installing windows 98 on a new computer

[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.

 

[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.

 

[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.

 

[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.