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I don't know about you, but I'll rather be keeping my win98 systems safely protected behind nat and a strict firewall than trusting some stranger offering me unofficial service packs.
Most of what he's done is to update libraries. You can find byte-for-byte identical ones in newer releases of the OS and VS/VB libraries. As far as the rest goes, it's not just security. It adds things like the newer start menu, support for >512 megs, and better USB support.
There's no source code of course, but this stuff isn't exactly opaque. Get yourself a copy of IDA Pro [datarescue.com] or SoftIce and dig in. You might learn a thing or two!
while the FA implies that Microsoft is somewhat neutral to this fellow's freelance updating, the software is still in "extended" support from MS.
It'll be interesting to see what happens the if they issue a 'critical' security update, and there is a conflict with Mr. Coskun's patch. The cynic in me says they'd almost *deliberately* make it incompatible... oops!
I hope his software engineering skills are better than his grammar skills. Pedantic point I know, I know, but then a lot of Software Engineering is pedantic. Quote:
"Use of Unofficial Windows98 SE Service Pack does not supercedes or provides any remedy for guarantee or warranty that may be invalidated in you EULA."
I use Windows 98se paired with 98lite on older machines that I still want to keep running and get decent performance out of. With manual tweaking, I've been able to get a working 98se system in under 12meg.
I'm interested to try these together, and see if 98se can be made reliable with the patches, AND un-bloated with 98lite.
someone actually modded you up? sheesh. the point is, your mom didn't, he did.
i've personally had to deal with manually installing the individual patches MS has released for NT4 machines one by one (by one... somewhere in the region of 25-35 patches per machine; MS' advisory on chaining patches without having to reboot after each one is useful but still doesn't help all that much) because MS won't release a proper service pack 7 with all the security updates rolled into it, and if i had to maintain win98se machines, i'd be very happy to run into this.
and as for all the other posters - offhand i'd say i trust him.
Heh.. Hope he's got an advanced plan... 20 GB Bandwidth is $99/year for the most expensive advanced plan, and if the slashdot effect holds true, he's gonna use his bandwidth up umm.. today? 12000 bytes to load the page... 1.67 million hits... I'm really on the fence on this one.... Windows 98 users should know that their products are EOL'd, but then again this guy is giving back freely (albeit in an un-authorized and non-authoritaive manner). Nah, Alper.. thanks but no thanks.. Your effort is admirable. If my laptop crashes and burns it'll be my last Windows system to go and it won't be a day too soon.
Since I am a mac user, I need to rely on virtual PC in order to accomplish those little tasks that I need windows for (Specifically Minitab/Maple - dont have OSX Copies of either). Well, 2k/Xp/2k3 are very slow in Virtual PC, but Win98SE seems to run well, however there was no support for my 2gigs of Ram and I could only give it 512. Well, now it looks like I can give it a full gig like i do 2000/Xp with this patch!
I am definitely going to check this out, artlu [artlu.net]
No, it really IS timely. I just happened to have installed Win98SE last night. I have an old Presario that was tri-booting between Linux, Win98 and Windows 2000 for several years, but actually only ever running Windows 2000. I finally decided the registry just couldn't hack it anymore and it needed a clean swipe. If it was my work machine it would have been reinstalled a long time ago, but it's the family computer and it hasn't been a big priority.
Anyway, as if this story had any chance of getting interesting, I'll continue. Something happened to my Windows 2000 disk and it won't install. Call it karma, since my Windows 98 disk is one I actually bought off the shelf, believe it or not. So here I am actually bringing Windows 98 as up-to-date as is possible. Scary. I'm thinking of going out to buy XP later in the week to upgrade it, but it's only a K6 266 (with 384 MB of RAM... maxed-out, baby). I might actually need to buy the family a new computer.
Interestingly (yes, I'm actually continuing this drivel), I remembered last night what a hassle Windows can be, now that I've been a Mac OS X user for a couple of years. Motherboard video driver, monitor driver, oh yeah -- ethernet driver before anything else. This and that and the other. Hundreds of MB of downloads and a couple of dozen reboots so far, I guess. Yee-hah. Yes, it's my fault for still running an old computer with Windows 98. Anyway, worth a mention....or not:)
It's good to see someone is still working on 98. I still have one machine left running Win98, but as it's hardly ever used I've never seen the point in shelling out for a more recent version. Depending on what I hear from others who've tried the patch I might install it.
