Windows 98SE or Windows ME???

Hi Guys, I want to install an old version of windows onto my computer as a dual boot with Windows XP Pro. I have a copy of Windows 98 SE, my freind has Windows ME. Which is better? He'll sell me his copy of ME for £10, but if there are not real differences between the two I'll just install 98SE.
Does one have better support for networking?
Cheers

 

I had experienced WIN Me, you have to be very patient with, keep it updated,etc. For my purposes works better WIN98SE and if you keep it updated will not give you troubles at all, very stable and (I heard there is somewhere in this forum an unoficial update package) works with olders applications (like games) etc.

 

WinME has somewhat better networking. In Win98SE you can only map drives. In WinME you can browse shares without mapping drives. There's a few other trivial differences (WinME has better USB support, better multimedia features) but it's not worth 10 pounds.

Win ME is also somewhat notorious for being very problematic for certain people or for certain hardware. WinME shoehorned a lot of features into Win98, which was just a shoehorning of the venerable Win95.

Think of it this way. Here's the actual version numbers:
Win95: Windows v4.0.950
Win95 OSR2: Windows v4.0.1111+
Win98: 4.10.1998
Win98SE: 4.10.2222+
WinME: 4.90.3000+

Note that they're all version 4. They're all iterations of Windows 4. Just like WinXP compared to Win2k, WinME has better features and UI, but it also tends to be bogged down by those extra features and services so it doesn't actually run faster. The internals of the OS are basically the same.

Just like:
Win2k: Windows 5.0
WinXP: 5.1
Win2k3: 5.2

 

Having tried them both I went for Win98SE. I hated ME but just my opinion. Oh and I've networked 2 PCs together both running 98SE with no problems at all.

 

I agree!

 

I believe there is a way to make 98SE bootable from a CD, I don't know about Me. From what I've heard, I'd also go with 98SE, but grab copies of the defrag and scandisk executables and associated help files from a copy of Me and replace those in 98SE with the ones from Me - they work a bit better. Here is a link you might find useful with 98SE: http://exuberant.ms11.net/98sesp.html . It is the "Unofficial Win 98SE ServicePack 2".

.bh.

 

Ive heard that WinMe causes alot of trouble in the example of freezing etc...(I may be wrong) but I currently run Win98SE and it runs fine


Brandon

 

Windows 98 SE and ME are bootable, at least my copies are, and every copy I have come across.

You can use the CD, just like XP, to format and install.

And we also have the unofficial Windows 98 SE Service Pack HERE.


BTW Jawa Slayer, your friend should give you £10 just to take ME off his hands.

 

Not what I meant, Insomniac. I meant a LIVE CD like Knoppix. Win 98SE actually INSTALLED to a CD.

.bh.

 

Cheers for the info guys.
I'm sticking with 98SE. Just a quick question, I have two HDs, one with XP Pro installed. Am I wrong in thinking Dual booting is as easy as installing 98SE on the other HD? When I started the installation it said stuff about a non DOS based operating system (i guessed that means xp) and asked if i wanted to remove files. I selected no, and restarted and it asked for a boot disk. Will there be an option at the beginning of the installation to select a partition like in xp's installation? Also is this boot disk it wants just a normal 98se boot disk availible at bootdisk.com? Would it be better to make a fresh partition for 98SE and if so how big should it be?
More than one question, opps
Cheers
Alex

 

One or two gig is plenty for SE unless you intend to install software applications to the same partition. I try to keep my apps and data off of the OS partition. Remember, SE was developed before multi-gigabyte-sized drives were common.

.bh.