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Twenty years ago today: Windows 98 crashed live on stage with Bill Gates. Let's watch it again...

Relive that sphincter-loosening blue screen of death.

Video Let us pause for a moment and reflect on the fact that 20 years have passed since Windows 98 memorably fell over during Bill Gates' presentation at Comdex.

A nervous-looking Chris Capossela, now chief marketing officer at Microsoft, attempted to plug a scanner into a Windows 98 PC while Gates looked on. The intent was to demonstrate the plug-and-play abilities of the upcoming OS. The result was an all-too-familiar Blue Screen of Death (BSoD), and a "whoah..." from Capossela.

Youtube Video

"That must be why we're not shipping Windows 98 yet," quipped Gates.

As Windows 10 Springwatch approaches its third week, one can only imagine that something similar must have happened somewhere in a Redmond meeting room shortly before the update was due to be unleashed on an expectant public. The latest version of the operating system, unofficially dubbed the Spring Creators Update, is unexpectedly BSoDing for some testers, we're told.

As folks await the release, comfort can be drawn from the fact that while the world may have changed in a variety of distressing ways over the past 20 years, and the Comdex IT conference itself is long defunct, Windows 10 can still point the way back to simpler and happier times.

By generating a BSoD when you least expect it. ®

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The infamous Windows 98 "Blue Screen of Death" event happened 25 years ago today

John Callaham Neowin @JCalNEO · Apr 20, 2023 08:48 EDT · Hot! with 13 comments

Let's face facts: Microsoft has had its share of blunders over the decades, from the launch of Windows 8 , to the Xbox 360's Red Ring of Death , to Clippy . However, one of the most memorable gaffs in the company's history happened 25 years ago today, on April 20, 1998.

At the time, Microsoft was still developing Windows 98, the successor to the highly successful launch of its Windows 95 OS. During a keynote address at the annual COMDEX trade show in Chicago, Microsoft co-founder and, at that time, CEO, Bill Gates was promoting the development of Windows 98, which was at that time just a few weeks from going gold in May, and officially launching in June 1998.

During the presentation, Gates was joined by his assistant Chris Capossela. He wanted to demonstrate the Plug and Play support that was included in Windows 98 to quickly connect external input devices and have them "just work" with the PC.

Capossela showed this off by connecting a scanner to a Windows 98 PC. He was talking about how the PC recognized the scanner and it started to load its drivers.

And then . . . Well, the Windows 98 PC quickly flashed the infamous Blue Screen of Death.

The attendees at the keynote address quickly erupted into applause. We would like to think most of them were sympathetic to Capossela's situation. We have all been there when a major presentation in front of our boss didn't go according to plan. It may just not have happened with thousands of other people watching.

To his credit, Capossela kept his composure on stage when the BSOD appeared, and quickly said. "Moving right along . . ." Gates also seemed to give Capossela some slack. Gates was smiling as he stated, "That must be why we are not shipping Windows 98 yet."

While the Blue Screen of Death was not created with Windows 98, that COMDEX keynote certainly popularized this "feature" of Microsoft's Windows operating systems. The BSOD continues to appear on PCs, including the recent Windows 11, so it's clear Microsoft doesn't want to redesign its color for that kind of near-feature PC issues.

By the way, Chris Capossela recovered very nicely from that Windows 98 blunder. He's currently the Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer at Microsoft . However, we do wonder if he has flashbacks to that COMDEX event 25 years ago.

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It’s been 20 years since Windows 98 crashed live on stage with BSOD

Every Windows users must have once in a lifetime encountered the Blue Screen on a Windows-powered computer. It is called the “Blue Screen Of Death aka BSOD”. It has been made by Microsoft to show the related information on why the PC crashed with that unwanted and unresponsive Blue Screen.

April 20, 2018, was the 20th Anniversary of this Blue Screen of Death which Microsoft showed the world when Bill Gates and Chris Capossela were launching a new plug and play feature for Windows 98. The catch here is that Microsoft was embarrassed to see this blue screen themselves as they were at COMDEX conference to launch the new features and not the Blue Screen of Death.

Chris Capossela was on the stage with Bill Gates and as he was showing the crowd the new features of Windows 98, the blue screen made the computer unresponsive at a live event. He paused for a few seconds to fix the bug and boot the computer again, while the audience was laughing at that moment.

Bill Gates who was smiling at this incident jokingly said for the situation that this must be the reason why they have not released the Windows 98. Bill Gates could have fired the engineers worked on Windows 98 demonstration including Chris but he decided to move on, and Chris Capossela is still working for Microsoft. You can watch the whole incident on the Blue Screen of Death below.

The Blue Screen of death still exists on the latest version of Windows 10 operating system, and it appears that Microsoft would never ditch it. It is worth noting that Microsoft delayed the next version of Windows 10 due to the likelihood of Blue Screen of Death errors on systems installing it.

“As Build 17133 progressed through the rings, we discovered some reliability issues we wanted to fix. In certain cases, these reliability issues could have led to a higher percentage of (BSOD) on PCs for example. Instead of creating a Cumulative Update package to service these issues, we decided to create a new build with the fixes included,” Microsoft said in a statement last week.

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Windows 98 is 20 years old today: but is it an OS worth celebrating?

What’s more appropriate – a ticker-tape parade or a toilet paper pelting?

Twenty years ago today, Windows 98 was unleashed onto the world. At the time, Microsoft was a very different company, with Bill Gates still CEO – he didn’t hand over the reins to Steve Ballmer until the year 2000 rolled around (although he did make the bombastic Ballmer president of Microsoft in 1998, just a month after the fresh OS was released).

Windows 98 launched accompanied by much fanfare on June 25, 1998, becoming available in over 40 countries across the globe, and going on sale in more than 12,000 retail outlets in the US.

This was the much-awaited follow-up to Windows 95, which had been released three years previously and had made some huge changes to usher in the era of the contemporary Windows desktop OS . These changes included going 32-bit, booting from scratch (as opposed to being ‘manually’ fired up from DOS), and bringing in the familiar user interface which featured the Start menu and taskbar.

So, back in the day, Windows 98 had a lot to live up to. And by its very nature this OS was more about refining and honing Windows 95, rather than making massive changes to Microsoft’s desktop platform.

That said, there are definitely areas where Windows 98 made a positive impact, and in honor of its 20th birthday we’re going to look back at those highlights – as well as its shakier points – and weigh up whether or not this operating system ’s anniversary is truly a cause for celebration.

Smoother sailing

One of the most important changes Windows 98 made was to implement a whole host of tweaks to address the various bugs which had scuttled around the inner workings of Windows 95. 