Assuming this "service pack" is what it claims to be, then all this guy did was take each of Microsoft's official releases, and create a batch operation that installs them all in sequence while surpressing the user interface of each and providing one UI to get all of the needed parameters once.
All of Microsoft's fixes allow command line options to supply the answer to any questions that a user would be asked so that a network admiinstrator can write a simple batch file to do the install on his network.
This really isn't much different than what commerical vendors such as BigFix do...
by Anonymous Coward writes:
on Sunday May 02, 2004 @11:58AM (#9033919)
This is cool, 98SE is still my favorite windows for lower end machines.
Not only that, but there is a lot of hardware out there that never got drivers updated past Win98. I have an Okidata winprinter that works just fine, but the driver only works up to Win98. It would be really cool if there was a mini Win98 program that did nothing but run drivers, and could run on an add-in card or USB drive.
Microsoft will eventually abandon the Windows 9X platform, so they might as well release the source code or the full API list so some other company or organization can take it over. It is W2K/XP/2003 and above now. Soon to be only Longhorn.
Someone else making security patches for the almost abandoned OS is a start.:)
I disagree. I run XP on a PII 300mhz w/ 384 megs of RAM (a Dell Inspiron 7000 laptop) and it's incredibly smooth once you turn off unnessecary crap like visual styles
If he was trying to get you to download and install a Trojan horse, why would he tell you to backup your system? Why would he have a disclaimer with dire warnings about 'no warranty' and "damages" rather than a statement that the software is "r33ly L33t" and that you need it now?
In order to attempt to appear legitimate. I've seen simlar "no warranty" warnings in no-cd cracks and the like.
Why would Information Week provide a link to it if it was a Trojan horse?
Because they don't realise that it is, and believe that it's legitimate.
There's 96 hits on Google when you look up "Alper Coskun" (with quotes) and "98SE" -- none of which mentions his sinister plot to get your oh-so-valuable data that you keep on an ancient Windows 98 PC.
Now you're just being silly - he's hardly likely to put up a webpage about it, and a lack of others doing so just means that no-one has figured it out yet.
Now, I don't suppose that there is anything sinister about this, but really - to the best of my knowledge, he's just some random guy on the internet. Why should I trust him?
Oh, you're saying that Linus Torvalds can vouch for the validity and quality of ALL Linux programs? Or can RMS vouch for all GNU Programs? No? Then why can you say that the fact that under system X, the origional creator cannot vouch for third party products means that system X is better than system Y, when under system Y the creator also cannot vouch for third party products?
They have said time and again that their greatest competitor is themselves - so do you think they would be stupid enough to have it turn into another Linux or at least something more useful/stable than it already is and eat into their cash flow - HARDLY!
I run windows XP on a p5mmx-233 laptop with 96M of ram. It runs rock solid, and quite snappy too. I used to run win2k but the wireless support in winxp makes the upgrade worth it.
On my main system (triple boot, XP Pro, 98Se, Mdk 10, a PIII 600 with 768MB RAM), the patch was a definite improvement, faster bootup, better USB and nicer (Win2000 ish) UI.
On my parents system (dual boot, 2000/98SE, PII 300), it screwed up 98 so badly that it wouldn't boot and so I had to reinstall.
So go figure.
I'd used the earlier 1.1 and 1.2 patches on my own system as well previously with success..
I installed it. Very nice thing to have since I have 768MB RAM. So far, nothing suspicious going on. It does however remind me a bit of *spit* Windows ME *spit*.
It is now 2004. This is a operating system from 1998. WTF? In other news, I have finally developed fixes for the 1946 Packard Station wagon's carburator issues. Anyone driving a 1946 Packard on a daily basis can get the kit from me. Details will be given on a headline on/.
You're implying that as time has gone on, that MS operating systems have gotten better somehow, rather than worse. Bigger, bloatier, cruftier, that's about the only direction things have increased. I routinely tell people that Win 98 was the last version of windows that was any good. 2 of my machines still use it, and the only reason my primary machine doesn't use it is because it has 1.5GB of ram in it. So I'm going to give this 'service pack' a try, and finally get my hardware to have the speed that I bought it for.
