There is

Not directly, the VM uses the host's adapters, either with NAT or bridged. It's the same in VirtualBox.

Yes, it will.

I used to use VirtualBox a year or three back but VMware was so solid I preferred it. But I've just added a GB of RAM to my old lappie and am just installing VB on it atm. See how it goes

 

Many thanks Earthling. Points 2 & 3 VB does not have ie does not support wifi or music optical (perhaps I am using an older version).

If you test VB as you say could you post a brief summary of your opinions (vs VMWare), if you have time.

Good Luck

 

Well, no VM will directly support wifi, i.e. implement a wireless adapter in software. What they do is create their own connection to the host system network adapters and it really makes no difference at all whether those adapters are wireless or Ethernet. For instance I am posting this from an Ubuntu VM running in Virtual Box on my laptop, which is connected wirelessly.

I think the music thing may be a misunderstanding too. First you need to attach the host's CD/DVD drive to the VM in Devices and then, as long as Sound is enabled in the VM, music CDs can be played. In Ubuntu you can use Rhythmbox - and I've just done it to prove it.

As far as comparing VMware and VB goes that's difficult for me because the PC running VMware is well specified but my old lappie with XP and VB is not, so comparisons would be unfair. However they are both as far as I can see capable of essentially the same things, and in VBs case can also do snapshots, so that gives it the edge really. But setting up the Ubuntu Guest Additions to get away from that postage stamp sized window was a major test of patience and endurance, whereas in VMware it was easy peasy. I even had to go on another forum to get a resolution, as it just didn't go as Help says. So I would recommend VMware for those new to VMs and/or Linux.

 

Thanks for the feedback Earthling.

As regards wifi and music, perhaps this is due to the fact that I am using an older VB version. I will try to upgrade and see if that cures since everything that needs to be attached is and the wired / ethernet adapter works fine.

Good Luck

 

Hi

Although the CDs played ok in VB on my XP laptop it seems the same isn't true on my Win 7 PC. VMware/Ubuntu plays CDs, VBox/Ubuntu doesn't. wifi works fine on both though.