There were lots of bug fixes, and performance was smoothed over in general, which was obviously welcome – although something that really should have been included in Windows 95 in the first place. So, not so much a positive as the removal of a negative, but still a good thing nonetheless.

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Windows 98 was certainly a more stable operating system, and it also improved things on the hardware compatibility front with USB support, opening up a whole new world of peripherals for users. While, technically, Windows 95 did kick-off USB support with later versions, it was hardly reliable.

Side note: one of the most famous tech demo fails was Bill Gates showing off Windows 98 by attempting to plug-and-play with a scanner, except it all goes horribly wrong – on live TV no less. 

Although, as Microsoft’s CEO at the time swiftly points out (as you can see in the video below), this was a pre-shipping copy of the OS. USB support got better with Windows 98, and was further refined with Windows 98 SE (which stood for Second Edition – the updated version released in 1999 which also improved things on the networking side with elements like internet connection sharing).

So, Windows 98 felt better – more streamlined and stable than its predecessor – but did it look better? On the interface front, as we mentioned before, Windows 95 made the really big change with the introduction of what we know as the contemporary Windows-style UI built around the Start menu. And Windows 98 simply kept that core interface, by and large, but there were certainly changes made by Microsoft.

Web wonderment

The major move was making the desktop interface more web-like, allowing for a web page-style presentation in certain elements of the UI, giving you, for example, links for help and support embedded in the Control Panel in case you got stuck.

Single-clicking on an icon could fire up an app or trigger a function, mirroring the fact that you only needed to click once on anything in your browser to activate it. Desktop widgets that could be updated in real-time with info pulled from the web became a thing, and this invasion of the web on the desktop was really all about Microsoft integrating its Internet Explorer 4.0 browser into the OS.

Indeed, if you installed Internet Explorer 4.0 on a Windows 95 machine, you’d be using much the same UI; so this was hardly revolutionary for Windows 98. Also note that you could plump for a classic desktop in Windows 98, and you didn’t have to turn all the web gubbins on – you could just run with some custom elements of the latter (or none at all).

One strength here was how you could tailor the interface to your liking, which was just as well, as a number users at the time felt that the web stuff could get in the way (particularly some of the more intrusive elements).

Another quick aside: this direct integration of Internet Explorer into Windows led to accusations of Microsoft unfairly leveraging its own web browser over rival efforts (like Netscape), and a big anti-trust action was launched against the software giant later in 1998 (one that nearly resulted in the company being forcibly split into two). Certainly there were major question marks over Microsoft’s attitude here, and accusations that the firm had become the bully of the software world.

Updates sated

It’s also interesting to recall that Windows Update was first introduced with Windows 98, notifying the user of critical security updates, new drivers and other optional bits and pieces. It was pretty basic, though, in this initial incarnation. That said, at least it didn’t force updates down your throat without any ability to delay them like Windows 10 (at least without upgrading to the Pro version).

Windows 98 further ushered in a number of new system maintenance tools, including utilities to keep your hard disk running more smoothly, such as Disk Cleanup, which got rid of temporary files and other unnecessary clutter. The OS also allowed users to switch their hard drive to FAT32 format, freeing up some more room on the disk in the process.

This was also the first version of Microsoft’s OS to support multiple monitors, which was a pretty revolutionary feature two decades ago.

Celebrate good times?

Broadly speaking, Windows 98 was well-received at the time it was released, but let’s return to our central question on the anniversary of the operating system: is it a piece of work worth celebrating? That’s a tricky call, really.

Looking back at what we’ve highlighted here, there’s clearly nothing earth-shattering about what Windows 98 achieved. But, while the operating system didn’t do a huge amount in and of itself, it was building on the foundations of Windows 95, which was a more transformational project that moved us on a long way from the far more limited days of Windows 3.1.

What Windows 98 really represented was a stepping stone, followed by a second step with Windows 98 SE – the substantially tweaked Second Edition of the OS – which truly shaped and refined what Windows 95 started.

With Windows 95, we received a recognizably modern OS, but with Windows 98, Microsoft delivered a recognizably modern OS that was polished enough to be truly worth taking note of. So, on balance, for that reason, we will say yes: this is an operating system worth celebrating.

So crack open some champagne, a beer, or your beverage of choice, and raise a toast to Windows 98 two decades on from its launch. Perhaps this operating system’s biggest problem, when it comes to historical perspective, is that it’s overshadowed by what came shortly after. Namely Windows XP , which arrived in 2001 and is certainly more fondly remembered – and indeed still (unwisely) used by some folks even today.

• Feeling nostalgic? Here's how to get the Windows 98 experience on today's PCs

Top image credit: Kevin Jarrett ( Flickr )

Darren is a freelancer writing news and features for TechRadar (and occasionally T3) across a broad range of computing topics including CPUs, GPUs, various other hardware, VPNs, antivirus and more. He has written about tech for the best part of three decades, and writes books in his spare time (his debut novel - 'I Know What You Did Last Supper' - was published by Hachette UK in 2013).

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NEWS WATCH; Gates's New Face: Red but Cheerful

By Peter H. Lewis

• April 23, 1998

As the world now knows, Bill Gates's computer crashed spectacularly as he and an associate were demonstrating Microsoft's forthcoming Windows 98 at the Spring Comdex computer exposition this week in Chicago. But that was not the real news. Very few executives in the technology industry have not suffered a similar embarrassment while demonstrating a prerelease, or beta, product in public. The demo gods are cruel.

The real news is that Bill Gates laughed it off. ''I guess we still have some bugs to work out,'' he said, chuckling. ''That must be why we're not shipping Windows 98 yet.''

He had every reason to be cranky, with a Federal antitrust hearing kicking off the next day in Washington. But it was a kinder, gentler Bill Gates who appeared before the Comdex crowds. Earlier, when the microphone failed as he was being introduced for his keynote speech, he chortled. ''In my house, I have 40 Windows machines I depend on to turn my lights on and off, and they work most of the time,'' he said. Modern technology, he added, ''brings a certain thrill to simple tasks.''

Mr. Gates began presenting his softer side to the public earlier this year when he crooned ''Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star'' to his infant daughter on national television and started appearing in advertisements for golf clubs.

True, some people in the Justice Department and in Silicon Valley still think of him mainly as America's Richest Man and as the Most Feared Competitor in the global marketplace. But in his Comdex speech, Mr. Gates wanted to convey that even he gets frustrated by the incomprehensible, unhelpful error messages that pop up on his Windows machines from time to time. His company is spending ''substantially more than $1 billion a year'' on Windows research and development, in part to eliminate those error messages, he said.

Then an error message popped up and his computer crashed.

Tweaking the Justice Department, Mr. Gates emphasized the integration of the Internet Explorer Web browser with the operating system on Windows 98. But he said the browser interface for Windows was merely an interim phase; eventually, users will operate Windows using their voices and gestures.