I think poor active X is a plus, but I have forgotten, does NT4 support USB? I have been contemplating switching the 98 box here to that, I have a disk for NT4, put it on once but don't recall if it does USB well or not. Reason being a crappy little usb digital camera I have, a vivitar, it really borks my FC1 box,like major kernel panic, all the lights start flashing on the keyboard,nothing works, keyboard or mouse, you are forced to do a hard power off reboot, which sucks. So I download the pics to the 98 box now, then sneakernet them over, but I've read many times that NT4 is somehow better.
sidenote: spent the last three days (well, off and on ofcourse) playing with an old toshiba laptop running 95, no cd player for it, so it would be hard to change OSes. Got given to me as a total scrap piece, wouldn't even boot when I first got it. Cleaned the battery terminals,that worked, then when it booted the hard drive sounded like acorns in a rusty blender (something to do with industrial strength "health" magnet being put close to the machine before). Started with scandisk, ran it for more than a week until it stabilised enough to get to it and really work on it. Deleted a lot of kruft from previous owner, then spybotted it (hundreds), then antivirred it (some), reg supreme (200+ cleaned up, nice program), installed tiny personal firewall (no longer any zone alarm for 95, rats!)and XPrampro set on automatic, and been surfing with it. 16 megs ram, pentium 100, full color GUI, all works nice. 95 is lightweight and functional at least.. Latest opera 7.5 beta runs (kinda) real slow,you go nuts qucik with it, firefox.8 even slower, almost unusable at all,not even close to opera which is bad enough on the antique,BUT it loads and draws the best looking pages at like 3 minutes or more a page, but explorer 5 runs pretty zippy actually, loads quick, draws quick. Not really sure which other browsers to try, I know to not do netscape 4 series on it...
I think there's life in old boxes if you keep them clean and use a modicum of net savvy with them. Looking forward to the time there's an easy to use distro that'll run some linux on this and similar machines, full easy to use GUI out of the box.
I love notepad and used to use it a lot, but it had shortcomings and I fell in love with Metapad, a lightweight freeware replacement.
http://www.liquidninja.com/metapad/
Getting Windows to recognize the switch (it caches notepad.exe all over the place) can be tricky and I forgot how I did it.
Unfortunately this Win98SE Unofficial update overwrote my metapad replacement. I did however download metapad again and as a quick workaround removed.txt as a registered file type, then clicked on a.txt and chose metapad as the new opener for those file types.
Other than that, I haven't had any issues with the download yet, and am looking forward to trying some new features. The Win 2000 visuals look sharper, and things are running snappier in general. I also had TweakUI installed and it's not conflicting with that at all. Gotta love TweakUI, autologon among many other features.
I am running an older Toshiba laptop with limited HD space, so I prefer 98/SE to 2000...really 98/SE is imho the best MS/OS for older pcs. I wish MS would just release it as open source (like id and doom) when 2006 hits so it can become a hobbyist OS for legacy machines and legacy games.
As more and more version of Windows fall off the support bandwagon [microsoft.com], the only way to get updates will be to either roll your own or hope someone does it for you.
The absolutely brilliant scheme Microsoft has come up with to date is product activation. When Windows XP goes off support in Dec 2006, you MUST upgrade if your PC gets hosed or you upgrade your hardware, because you won't be able to reinstall it. Of course, businesses are exempt (software activation not required for bulk purchases/installs), so there's little chance of backlash from the majority revenue markets. Us home users, on the other hand, are screwed.
YES, love them. Ain't a new one out there I would keep if anyone gave it to me, with the exception of that one I saw on TV the other day, that sportscar/boat amphibious thing(If I could remember the name I'd post a link to it), THAT was nice from what I could see. But besides that, older vehicles got class and a "personality" to them.
