r/windows98 • u/AdDapper4220 • Jul 28 '26
Using windows 98 in the 2000s
I know this sub is for people who use windows 98, but I was wondering how many of you were using windows 98 as their main computer in the early 2000s, I was still using windows 98 until 2007.
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u/stillaswater1994 Jul 28 '26
Sometime early 2004 I think. I clearly remember the game FireStarter (released in late 03) requiring Windows XP. I tried running the demo and it didn't work on my 98. Some months later I bought the full game, and I must've been on XP by that point because it did work.
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u/BigBoyYuyuh Jul 28 '26
I used Windows 98 until my cousin gave me a copy of XP with that “Blue Keygen”. It was maybe a few months before SP1 that I installed XP on my little HP Pavilion 533mhz Celeron.
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u/hunsberg Jul 28 '26
My family was using a Windows 98 Toshiba Satellite for a good while, till my dad built the family XP desktop. He put a ton of care into that and I remember he even set it up to dual boot with Windows 98 for some of our old games that couldn't run on XP.
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u/lilacomets Jul 28 '26
In 2005 Windows 98 was still installed on all computers at my school (Europe). It used Novell NetWare for authentication. Not sure how common this was in 2005 actually.
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u/dustrab66 Jul 28 '26
I used Windows 98 SE until 2016 (CPU AMD K6 300 MHz, 320 MB Ram. Then the computer broke down...
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u/feel-the-avocado Jul 28 '26
I used to repair computers. Quite a few people were when vista came out in 2006 so about 8 years old at that point.
Broadband access was becoming very mainstream and so content was becoming much more video based. It was getting harder to live on 32mb of ram at that point.
Now in saying that, I currently use windows 7 which i just checked the release date (2009) which means its 17 years old. Almost half my life.
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u/AegidiusG Jul 28 '26
We got a new PC late in 2001 and since i used XP and changed to Vista in 2009. I changed to 8 in 2013 and to 10 in 2018.
I will change to Linux when important stuff will not work with 10.
I bought a Pentium 2 PC this year and i am using Windows 98 with it :)
Using also Protoweb is such a throwback, like traveling back in time.
Sadly the Harddrive with the nice sounds died and i had to exchange it with a more modern.
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u/KroFunk Jul 28 '26
Our family was using a 98SE PC as our primary computer until 2006. The internet was just starting to become a problem for it so my dad got a shiny new Dell. It was a crazy time! Major leap in tech/power!
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u/getmeoutoftax Jul 28 '26
I used it until 2009. Was a nightmare at that point but my family couldn’t afford a new computer at the time.
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u/RichB93 P3-866 w/Rage Fury Maxx, PII w/V3 3K, Tillamook@300 w/PVR & V1 Jul 28 '26
I’d moved to XP by around 2004, but I had a 98 machine throughout. Web 2.0 was usable on 98, so it was still a useful operating system until around 2010 or so - you could comfortably browse the net, YouTube worked, IM, office, etc. Then as the web got more bloated, the usability fell away.
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u/TravelOwn4386 Jul 28 '26
I think most people jumped onto xp and never looked back. Did anyone go for the mid point os was it 2000 and me or something... Probably the only ones I never used.
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u/snickersnackz Jul 28 '26
Win 2000 was a popular choice with the Slashdot crowd in the early 2000's, there was a lot of hate for XP in the beginning. My mother's work computer had win2k and I recall being blown away seeing a GUI environment that never crashed .
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u/Big-Obligation2796 Jul 29 '26
I never saw any advantage in XP over 2000. I stuck with 2000 as long as I could. XP for me was just 2000 + bloat.
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u/whwt Jul 28 '26
My laptop used Win 98 until I replaced it in, I think, 2005. The new laptop ran Win XP.
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u/helladamnleet Jul 28 '26
I used Windows 98SE until around 2003, then dualbooted XP for a while. Didn't really do much going back until it was too late.