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Article topics, twenty years ago today: windows 98 crashed live on stage with bill gates. let's watch it again....

Let us pause for a moment and reflect on the fact that 20 years have passed since Windows 98 memorably fell over during Bill Gates' presentation at Comdex. A nervous-looking Chris Capossela, now chief marketing officer at Microsoft, attempted to plug a scanner into a Windows 98 PC while Gates looked on. The intent was to …

It's always great entertainment

Especially as it happened more than one time to Microsoft.

Just Google up "Microsoft on stage fail". You may even Bing it but I'm not sure of the results.

Re: It's always great entertainment

Just Google up "Microsoft on stage fail".

Guests in the first 8 rows will get wet also the splash zone is up to 12 rows.

WOOOOOOOOO!!!!

DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS!!!

WOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

In case you haven't seen maybe the sweatiest man on the planet get overexcited ...

I prefer the remix myself.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=d_AP3SGMxxM

Used to be it wasn't a real Microsoft event until Windows crashed. People used to run a pool on what minute of the presentation it would happen in.

"That must be why we're not shipping Windows 98 yet," quipped Gates.

Either quick thinking or a case of anticipated.

Whatever the case good response.

Re: "That must be why we're not shipping Windows 98 yet," quipped Gates.

He knew his baby back then. Can't watch video at work but have a feeling he drew in some breath as that was being done lol.

"Either quick thinking or a case of anticipated.

Whatever the case good response."

Agreed. Love him or hate him, he did handle that rather well. I can imaging a lot of other CEO types who would handled that rather...rather...differently :-)

Can you imagine how Elon Musk would have handled it? Screaming tantrum, wild accusations of big oil shills, the poor bugger doing the demonstration sacked before he left the stage and then a blank denial that any of it ever happened.

s/Elon Musk/Tim Cook/

s/Elon Musk/Steve Jobs/

I wonder how many people would have got fired then and then the audience told the BSOD was a feature and that they were plugging in the scanner wrong...

Or by pointing out that in the infinite possibilities of the universe, somewhere Tesla turns a profit

Still funny, even after all these years

" Still funny, even after all these years"

And still happening, after all these years.

Re: " Still funny, even after all these years"

I thought it happened at the 1997 PDC, but apparently I was mistaken.

'Developers Developers Developers Developers' was in 1993, as i recall [though Ballmer may have done it more than once].

And I _MUCH_ prefer Win '98 to Win-10-nic, in AS MANY WAYS AS ARE POSSIBLE!

Only it isn't happening all these years after really, is it?

Unless you use cheap ho-flung-dung hardware then windows 7 is generally rock solid.

I think I can count the number of bsod ive seen in the last 6 years on one hand.

@cornz 1 you beat me to it.

The last time I saw a machine bsod due to hardware was a win7 machine I forced to use a winxp driver and I knew the chances were high it'd cause problems.

In fact I can count on one hand the number of times i saw an XP machine bsod

I must have been unlucky.

What do they call the blue screen of cantshutdowndespitegettingonaplane.

I get that pretty much every flight.

I think I prefered bsod.

I still see them from time to time but usual it's a warm day and I've been hammering the machine for a few hours. 5ghz vs the stock 3.1ghz will do that occasionally ..

(Fire because the psu went that way once..)

Mine only BSOD'd when I used the dodgy fake-FTDI peripherals and the FTDI driver would deliberately BSOD when it detected a counterfeit peripheral...

I managed to BSoD Win10, but that was a bad stick of RAM. Not cheap stuff either, but it managed to reduce Mint to a screen full of random colours when I tried that, which I guess leaves Windows slightly ahead, because at least it gave me a readable error message.

"cheap ho-flung-dung hardware" Really? Are you that immature and ignorant?

Utter bollocks! I have a Dell XPS 13 (i7, 16gb RAM, with Windows 10 etc etc)... Had several BSODs.

Luckily I have another machine running Linux Mint... which never fails.

"...Utter bollocks! I have a Dell XPS 13 (i7, 16gb RAM, with Windows 10 etc etc)... Had several BSODs..."

Sample size of one. What, exactly, have you done to diagnose the issue on your Dell? Ever stopped to consider it could be hardware related? Or even Dell-created? Tried blowing it away and putting a vanilla copy on?

Or was it a corporate image? I've never seen them be problematic...

"...Luckily I have another machine running Linux Mint... which never fails..."

I had a Mint Cinammon VM that would freeze almost without exception. It was being run on VirtualBox and was a know, but to the best of my knowledge never fixed, issue.

Sample size of <some> as it was on the various forums.

Wait one moment whilst I rant about how crap it was...oh hang on.... one use case was problematic and using an alternative OS fixed it.

Bill actually handled that very well. Imagine what Steve Jobs would have done to that guy.

Always remember, as a famous Commodore engineer once said: "There's nothing nasty about Bill Gates, and nothing nice about Steve Jobs".

Re: Bill Gates

I think your famous Commodore engineer should talk to Paul Allen, for example ... yes, Gates' high school buddy with whom he founded Microsoft! For those who do not know, one of the two was undergoing cancer treatment while the other tried the dilute his buddy's shares.

Besides, when Commodre was still in business, Gates was the most hated professional ... Gates later made ONE promise and has since become a philantropist-hero-angel-demi-dog, all previous lies, betrayals, bullying, extortion ... all forgotten, all thanks to one promise ... I judge people on what they do, NOT what they say ... and I ignore what serial liars say, regardless of what they have done, good or bad.

PS: I want a reliable source for your quote or I call bullshit. I cannot see how a "famous" (whatever that means in this context) Commode engineer could have any form of affection for Gates.

PPS: Regarding Steve, I do not think it is right to make up something like that considering he is dead!

'I cannot see how a "famous" (whatever that means in this context) Commode engineer could have any form of affection for Gates.'

Perhaps he used Windows Paint to design his portable toilets...

The famous Commodore engineer is Chuck Peddle.

'You might have heard of him.'

Actually when someone is dead is the best time, you can say whatever you want with no libel ;)

"Actually when someone is dead is the best time,

you can say whatever you want with no libel ;)"

Libel is printed, Slander is spoken.

"Libel is printed, Slander is spoken."

You'll have to speak up, I'm wearing a towel.

Libel is printed, Slander is spoken, but it's only libel or slander if it's NOT TRUE.

So, as long as you can PROVE what you say or write is true, no problem!

"Libel is printed, Slander is spoken, but it's only libel or slander if it's NOT TRUE."

Perhaps in your jurisdiction but not in England and Wales. The old saying was "The greater the truth, the greater the libel."

