installing windows 98 on a new computer

[Guest anti-geek]

hello windows user,

 

i am building a new computer (1st time) and i'm having trouble loading

windows 98.

windows formatted my new harddrive, but when it starts to open i get a

message stating "insufficent memory." the message also says the config.sys

or autoexec.bak may be too large. the config.sys only has one line in it. i

can't find an "autoexec.bak" file. i have 2 G ram, a pentuim d processor and

a 160 G hard drive. so i know that "memory" is not the problem. if anyone

has suggestions/ideas, that would be greatly appreciated.

 

i have windows 98 (1st ed) for new computers.

i have xp upgrade if i can ever get 98 to function.

[Guest John John]

Re: installing windows 98 on a new computer

 

You have too much RAM in the machine for Windows 98, see here:

 

Error Message: Insufficient Memory to Initialize Windows

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/184447

 

You will have to "throttle down" the RAM if you want to run Windows 9x

on the machine:

 

"Out of Memory" Error Messages with Large Amounts of RAM Installed

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/253912

 

John

 

anti-geek wrote:

> hello windows user,

>

> i am building a new computer (1st time) and i'm having trouble loading

> windows 98.

> windows formatted my new harddrive, but when it starts to open i get a

> message stating "insufficent memory." the message also says the config.sys

> or autoexec.bak may be too large. the config.sys only has one line in it. i

> can't find an "autoexec.bak" file. i have 2 G ram, a pentuim d processor and

> a 160 G hard drive. so i know that "memory" is not the problem. if anyone

> has suggestions/ideas, that would be greatly appreciated.

>

> i have windows 98 (1st ed) for new computers.

> i have xp upgrade if i can ever get 98 to function.

[Guest Dan]

RE: installing windows 98 on a new computer

 

You have too large a hard drive as well as like John John said too much

ram. In addition, I would install 98 Second Edition and not 98 First Edition

because you will have too many USB issues. Even with 98SE you can easily

have USB issues that take up too much time but it is at least manageable.

You can buy 98 Second Edition from Ebay. I would buy a retail version if

available and if you have the qualifying cd then all you would need would be

an upgrade or update version. I will let someone else talk about these if

you are interested.

 

In addition, if the motherboard is too new you will have issues such as

PCI-Express not being supported. Please let us know all about your computer

system and we can help you further in this newsgroup. The easy route is to

go with XP but the more challenging and rewarding route is 98 Second Edition

if you have the patience and finally remember that Itunes will not play with

98SE because Apple has not realized either how popular 98 SE is to many

people as well.

 

Heck, Painted Sky Elementary in Albuquerque, New Mexico, U.S.A., would

not have as much of a computer mess if they had listened to me and not gotten

rid of all their 98 SE computers and just had XP Professional with default

settings but I warned them and jI was told by the other computer people that

Windows 98 SE was just too old and complicated for them to maintain. Oh

Well, life goes on and I am transferring to another school that will

appreciate my work.

[Guest John John]

Re: installing windows 98 on a new computer

 

To add to Dan's excellent advice, I see by rereading your original post

that you state:

 

i have windows 98 (1st ed) for new computers.

i have xp upgrade if i can ever get 98 to function.

 

Is it your final objective to have only Windows XP installed on the

computer? If so you do not need to install Windows 98 (or other prior

Windows version) to install Windows XP using an upgrade version. Don't

bother installing W9x, just proceed to install XP on the clean, virgin

hard drive. When the upgrade setup gets to the point where it checks

for an upgradeable Windows version it will tell you that it found no

previous Windows installation to upgrade on the hard drive and it will

ask you to insert the cd from a qualifying version in the cd drive.

Once the setup program is satisfied that you "own" a qualifying previous

Windows version it will proceed to install XP cleanly.

 

John

 

Dan wrote:

> You have too large a hard drive as well as like John John said too much

> ram. In addition, I would install 98 Second Edition and not 98 First Edition

> because you will have too many USB issues. Even with 98SE you can easily

> have USB issues that take up too much time but it is at least manageable.

> You can buy 98 Second Edition from Ebay. I would buy a retail version if

> available and if you have the qualifying cd then all you would need would be

> an upgrade or update version. I will let someone else talk about these if

> you are interested.

>

> In addition, if the motherboard is too new you will have issues such as

> PCI-Express not being supported. Please let us know all about your computer

> system and we can help you further in this newsgroup. The easy route is to

> go with XP but the more challenging and rewarding route is 98 Second Edition

> if you have the patience and finally remember that Itunes will not play with

> 98SE because Apple has not realized either how popular 98 SE is to many

> people as well.

>

> Heck, Painted Sky Elementary in Albuquerque, New Mexico, U.S.A., would

> not have as much of a computer mess if they had listened to me and not gotten

> rid of all their 98 SE computers and just had XP Professional with default

> settings but I warned them and jI was told by the other computer people that

> Windows 98 SE was just too old and complicated for them to maintain. Oh

> Well, life goes on and I am transferring to another school that will

> appreciate my work.