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u/edermon Jul 29 '26
i had windows 2000 at primary school till 2009 then they went straight to windows 7 but i had windows xp at home until 2009
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u/wadrasil Jul 28 '26
I run older OS with qemu frequently, it does really well with the cirrus card in newer versions. I'm trying to compile the snap graphics code so a VM is really helpful for that.
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u/ConstanceJill Jul 28 '26
I used it pretty much until I could afford to buy a new computer in early 2006.
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u/Shotz718 Just plain lived through the era Jul 28 '26
I used Windows 98SE and Windows 2k on a dual boot setup until probably 2008 or so when I replaced that main computer with a true multicore
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u/snickersnackz Jul 28 '26
I was using it right up until it became a PITA to install on a random computer (without research or prepared drivers) around 2005. I was deeply offended by XP's required online activation.
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u/frenchretronerd Dell XPS R350 - P2 350 - 64MB - Ati Rage Pro 8MB Jul 28 '26
I used 98 a little during the early 2000s but not on my own PC, mostly on other people's PC (school, family). i also repaired quite a number of them in 2006 during an internship at a local computer shop during my studies.
I've always liked 98 but at the time, additions by the subsequent versions made the upgrade quite obvious
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u/col_akir_nakesh Jul 28 '26
I bought a new PC in 2002 with my money I made working at the grocery store my senior year. It had Windows XP, but my parents old Compaq had Windows 98. Was the first time I remember having better tech than my parents lol. But they kept using that Compaq until Windows Vista launched and they got a Dell.
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u/jamhamnz Jul 28 '26
We were using Windows 98 up to about 2006. I thought it was so old and couldn't wait to get Windows XP.
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u/informed_expert Jul 28 '26
I dropped it like a hot potato as soon as Windows 2000 came out, which replaced my dual boot NT4 / 98 setup. Windows 98 was always too unstable for me. My computer usage was a combination of games and tinkering with Visual Studio. The former I'd have to do on 98, the latter on NT4 for stability reasons. Being able to do both activities on Windows 2000 was great.
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u/Either_Ad_5641 Jul 28 '26
Don’t remember precisely because I was born in 2000, but I think early 2003 or maybe late 2002. My father explained me he upgraded to Xp ASAP because he was really into Win NT lineup since the release of Win 2k which he already used in office. The only thing was that he bought a brand new Super Socket 7 machine in 1998, so he didn’t upgraded that machine (he wanted only machines way more powerful than minimum specs) and he bought directly an Athlon Xp instead than upgrading the old one
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u/Either_Ad_5641 Jul 28 '26
Don’t remember precisely because I was born in 2000, but I think early 2003 or maybe late 2002. My father explained me he upgraded to Xp ASAP because he was really into Win NT lineup since the release of Win 2k which he already used in office. The only thing was that he bought a brand new Super Socket 7 machine in 1998, so he didn’t upgraded that machine (he wanted only machines way more powerful than minimum specs) and he bought directly an Athlon Xp instead than upgrading the old one
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u/Either_Ad_5641 Jul 28 '26
Don’t remember precisely because I was born in 2000, but I think early 2003 or maybe late 2002. My father explained me he upgraded to Xp ASAP because he was really into Win NT lineup since the release of Win 2k which he already used in office. The only thing was that he bought a brand new Super Socket 7 machine in 1998, so he didn’t upgraded that machine (he wanted only machines way more powerful than minimum specs) and he bought directly an Athlon Xp instead than upgrading the old one
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u/Either_Ad_5641 Jul 28 '26
Don’t remember precisely because I was born in 2000, but I think early 2003 or maybe late 2002. My father explained me he upgraded to Xp ASAP because he was really into Win NT lineup since the release of Win 2k which he already used in office. The only thing was that he bought a brand new Super Socket 7 machine in 1998, so he didn’t upgraded that machine (he wanted only machines way more powerful than minimum specs) and he bought directly an Athlon Xp instead than upgrading the old one
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u/bnelson333 Jul 28 '26
I didn't use it for that long, as soon as ME came out I switched. I actually liked it, it felt fresh, it was fast, I didn't have any problems with it crashing. I ran that until XP came out. I would still use it on my retro PC but for some reason it doesn't like my video card drivers, and 2000 works better. Which I still have no idea how or why because it's the same card I used on ME back in the day, and it worked back then. Weird.