As an example, suppose you ran a car dealership in a town full of fundie Christians and I printed in the local paper that every Friday night you used to whip Mrs. Bob with a riding crop and then pleasure her with a gigantic vibrator. Regardless of truth, it would be libel because your business would be harmed but your kink would have no relation to the business of selling cars. Unless you were also the local preacher and telling your congregation that anything other than straight sex through a hole in a blanket would send them straight to Hell, when a public interest defence would apply.

In effect, you have no right in the UK to reveal damaging information about people that has no implications for their interactions with others. And that is surely as it should be.

Perhaps in your jurisdiction but not in England and Wales.

Where did you source your facts from, wikipedia? Let's read the primary legislation, shall we?

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2013/26/crossheading/defences/enacted

(1)It is a defence to an action for defamation for the defendant to show that the imputation conveyed by the statement complained of is substantially true.

And therefore, should you make a substantially true statement you cannot be found guilty of libel or slander.

by that logic, we could only say good things about Adolf Hitler.

Wow that was quick.

"by that logic, we could only say good things about Adolf Hitler."

no, because THAT would be LYING.

Read Steve's official autobiography. It clearly states in there that he was an arsehole. Even his wife didn't want them to hide that fact.

Confused, was it an autobiography or not?

"Confused, was it an autobiography or not?"

These days it seems you don't have to write your own autobiography.

"These days it seems you don't have to write your own autobiography."

Nothing wrong with a posthumous unauthorized autobiography. That's what ghostwriters are for, particularly the posthumous part. Getting the ghost to unauthorize the autobiography can be a little tricky, though, I understand ...

To clarify on the autobiography comments, the book was not an autobiography--it was a standard biography, not written by a ghost writer helping Jobs, but by a writer who wrote about him. The writer in question is Walter Isaacson. He got approval to interview people, including long interviews with Jobs and his family, as well as many people who worked with, lived with, knew in some capacity, or talked about Jobs at some point. The number of times the word "jerk" and less complementary synonyms appeared should at least assuage the comments that the book will tell only the story from Jobs's perspective.

Regarding Steve, I do not think it is right to make up something like that considering he is dead!

forget the comment was St Jobbs for a moment, but Just because someone is dead does not excuse or alter someone's opinion of them.

People often recite terrible things about for example Margaret Thatcher. They call her a milk thief for taking the milk from kids in schools. She killed a bunch of Argentinians in a boat heading away from an exclusion zone. She Killed off British coal mining.... Where what she did was take the milk from schools and give it it to the kids in the way of milk tokens that parents could buy milk with (or booze in the pub as I know many of them took milk tokens). The Belgrano was in a direction heading out of the exclusion zone, but with a quick change of direction that could have took but a few minutes, put a significant number of ships in the task force in danger. And she stood her ground to a dictator who called the miners out on strike for a year without a ballot...

And dont forget, she worked on the team that invented mr whippy icecream....

Do a little more reading about St Jobbs and you find he really was not a very nice person at all. he was a very driven person getting what he wanted and spitting his dummy if he didnt get his own way..

Interesting story and I'm not surprised - Bill Gates was ruthless in business. But he wouldn't fire anyone for something that wasn't totally in their control - Jobs would.

About the pledge - I think he will be remembered for his philanthropy a lot longer than his role at Microsoft, even Jobs will be forgotten by then. Its no use hoarding your money if nobody else benefits from it - once you go past a billion it makes absolutely no difference, all those extra billions are just wealth you are keeping from everyone else. Get the hint Mr Bezos?

Its no use hoarding your money if nobody else benefits from it - once you go past a billion it makes absolutely no difference

Or as Andrew Carnegie put it, "A man who dies rich dies in disgrace."

Sadly some people seem to think that looking at a big number is the thing that will satisfy them. I know some of these people.

Plug-and-play was always a hack, it dynamically bumped a device up and reallocated the old interrupt number to the new device. Unfortunately if the old device was doing something vital the machine went blue-screen. The solution being to manually set the devices to the highest interrupt, that way they won't be changed when a new device is plugged in.

@J. R. Hartley: ' as a famous Commodore engineer once said: "There's nothing nasty about Bill Gates, and nothing nice about Steve Jobs" '

A better metric would be to count how many times Steve Jobs has been in court as compared to Bill Gates. Gates faux geek persona was what let him for years, get away with murder.

Microsoft Litigation Resource Page

"A better metric would be to count how many times Steve Jobs has been in court as compared to Bill Gates. Gates faux geek persona was what let him for years, get away with murder."

Not wishing to take sides between either of them but the second item on that page is Apple suing Microsoft.

> Imagine what Steve Jobs would have done to that guy.

The announcement of the first iPhone was said be a scary time for some engineers - it was touch and go that it would make it through the presentation without crashing.

Still, I seem to remember a technical issue during a Jobs keynote that he handled well - I can't imagine him not having practiced such a response.

I could be remembering wrong but I think its in his autobiography or written somewhere else I saw recently where they admitted the iPhone didn't actually work and it was all just animated. Steve had to get the timings correct so no one would notice.

Are the down votes from the people who also believe WWE is real? :) I like WWE despite knowing it's not real.

Anyway, look it up on YouTube. The first iPhone release. You'll see people who were part of it stating it didn't work and they thought it would crash. Steve had to follow a script with what he was running. There were also multiple phones behind his stand and he, like a magician, would switch phones when one of them wasn't working but everyone was lead to believe it was just one phone.

I still don't like Apple or Steve but was interesting to see that video.

> Still, I seem to remember a technical issue during a Jobs keynote that he handled well - I can't imagine him not having practiced such a response.

The camera with the flat battery?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1M4t14s7nSM

Very much doubt that Jobs would have allowed anyone else on the stage with him, also it would have been extensively tested before he plugged in the scanner to ensure that it worked ok.

"Very much doubt that Jobs would have allowed anyone else on the stage with him,"

Jobs was famous for inviting people on stage with him. I still remember my excitement at seeing him bring John Carmack on stage to show in-development Doom at the launch of whatever Mac was starting to ship with a Geforce3 onboard.

I always thought Bill was nice but apparently he wasn't that nice. There are a few videos of him around not being so nice I've recently seen. They are old but interesting.

I wonder what Ballmer would've done.

Probably chucked a couple of chairs hither and thither?

"There's nothing nasty about Bill Gates"

I'm not sure the neighbour from whom he bought QDOS would agree.

that was just a business deal. Like many other deals before and after.

you buy something and sell it for more money. Thats the very basics of how business works.