Lemme see, from memory here my old wreckers that ran, and I know I'll leave something out: 51 studebaker champion pickup 62 studebaker sedan delivery 55 ford "meat wagon" sedan delivery (anyone remember dobie gillis show? what his old man had, the delivery truck) 59 Willys Jeep wagon 62 falcon 2 door wagon 63 falcon 49 chevy 7 window pickup-never built it some year nash metropolitan, don't remember, never rebuilt it 69 vw bus, *nice*, worked on that one a lot, solid as a moose on steroids 69 willys jeep wagoneer (well, when you lifted the hood the ID specs tag still said willys...) 69 mustang grande dang, almost forgot, a 62 valiant with a slant six, the stereotypical 100$ car that just wouldn't quit, just amazing little vehicle, got 25 MPG and start at 15 below zero F.
had a buncha 70s cars and a few 80's, never liked any of them really except a few volkswagens and the van I still have which I will keep forever
Last week my girlfriend got a 79 lincoln mark v, sat in a garage for 15 years until recently, CHERRY except for needing some paint. Can't hardly hear the engine running, smooth as silk, comfortable as all get out, big as an apartment inside the thing, and mileage is better (still low but better) than with our jeep (80 cj7) or my old van (75 chevy 20 series).
Wish I still had my old aircooled veedubbs though, they have held value pretty good over the years and the add ons and improvements they have for them now are *nice*.
Anyway, ya, older computers. the industry is based on planned obsolescence to keep going, realistically, we reached a real good point for 95% of computer users a few years ago now, there really isn't a major reason to upgrade. There needs to be a law like getting a new battery or something, IF you want to upgrade from a store/vendor, they take in one old one and recycle it properly, and if you don't turn one in you get charged serious more "deposit". make them deal with older stuff, they the ones profitting from the landfills filling up with their crap and "forced" upgrades, them and the OS and app vendors who won't code for smallish ram anymore. I keep my old boxes running as well as I can for just that reason, and I make sure they go to some deserving kid who will use them and not be freaked out they ain't the latest whizzbang 18 megayada marvels.
Didnt have any probs installing. I do have a 6gb disk, it would be pretty tight on a 4gb. You probably need more memory too, right now with nothing running the commit charge is ~80MB, so even 64 -> 96 would make the difference between having to swap or not.
I agree with what you've said here, but with a caveat that may seem obvious to some, not so to others: MOST big companies operate this way. Take for example the company I work for, which will remain unnamed here, but is a Fortune 500 company. The software we design is used in mission-critical systems as well as average not-so-critical situations. We routinely have hundreds of bugs that we know about, but choose not to fix. Why? Simply put, it's not profitable to fix them unless they rise to a level that threatens our revenue. Now that's not my decision, mind you, just the way things happen to be. I've got two friends who work at Microsoft, one of which works in an area dealing with OS bugs. Just before Win2K was released, I was sitting with him as he showed me the millions of bugs (yes, millions) that they (Microsoft) weren't going to fix... ostensibly for the same reason as my company.
I'm not saying that this is right, or we shouldn't strive to be better. It just sometimes gets old to hear "Microsoft bad" all of the time (and I'm not disagreeing) and not have the sort of group realization that, the way Microsoft operates is pretty much business-as-usual for most large corporations (and not just software corps).
That's why we need a strong regulatory climate (but not overly heavy-handed), and a market that takes care of the rest. And to all of those who say that Microsoft is too big to take down with just market-pressure, what about IBM? What about the little geek with an idea who juked one of the biggest companies in the world so bad they almost didn't recover? Someday... if the Linux idea keeps growing, it will reach a point where it too can do to Microsoft what Microsoft did to IBM.
Wow... looking back that that little rant, I seem to have wandered off the reservation. Hmmm... I wonder if I toss in a quick "Microsoft Bad" if it'll be enough to protect me from the inevitable flames?
98 SE involved some pretty significant departures from 98 original. In fact, there was more difference between 98 and 98SE than between 98SE and ME, down where the gears are turning.
Take the guy's word for it. If you can find a 98 to 98SE upgrade (they were about ten bucks in the day) run that first, THEN try his service pack.
If he was trying to get you to download and install a Trojan horse, why would he tell you to backup your system?
You haven't read
The Art of Deception: Controlling the Human Element of Security
by Kevin D. Mitnick, have you?
Why would he have a disclaimer with dire warnings about 'no warranty' and "damages" rather than a statement that the software is "r33ly L33t" and that you need it now?