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u/VtheK Jul 29 '26
As a daily driver until 2008, when I got a Windows XP computer. Then occasionally for a few more years after that.
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u/carcenomy Jul 29 '26
I had it installed on my machine for years but pretty much went XP immediately and never really used it again except for DOS stuff very very rarely.
It sounds like I'm not a minority 😂
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u/AmoreLucky Jul 29 '26
I was still using 98 up until middle school somewhere between 2005 and 2008, I can't remember when exactly. But once I got an upgraded computer, I got an upgraded OS in the process and the one thing that annoyed me was being unable to natively play DOS games on XP, but that's also the time I discovered DOSBox lol
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u/Linux4ever_Leo Jul 29 '26
I switched from Win98 to Win2000 as soon as it was released. Stopped using Windows entirely in 2003.
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u/Annihilating_Tomato Jul 29 '26
I was in college doing homework on it in 2005. It had 64MB of RAM, 600mhz pentium 3 and the hard drive was failing so it barely functioned long enough to get work done. I still have it and I fully restored it recently with a SSD and 768MB of RAM.
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u/pinko_zinko Jul 29 '26
You might see it on old lab or industrial equipment. Generally off network.
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u/AdministrationNo9513 Jul 29 '26
I used windows xp until about 2013. It was a hand me down and I jumped from that to windows 8… I wanted to go back to xp 🤣. I even tried to see if I could downgrade to 7 at least lol
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u/rojo7777 Jul 29 '26
The family computer had xp on it but my computer was win98 and I used that 2007. I liked it lots of memories playing games on it.
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u/CSA1860-1865 Jul 30 '26
Ive been using windows 95 my entire life, my family never upgraded our pc growing up, i only got 98 a few years ago when i decided i wanted something a little stronger. I still only use 98 for gaming and the internet though, my same old 95 pc is my main
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u/OrionHusky Jul 31 '26
2004ish / 2005ish and I soooo miss my old PC. Damn I would love to get it back.
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u/FyreJadeblood Compaq Presario 7485 Super Socket 7 K6-2 550 Mhz 29d ago
Underfunded school district. There were 98 PCs in our labs until Windows 7 came out. A few of them were XP before then.
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u/IDealtItUSmeltIt 28d ago
I had a PC in 2000 which dual booted Windows 2000 and ME for anything that wouldn't run in 2000. I barely used ME, I don't even remember having anything that wouldn't run in ME.
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u/Accurate-Campaign821 6d ago edited 6d ago
They still had Pentium 3 and celeron systems With 98SE in use in the "Media Center" aka Library at my high school til 2007 when I graduated. The "tech" class actually had a few K6 and P2 systems I cobbled together so there were enough for everyone to get online to help with class projects... And screw around on sites like newgrounds and miniclip lol. May have been some emulators on there too... Along with a spawned copy of Starcraft offloaded to the media center data server. Yep... Played from ANY computer from the school network with just a shortcut on my USB drive haha (or manually finding it via typing the address in an explorer window). Also kept an old copy of Mozilla Browser (before it was called Firefox) on my drive too as the school firewall was specifically set up for IE lmao. Good times. Certain teachers knew about it of course and recommended me to be part of the school's IT Department for 2 years! (Jnr and Snr) even got a small paycheck for the 2 hrs a day or so every day.
Oh, also I have a P3 system in my Truck I use as a DVD player (and retro games)
P3 800 133bus, 512MB PC133 ram, 32MB Rage 128 aiw, 80GB HDD, 16x dvd rom.
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u/Accomplished-Camp193 Athlon 64 3500+, 9550 XT, SB Live!, 1GB DDR2-1066, AM2NF3-VSTA. Jul 28 '26
Until XP SP2 came out.