When Gates bought QDOS, he was selling it on to IBM. He made the money by getting the cravat in on the deal that he could licence DOS to other companies. IBM thought that the money was going to be in the hardware, Gates was thinking otherwise. IBM assumed that Gates may make a few thousand licencing DOS elsewhere so didn't think it would be a big deal.

the bloke who actually wrote QDOS most likely would not have got through the door at IBM. Gates probably thought he would make a lot from DOS, but probably didn't realise how big it was going to get. But just because it turned out more valuable does not mean you go back and give the person you bought from more money.

He made the money by getting the cravat in on the deal that he could licence DOS to other companies.

Always important to dress well when making a deal.

Re: Bill Gates and QDOS

....or the people from Stac Electronics who had their technology stolen by M$.

If you didn't think your own product was worth much and you sold off all rights for $100 to someone who thought it was worth a lot more - I wouldn't blame Bill Gates for that. The neighbour who sold the QDOS to Gates is obviously having a case of sour grapes...

I can't wait to reminisce about Windows ME. Windows 98 wasn't too bad it was just a lot of trial and error with drivers, hardware and software to avoid the BSOD.

windows 98 wasnt too bad. it played with citrix faaaar better then 95 (and plus pack). The only issue was good old conventional memory. you needed close to 600k to get 98 booting without any issue. Not a problem for most 95 gamer guys (afterall we had 635k boot disks WITH genius network and mouse drivers).

NT4 matured nicely at the time and was better than NT3.5 I didnt mind 98. 2k were the hey days. I remember getting an early MCSE on server 2k and thinking it was totally revolutionary.

Don't mention

"Bill Gates at Comdex - OS/2 is the plaform of the 90s"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmiwiUeEn4k

And for those who need to run OS/2 on modern hardware...

https://www.arcanoae.com/

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/05/19/new_version_of_os_2_arca_os_5/

Re: Don't mention

I ran OS/2 from Warp 3 until its final eComStation incarnation until 2006, when I replaced it with Ubuntu. In those nine years I think I had two crashes.

My first laptop ran WIn98

It was an unstable beast. Time computers, poor, even for then.

To its credit, I put Win2000 on it and, lo and behold, solid as a rock, almost NT like.

I could even put it in standby, amazing.

And for the record, my son sent me a message about a year ago saying "Dad, my laptop did a BSOD", he had never seem once on his Win10 laptop, which was about 2 years old and came with Win8 originally.

My Linux Mint laptop at work has crashed once in the year I have been using it. No 'BSOD', just a common (about 8 times in that year) failure to respond, super slow mouse movement, taking 15 to 20 minutes to get a console so I could killall Firefox (or Chrome, which caused the first few slowdowns); in this case the machine just rebooted before I could recover it.

To Linux's great credit, it is very nice to almost never have to reboot but Win10 really does not crash much at all. I suspect it is more often than Linux overall, on a per-PC level I mean, but almost everything on Windows carries legacy cruft and it suffers for it. I suspect that it is also technically more complex, not always a good thing of course.

Basically, it offers so much more (to the non-technical user especially), for so little extra risk, a reboot once per month and the very rare possibility of a BSOD and a restart in 30s.

Re: My first laptop ran WIn98

My first PC that ran a "modern" version of Windows run 95 and it was utterly terrible, to the point where I appreciated the direction Windows was going, but stuck with 3.11. I upgraded to 98SE and it was solid and stable. No problem at all. A friend later had ME and it was awful so I avoided that, went directly to XP, which was pretty good once it had matured to the SP3 flavour...

I never had that many problems with ME. I'm sure other people did, but the hate it got and still gets seems to be a bit over the top.

ME was fine when it came preinstalled, i.e. the manufacturer ensured everything worked before shipping it. My Gateway Essential 800 came with it and ran very stably for 5 years - I think it bluescreened once in all that time.

> ME was fine when it came preinstalled

Wrong. WinME had severe issues, including stuttering sound, CD burner support was buggy (in the days before buffer-overrun HW support, it meant "broken CD"), lot's of BSOD because of little QA. Win95 C and Win98 SP1 were very stable, Win98 RTM and WinME RTM were super buggy.

Anyway most people downgraded to Win98 SP1 and dual-booted to Win2000 and shortly afterwards to installed the beloved new WinXP to get rid of the crap that WinME was.

But, what do we downgrade to 14.01.2020? That's what I want to know?

Yup, WIN ME wasn't too bad. It could run for 49.5 days without crashing.

In most cases that was a total non issue. ME was a desktop operating system so would most likely be shut down at the end of each day. The issue began if you decided to cheap out and try to use it as a server platform instead of using 2000.....

Still bettter then the last Two versions of Windows. (e.g. Windows 8.x, and Windows 10).

I put Windows ME on my home PC. Between the Diamond Monster MX300 sound card an a Gainward Geforce2 video card I never got the thing to stay up for more than 15 minutes.

The next day I put 98SE back on it and got back to enjoying it. Fuck Windows ME and everything it ever stood for. I think I saw it on 3 machines ever, and those three caused more headaches for me than Vista.

(Also put 2000 Workstation on my PC later and it was great until I finally went with XP x64.)

I loved both NT4 & Win2K & was heartbroken when my system died & had to upgrade to a new motherboard & XP.

NT didn't die - it lives on in Windows 2K, XP, Vista, 7, 10 & Windows Phone. Its Windows 9X that died, and rightly so...

NT4 was probably the most stable OS I had ever seen...

incorrect. time computers were poor because of the kit. they were shit cyrix on shit boards with shit ram. Dell pentiums ran nicely on 98. gateway machines did too.

I had a small nt4 network with about 100 dell pentium 133s all with 98 (citrix login of course). they ran lotus notes and 123 just fine.

I should dare say... seeing as Win2k WAS NT.5.0!

happy happy joy joy

I spent a few years working as a volunteer cybercaf guy for a community cybercaf that was originally all higgledy-piggledy second-hand PCs all running MS Win98SE.

It hurt having to reboot some poor dude's PC because MS Win98SE had frozen, locked up, gone to lunch, BSoDed.

Some time after I started, we had a meeting, voted to apply for a community grant for a new set of PCs and a non-profit set of WinXP Home licenses, and never had that happen again. But of course, being Microsoft of Monkey Boy Era, it had security holes like a sugar junky has fillings.

It crashed live on stage in the most controlled environment possible...

... and Bill quipped that must be why they weren't shipping it yet, however the release date meant that retail boxes had almost certainly shipped from manufacturing - so a complete blag....

... yet a shedload of people bought it and still do to this day?

And they call Apple users sheep.....

At least Billy G kept his cool and was jovial about it

For a more recent example, refer to Steven Sinofsky's Surface tablet crash of 2012. That bald twerp was obviously rattled on stage; you could sense the fury welling up within him. I would imagine some backstage tech guys getting screamed at after the event.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QRWa68MtLc

Yeah, Steven Sinofsky. Julie Larson-Green invented those infamous Metro tiles, Sinofsky green-lighted them and made them ubiquitous. He left (was probably fired) but his horrid legacy endures on.