"If he was trying to get you to download and install a Trojan horse,"
which I suppose he isn't,
he should in fact do exactly that.
You need to take the aluminum foil off of your head.
Probably, but just not for the reasons you describe.
Re:The eternal question: (Score:5, Interesting)
There's no source code of course, but this stuff isn't exactly opaque. Get yourself a copy of IDA Pro [datarescue.com] or SoftIce and dig in. You might learn a thing or two!
Microsoft's stance (Score:4, Interesting)
It'll be interesting to see what happens the if they issue a 'critical' security update, and there is a conflict with Mr. Coskun's patch. The cynic in me says they'd almost *deliberately* make it incompatible... oops!
software engineering skills vs grammar skills (Score:1, Interesting)
I hope his software engineering skills are better than his grammar skills. Pedantic point I know, I know, but then a lot of Software Engineering is pedantic. Quote:
"Use of Unofficial Windows98 SE Service Pack does not supercedes or provides any remedy for guarantee or warranty that may be invalidated in you EULA."
Wonder how this will work with 98lite (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm interested to try these together, and see if 98se can be made reliable with the patches, AND un-bloated with 98lite.
Re:What's so special?? (Score:5, Interesting)
i've personally had to deal with manually installing the individual patches MS has released for NT4 machines one by one (by one... somewhere in the region of 25-35 patches per machine; MS' advisory on chaining patches without having to reboot after each one is useful but still doesn't help all that much) because MS won't release a proper service pack 7 with all the security updates rolled into it, and if i had to maintain win98se machines, i'd be very happy to run into this.
and as for all the other posters - offhand i'd say i trust him.
Re:guarantees... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Link and Download Mirrors (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm really on the fence on this one.... Windows 98 users should know that their products are EOL'd, but then again this guy is giving back freely (albeit in an un-authorized and non-authoritaive manner).
Nah, Alper.. thanks but no thanks.. Your effort is admirable. If my laptop crashes and burns it'll be my last Windows system to go and it won't be a day too soon.
New Alt. for Virtual PC (Score:5, Interesting)
I am definitely going to check this out,
artlu [artlu.net]
How Very Timely (Score:5, Interesting)
Anyway, as if this story had any chance of getting interesting, I'll continue. Something happened to my Windows 2000 disk and it won't install. Call it karma, since my Windows 98 disk is one I actually bought off the shelf, believe it or not. So here I am actually bringing Windows 98 as up-to-date as is possible. Scary. I'm thinking of going out to buy XP later in the week to upgrade it, but it's only a K6 266 (with 384 MB of RAM... maxed-out, baby). I might actually need to buy the family a new computer.
Interestingly (yes, I'm actually continuing this drivel), I remembered last night what a hassle Windows can be, now that I've been a Mac OS X user for a couple of years. Motherboard video driver, monitor driver, oh yeah -- ethernet driver before anything else. This and that and the other. Hundreds of MB of downloads and a couple of dozen reboots so far, I guess. Yee-hah. Yes, it's my fault for still running an old computer with Windows 98. Anyway, worth a mention.
RP
Interesting... (Score:4, Interesting)
Depending on what I hear from others who've tried the patch I might install it.
Re:Microsoft's stance (Score:3, Interesting)
All of Microsoft's fixes allow command line options to supply the answer to any questions that a user would be asked so that a network admiinstrator can write a simple batch file to do the install on his network.
This really isn't much different than what commerical vendors such as BigFix do...
Re:just repackaged (Score:1, Interesting)
Not only that, but there is a lot of hardware out there that never got drivers updated past Win98. I have an Okidata winprinter that works just fine, but the driver only works up to Win98. It would be really cool if there was a mini Win98 program that did nothing but run drivers, and could run on an add-in card or USB drive.
Free Windows 9X, Microsoft take a hint! (Score:4, Interesting)
Someone else making security patches for the almost abandoned OS is a start.
Re:How Very Timely (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Do you trust Windows 98? (Score:3, Interesting)
In order to attempt to appear legitimate. I've seen simlar "no warranty" warnings in no-cd cracks and the like.
Why would Information Week provide a link to it if it was a Trojan horse?