After Windows 98 we had the far worse Windows ME.

Looks at MicroSofts last Two attempts at OS wizardry. Oh come back ME all is forgiven. Though I still would prefer w2k, over you.

Many BSOD's were due to autoplay/autorun, Microsoft allowed companies to create a menu for their CD disks. To do this Microsoft had deigned it would be written to the registry and function like other shell right click menus. When the CD was inserted autolpay would enter the menu reference into the Registry, and when the CD was withdrawn from the CD tray, the Registry could not find a registry reference and would BLUE SCREEN. This was one of the most common BSOD's experienced by users. Thanks Microsoft.

A little "Autoplay Off" tool helped to stop menu creation and hence many BSOD's. most menus were not important to the function of the CD anyway. I had almost none.

As for Mr Bill the then CEO and chief software engineer, Pffffff! shulda blue screened him long ago.

Re: Few Knew

> Many BSOD's were due to autoplay/autorun. Microsoft allowed companies to create a menu for their CD disks.

Bullshit. The BSOD were because of either:

A) buggy third party device drivers

B) buggy third party software

C) buggy WinME, because of rushed release and lacking QA. And yes WinME was horrible buggy. Win95 and Win98 SP1 were very stable, in comparision.

The Blue screen you are referring to is the Windows 9X 'Please re enter the disc in drive X' prompt. Being Windows 9X such low level prompts were displayed in a text 'DOS' screen and not using the Windows GUI. This wasn't a BSOD as simply choosing 'Abort, Retry or Ignore' (Anybody remember that??) would make the screen go away.

Hmm, why is it that whenever MS completely rewrites Windows for a new major release, all the old bugs are also faithfully rewritten?

We are now on W10 and it still BSODs for many of the old reasons and the USB subsystem still doesn't work properly - What a bunch of sad sack developers, developers, developers...

Different day :)

Windows 98 also gave me a lot of expense and trouble....

...and in 1999 I moved on to Linux -- first with Red Hat 5.2 to be precise.

Since then I've used Red Hat and Fedora (currently Fedora27/XFCE). This means I'm involved in the detail of re-imaging and support for my multiple machines. That said, I've never had a repeat with Red Hat or Fedora of the year of aggravation I had with Windows 95 and Windows 98.

In 1998 I spent around £500 on Windows licences. Since moving to Linux, my total expenditure on licences in twenty years has been less than £200.....and I'm still able to do everything I've ever wanted to do. It's only one data point, but the point is that Linux actually does work well on the desktop, something that the single data point of the Bill Gates demo couldn't demonstrate for Windows 98!

I miss w2k more...

" Windows 10 can still point the way back to simpler and happier times.

By generating a BSoD when you least expect it. "

Apart from a catastrophically dead hard-drive once being the cause I can't remember the last time I saw a BSOD on 10, 8 or XP.

Also in 1998

Gates was hit in the face with a custard pie, that video I can never get tired of watching.

20 years of going backwards

Amazing how 20 years alter and we have windows 10 which is a large step backwards in almost every way.

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Windows 98, 98 SE &amp; 2000

Mar 23, 2019

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Windows 98, 98 SE &amp; 2000. By: Daniel Justice Chris Ross Solo Hedd-Williams. Windows 98. Brief History. Introduction. Codename Memphis Released to manufacturing on May 15, 1998 and released to retail June 25, 1998.

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Windows 98, 98 SE & 2000 By: Daniel Justice Chris Ross Solo Hedd-Williams

Brief History

Introduction • Codename Memphis • Released to manufacturing on May 15, 1998 and released to retail June 25, 1998. • Like Windows 95, it is a hybrid 16 bit/ 32 bit product with a MS-DOS based boot loader. • Microsoft support for Windows 98 ended on July 11th, 2006

New driver standards • Windows 98 introduced a new driver standard called the Windows Driver Model. • Unified driver model for standardizing the requirements and the amount of code that needed to be written. • The drivers in this model are forward-compatible so that a WDM driver can run on a version of Windows newer than what the driver was initially written for, but doing that would mean that the driver cannot take advantage of any new features introduced with the new version. Although, generally the drivers are not backwards-compatible.

System Requirements • 486D-X/ 66 MHz or higher processor. • 16 MB of Ram ( 24 MB recommended) • At least 500 MB of space available on HDD. Amount of space required depends on the installation method and the components selected. • VGA or Higher resolution monitor • CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive • Microsoft mouse or compatible pointing device (optional). • Like its predecessor, Windows 95, and its successor, Windows Millennium Edition (Me), users can bypass hardware requirement checks with the undocumented /im setup switch. This allows installation on computers with processors as old as the 80386.

New system tools • ScanDisk- System utility used to maintain the file system. It offers a DOS and a GUI version. Used to check the integrity of the file system and files stored within. • Disk Defragmenter - Used to counter the negative effects of file system fragmentation. It collects fragmented file parts, reconnects them and rearranges all files in optimal order, thus speeding up file access and allowing faster boot times.

System tools cont’d • Scanreg - Used to restore the System registry. It tests the registry's integrity and saves a backup copy each time. The maximum amount of copies could be customized by the user through "scanreg.ini" file. The restoration of a faulty registry can only be done in DOS mode. Important DOS commands: scanreg/opt - optimizes the registry by deleting dead entries; scanreg/fix - repairs registry settings. • Msconfig - A system utility used to disable programs and services which are not required to run the computer. It is a very powerful tool that can greatly enhance the system's stability and speed, but is also capable of rendering the system non-functional if used incorrectly. • Regedit - Allows manual editing of the registry.

Windows 98 life cycle • Microsoft had planned to discontinue support for Windows after Jan 16, 2004 but because of the popularity of the OS, they decided to continue support until Jul 11th, 2006. • By that time, Windows 98 market share had diminished to 2.7%. • Windows 98 is no longer available from Microsoft in any form due to the terms of Java-related settlements Microsoft made with Sun Microsystems.

Blue screen of death • This screen was shown after a critical system error that was encountered that can cause the system to shut down to prevent irreversible damage to its integrity. • Blue screens are normally cause by poorly written device drivers or malfunctioning hardware. • They can also be caused by physical faults like faulty memory, power supplies, overheating of computer components, or hardware running beyond its specification limits.

Troubleshooting BSOd

Windows 98 Second Edition

Windows 98 Second Edition includes many improvements and enhancements not included in the original version of Windows 98. These include fixes for known issues in Windows 98, and new tools and capabilities to help you be more productive. Windows 98 Second Edition

What's New? • Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) • Device Bay Controller • DirectX Version 6.1 • Microsoft Connection Manager Version 1.2 • Microsoft Dial-Up Networking (DUN) Version 1.3 • Microsoft Distributed Component Object Model (DCOM98) • Microsoft Internet Connection Sharing (ICS) • Microsoft Internet Explorer 5 • Microsoft Data Access Components (MDAC) 2.1 • Microsoft Active Accessibility (MSAA) • Microsoft NetMeeting Version 3.0 (build 4.4.3345) • Microsoft Wake-On-LAN • Microsoft Wallet Version 3.0 • Microsoft Windows Media Player Version 6.2 • Microsoft Year 2000 (Y2K) Updates • MSN, The Microsoft Network Version 5.0

Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) Windows 98 already contains the capability to operate directly connected to an ATM network, exposing all of the speed and quality of service capabilities (QOS) of ATM. Currently, ATM obtains access for all programs through Local Area Network Emulation (LANE).  IP/ATM goes beyond the support provided through LANE with  • Increased performance • Less network overhead • use of the QOS capabilities of the network through Windows Sockets

Device Bay Controller Device Bay is an industry specification that defines a mechanism for easily adding and upgrading personal computer peripheral devices without opening the computer case. The Device Bay specification applies to all classes of computers, including desktop, mobile, home and server computers.

DirectX 6.1 Microsoft DirectX is a collection of application programming interfaces (APIs) for handling tasks related to multimedia, especially game programming and video, on Microsoft platforms.  This version of DirectX includes new DirectMusic, DirectDraw, Direct3D and DirectPlay features. DirectMusic is a deprecated component of the Microsoft DirectX API that allows music and sound effects to be composed and played and provides flexible interactive control over the way they are played. DirectDraw is used to rendergraphics in applications where top performance is important. DirectDraw also allows applications to run full-screen or embedded in a window such as most other MS Windows applications. Direct3D is used to render three dimensional graphics in applications where performance is important, such as games. Direct3D also allows applications to run full-screen instead of embedded in a window, though they can still run in a window if programmed for that feature.  DirectPlay is part of Microsoft's DirectXAPI. DirectPlay is a network communication library intended for computer game development, although its general nature certainly allows it to be used for other purposes.

Microsoft Connection Manager Version 1.2 Microsoft created the Connection Manager to automatically route requests to an internal network (intranet) or VPN if the host name does not have a period in it.    Also, the Connection Manager supports the ability to use a proxy server to provide access to the internet.  Normally the use of a proxy server is for enterprise customers.

Microsoft Dial-Up Networking (DUN) Version 1.3 This security upgrade for DUN is designed to enhance the protection of both dial-up and Virtual Private Network (VPN) connections. Microsoft Challenge-Handshake Authentication Protocol (MSCHAP) version 2.0 secure mode has been implemented, providing mutual authentication, stronger initial data encryption keys, and different encryption keys for the transmit and receive paths. Also, clients that support 128-bit encryption accept any level of encryption (128-bit or 40-bit) offered by the server. This upgrade provides a new registry flag, ForceStrongEncryption. When set, this flag requires 128-bit encryption for any connection that has already been set to require encryption. Because of this, setting the new registry flag essentially changes the meaning of the existing check box from "require encryption" to "require strong encryption"

Microsoft Distributed Component Object Model (DCOM98) The DCOM98 wire protocol transparently provides support for reliable, secure, and efficient communication between Component Object Model (COM) components such as ActiveX controls, scripts, and Java tools residing on different machines in a LAN, a Wide Area Network (WAN), or the Internet.

Internet Connection Sharing (ICS) ICS provides support for multiple computers to obtain access to the Internet through a single connection using Network Address Translation (NAT). ICS routes TCP/IP packets from a small LAN to the Internet. ICS maps individual IP addresses of local computers to unused port numbers in the TCP/IP stack. Due to the nature of the NAT, IP addresses on the local computer are not visible on the Internet. All packets leaving or entering the LAN are sent from or to the IP address of the external adapter on the ICS host computer.

Internet Explorer 5 Internet Explorer 5 offers the following two new ways to save Web pages that include embedded components: • Web page, complete • Web archive Web Page, CompleteWhen you save a Web page as "Web page, complete," a folder with the same name as the Hypertext Markup Language (.html) file is created in the target folder. This folder contains page elements such as images and sounds. The relative links to embedded content in the Web page are re-written to point to the contents of this new folder. Absolute links such as a hyperlink to another Web page are not re-written. As long as the folder is kept with its corresponding .htm file, the opened file includes the referenced images. Web ArchiveWhen you save a Web page as "Web archive," the Web page saves this information in Multipurpose Internet Mail Extension HTML (MHTML) format with a .mht file extension. All relative links in the Web page are remapped and the embedded content is included in the .mht file, rather than being saved in a separate folder. The absolute references or hyperlinks on the Web page remain unchanged and the .mht file is viewed using Internet Explorer.

Microsoft Data Access Components (MDAC) Version 2.1 This update includes the ActiveX Data Objects (ADO) version 2.1, and seek and index property method that adds fast, index-based location of rows in a record set. A framework of interrelated Microsoft technologies that allows programmers a uniform and comprehensive way of developing applications that can access almost any data store.

Microsoft Active Accessibility (MSAA) This update of MSAA fixes several compatibility issues with programs and clients that use Active Accessibility. When you install this upgrade, your accessibility aids such as screen readers, voice-input utilities, and the Microsoft Magnifier performs better with a wider range of programs.

Microsoft Wallet Version 3.0 Wallet version 3.0 improves the capabilities for merchants to easily extend Wallet to support additional credit card payment protocols. Developers can build support for their own custom encryption and payment instruction methods into the Credit Card Payment Module.

NetMeeting Version 3.0 NetMeeting 3.0 is a smaller, easier to use interface, a Web-based directory for finding others, data security, as well as many other performance and ease-of-use benefits.

Wake-On-LAN Wake-on-LAN enables a computer to be power-managed, yet available on the network. When a network interface card (NIC) and driver are installed, a computer can go into a low-power state and conserve energy. When activity to the computer from another computer on the network is detected, the NIC detects this, and "wakes up" the computer to respond to the request.

Web-Based Enterprise Management (WBEM) WBEM is an industry standard you can use to administer Internet Web browser-based networked computers.

WebTV for Windows Update The hardware updates in WebTV for Windows provide support for the ATI BT829 chip set and includes added support for the BT848, BT878 and BT879 chip sets. This update also provides support for WaveTop version 2.0. WaveTop is the nationwide data broadcast medium that is used to deliver multimedia content through existing television transmissions to your computer.