Because they don't realise that it is, and believe that it's legitimate.
There's 96 hits on Google when you look up "Alper Coskun" (with quotes) and "98SE" -- none of which mentions his sinister plot to get your oh-so-valuable data that you keep on an ancient Windows 98 PC.
Now you're just being silly - he's hardly likely to put up a webpage about it, and a lack of others doing so just means that no-one has figured it out yet.
Now, I don't suppose that there is anything sinister about this, but really - to the best of my knowledge, he's just some random guy on the internet. Why should I trust him?
Re:Free Windows 9X, Microsoft take a hint! (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Trustworthy? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Free Windows 9X, Microsoft take a hint! (Score:2, Interesting)
They have said time and again that their greatest competitor is themselves - so do you think they would be stupid enough to have it turn into another Linux or at least something more useful/stable than it already is and eat into their cash flow - HARDLY!
-jp
Re:"Windows 98" - *98* - 1998! - GET A LIFE (Score:3, Interesting)
It runs rock solid, and quite snappy too.
I used to run win2k but the wireless support in winxp makes the upgrade worth it.
I've tried it with mixed results... (Score:5, Interesting)
On my main system (triple boot, XP Pro, 98Se, Mdk 10, a PIII 600 with 768MB RAM), the patch was a definite improvement, faster bootup, better USB and nicer (Win2000 ish) UI.
On my parents system (dual boot, 2000/98SE, PII 300), it screwed up 98 so badly that it wouldn't boot and so I had to reinstall.
So go figure.
I'd used the earlier 1.1 and 1.2 patches on my own system as well previously with success..
I installed it. (Score:2, Interesting)
So far, nothing suspicious going on. It does however remind me a bit of *spit* Windows ME *spit*.
Re:"Windows 98" - *98* - 1998! - GET A LIFE (Score:3, Interesting)
You're implying that as time has gone on, that MS operating systems have gotten better somehow, rather than worse. Bigger, bloatier, cruftier, that's about the only direction things have increased. I routinely tell people that Win 98 was the last version of windows that was any good. 2 of my machines still use it, and the only reason my primary machine doesn't use it is because it has 1.5GB of ram in it. So I'm going to give this 'service pack' a try, and finally get my hardware to have the speed that I bought it for.
USB support? (Score:2, Interesting)
sidenote: spent the last three days (well, off and on ofcourse) playing with an old toshiba laptop running 95, no cd player for it, so it would be hard to change OSes. Got given to me as a total scrap piece, wouldn't even boot when I first got it. Cleaned the battery terminals,that worked, then when it booted the hard drive sounded like acorns in a rusty blender (something to do with industrial strength "health" magnet being put close to the machine before). Started with scandisk, ran it for more than a week until it stabilised enough to get to it and really work on it. Deleted a lot of kruft from previous owner, then spybotted it (hundreds), then antivirred it (some), reg supreme (200+ cleaned up, nice program), installed tiny personal firewall (no longer any zone alarm for 95, rats!)and XPrampro set on automatic, and been surfing with it. 16 megs ram, pentium 100, full color GUI, all works nice. 95 is lightweight and functional at least.. Latest opera 7.5 beta runs (kinda) real slow,you go nuts qucik with it, firefox
I think there's life in old boxes if you keep them clean and use a modicum of net savvy with them. Looking forward to the time there's an easy to use distro that'll run some linux on this and similar machines, full easy to use GUI out of the box.
Notepad upgrade (Score:1, Interesting)
http://www.liquidninja.com/metapad/
Getting Windows to recognize the switch (it caches notepad.exe all over the place) can be tricky and I forgot how I did it.
Unfortunately this Win98SE Unofficial update overwrote my metapad replacement. I did however download metapad again and as a quick workaround removed
Other than that, I haven't had any issues with the download yet, and am looking forward to trying some new features. The Win 2000 visuals look sharper, and things are running snappier in general. I also had TweakUI installed and it's not conflicting with that at all. Gotta love TweakUI, autologon among many other features.
I am running an older Toshiba laptop with limited HD space, so I prefer 98/SE to 2000...really 98/SE is imho the best MS/OS for older pcs. I wish MS would just release it as open source (like id and doom) when 2006 hits so it can become a hobbyist OS for legacy machines and legacy games.
Get used to it (Score:5, Interesting)
The absolutely brilliant scheme Microsoft has come up with to date is product activation. When Windows XP goes off support in Dec 2006, you MUST upgrade if your PC gets hosed or you upgrade your hardware, because you won't be able to reinstall it. Of course, businesses are exempt (software activation not required for bulk purchases/installs), so there's little chance of backlash from the majority revenue markets. Us home users, on the other hand, are screwed.
older vehicles (Score:1, Interesting)
Lemme see, from memory here my old wreckers that ran, and I know I'll leave something out:
51 studebaker champion pickup
62 studebaker sedan delivery
55 ford "meat wagon" sedan delivery (anyone remember dobie gillis show? what his old man had, the delivery truck)
59 Willys Jeep wagon
62 falcon 2 door wagon
63 falcon
49 chevy 7 window pickup-never built it
some year nash metropolitan, don't remember, never rebuilt it
69 vw bus, *nice*, worked on that one a lot, solid as a moose on steroids
69 willys jeep wagoneer (well, when you lifted the hood the ID specs tag still said willys...)
69 mustang grande
dang, almost forgot, a 62 valiant with a slant six, the stereotypical 100$ car that just wouldn't quit, just amazing little vehicle, got 25 MPG and start at 15 below zero F.
had a buncha 70s cars and a few 80's, never liked any of them really except a few volkswagens and the van I still have which I will keep forever
Last week my girlfriend got a 79 lincoln mark v, sat in a garage for 15 years until recently, CHERRY except for needing some paint. Can't hardly hear the engine running, smooth as silk, comfortable as all get out, big as an apartment inside the thing, and mileage is better (still low but better) than with our jeep (80 cj7) or my old van (75 chevy 20 series).
Wish I still had my old aircooled veedubbs though, they have held value pretty good over the years and the add ons and improvements they have for them now are *nice*.
Anyway, ya, older computers. the industry is based on planned obsolescence to keep going, realistically, we reached a real good point for 95% of computer users a few years ago now, there really isn't a major reason to upgrade. There needs to be a law like getting a new battery or something, IF you want to upgrade from a store/vendor, they take in one old one and recycle it properly, and if you don't turn one in you get charged serious more "deposit". make them deal with older stuff, they the ones profitting from the landfills filling up with their crap and "forced" upgrades, them and the OS and app vendors who won't code for smallish ram anymore. I keep my old boxes running as well as I can for just that reason, and I make sure they go to some deserving kid who will use them and not be freaked out they ain't the latest whizzbang 18 megayada marvels.
Re:"Windows 98" - *98* - 1998! - GET A LIFE (Score:3, Interesting)
You probably need more memory too, right now with nothing running the commit charge is ~80MB, so even 64 -> 96 would make the difference between having to swap or not.
Re:The eternal question: (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not saying that this is right, or we shouldn't strive to be better. It just sometimes gets old to hear "Microsoft bad" all of the time (and I'm not disagreeing) and not have the sort of group realization that, the way Microsoft operates is pretty much business-as-usual for most large corporations (and not just software corps).
That's why we need a strong regulatory climate (but not overly heavy-handed), and a market that takes care of the rest. And to all of those who say that Microsoft is too big to take down with just market-pressure, what about IBM? What about the little geek with an idea who juked one of the biggest companies in the world so bad they almost didn't recover? Someday... if the Linux idea keeps growing, it will reach a point where it too can do to Microsoft what Microsoft did to IBM.
Wow... looking back that that little rant, I seem to have wandered off the reservation. Hmmm... I wonder if I toss in a quick "Microsoft Bad" if it'll be enough to protect me from the inevitable flames?
No, don't do it (Score:3, Interesting)
Take the guy's word for it. If you can find a 98 to 98SE upgrade (they were about ten bucks in the day) run that first, THEN try his service pack.
Of course (Score:2, Interesting)
You haven't read The Art of Deception: Controlling the Human Element of Security by Kevin D. Mitnick, have you?
"If he was trying to get you to download and install a Trojan horse," which I suppose he isn't, he should in fact do exactly that.
Probably, but just not for the reasons you describe.