Windows Media Player Version 6.2 The Windows Media Player offers FM-stereo quality audio over a modem, MP3 quality at a fraction of the normal file size, and more. With Windows Media Player, you can play most audio and video file types found on the Internet, as well as on your own computer.

MSN, The Microsoft Network Version 5.0 MSN (originally The Microsoft Network) is a collection of Internet sites and services provided by Microsoft such as Hotmail and Messenger. This updated version of MSN is faster, easier, and is much more powerful than before.

Troubleshooting The most common issue with Windows 98 SE is shutting down and/or restarting the computer When Windows 98 Second Edition does not shut down properly, it may appear to stop responding (hang) for several minutes while the following message is displayed on the screen: Please wait while your computer shuts down

Troubleshooting (contd) Common Causes of Shutdown Problems Shutdown problems in Windows 98 Second Edition can be caused by any of the following issues: • The Fast Shutdown registry key is enabled. • There is a damaged Exit Windows sound file. • A program or terminate-and-stay-resident (TSR) program may not close correctly. • An incompatible, damaged, or conflicting device driver is loaded. • There is an incompatible Advanced Power Management (APM) or Advanced • There is an incompatible Basic Input/Output System (BIOS) configuration setting. • The computer contains incorrectly configured or damaged hardware. • There is a video adapter that is not assigned an IRQ in real mode. • Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) setting.

Solutions IRQ Steering This option allows several PCI devices to share the same interrupt request line (IRQ). If the BIOS is not fully compliant, this option may cause your computer not to shut down properly, even if two or more devices are not sharing an IRQ. To disable PCI bus IRQ Steering, follow these steps: • Click Start, point to Settings, click Control Panel, and then double-click System. • On the Device Manager tab, click System Devices. • Double-click PCI Bus, and then click to clear the Use IRQ Steering check box on the IRQ Steering tab. • Click OK, click OK, and then restart your computer. • After you restart the computer, attempt to shut down your computer again. Resume on Ring and LAN Disabling the “Resume on Ring and LAN” feature in the computer’s BIOS may solve some shutdown-related issues. For information about how to do so, contact your computer or BIOS manufacturer.

Solutions (Contd) Plug and Play BIOS In some cases, the BIOS and Windows may not be communicating properly with the computer hardware during the shutdown process. You can configure Windows 98 Second Edition to ignore the presence of a Plug and Play BIOS and communicate directly with the hardware.  To configure Windows not to use the Plug and Play BIOS: • Restart your computer, and press and hold CTRL until you see the Windows 98 Startup menu. • Choose Command Prompt Only. • Type the following line at the command prompt: • cd \windows\system • Rename the Bios.vxd file to Bios.old. • Restart your computer. • After the computer restarts, attempt to shut down Windows. If the computer shuts down correctly, the system BIOS is likely to be contributing to the shutdown problems. Contact the motherboard or BIOS manufacturer for a possible update. 

Solutions (contd) Antivirus Program – if you have an antivirus program that is configured to scan your floppy disk drive when you shut down your computer, your computer may stop responding.

Windows 2000

Agenda • Overview • Different versions • Requirements • Basic Troubleshooting

Overview • Windows 2000 • Released on February 17, 2000 • Update Method: Windows update • Line of operating systems • Professional, Server, Advanced and Datacenter Server • All versions support Windows NT file system, NTFS 3.0 • Microsoft marketed as most secure Windows ever • Became a victim of several virus’s “Code Red” and “Nimba” • Still receives packages for security vulnerabilities

Overview cont… • Windows 2000 is a continuation of the Windows NT • Replaced Windows NT • This was first Windows released without code name • Was suppose to replace Windows 98 and Windows NT 4.0 • Microsoft released Windows 98 SE • Logical Disk Manager • Simple Volume-disk space from one disk • Spanned Volume- 32 disks show up as one, increasing size but not enhancing performance. When one disk fails – all do • Striped Volume- RAID-0, store data on several disks

Overview cont… • Introduced Microsoft Management Console • Used to create, save, and open administrative tools • The main tools are in Microsoft Management Console • Event viewer, disk management, removable storage, disk defrag, performance diagnostic console and service config • Recovery Console • Outside the installed copy of 2000 • From boot CD • Recover system from problems • Checks hard drive, repairs boot information, replace corrupt files

Versions • Windows 2000 Professional • Basic home use • Fast Networking • Personalized menus • Supports Universal Serial Bus • Encrypted File Systems • Windows 2000 Server • Has all features of Professional • Improves manageability • High-level interfaces for databases • Microsoft Backoffice

Versions cont… • Windows 2000 Advanced Server • All features of Professional and Server • Business applications • Increased reliability • User friendly • Supports 8-way symmetric multiprocessing and up to 8GB RAM • Windows 2000 Data Center Server • All features of Professional, Server and Advanced • Increased large networks • Supports 32-bit processors • Great for large enterprises • Increased performance

Requirements • Windows 2000 Professional • Computer: IBM or 100% compatiable • Processor: Intel Pentium 333 MHz or better • Memory: 32 MB • Drives: 650 MB • Sound/Video: VGA • OS: Win 95, 98, NT 3.0 or 4.0 • Price: $300.00

Requirements • Windows 2000 Server • Computer: IBM or 100% Compatible • Processor: Intel Pentium 133 Mhz or better • Memory: 256 MB • Drives: 1.0 GB • Sound/Video: VGA or higher • OS: Win NT Server 3.0 or 4.0 • Price: $900.00

Requirements • Windows 2000 Advanced Server • Computer: IBM or 100% compatible • Processor: Intel Pentium 133 Mhz or better • Memory: 256 MB • Drives: 1.0 GB • Sound/Video: VGA or higher • OS: Win NT Server 3.5 or higher • Price: $3,600.00

Requirements • Windows 2000 Data Center Server • Computer: IBM or 100% compatible • Processor: Pentium 3 or better • Memory: 256 MB • Drives: 2.0 GB • Sound/Video: VGA or better • OS: Any Windows 2000 package • Price: $3,999.00

Basic Troubleshooting • Problem: • Error message encountered during boot before windows loads • Solution: • Make sure BIOS settings are configured correctly • Improper BIOS settings may cause various types of errors when first booting • Problems: • Error message while Windows is loading • Solution: • 1. Try loading last known good config • 2. Boot into safe mood • 3. Restore registry using scanreg

Basic Troubleshooting • Problem: • Other error message after windows loads • Solutions: • Virus protection up-to-date • No viruses • Windows 2000 is up-to-date • Programs loading automatically make sure no errors are associated with them

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• Preferences

Microsoft WINDOWS 98 - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Microsoft WINDOWS 98

System components of windows 98. file system of windows 98. networking of windows 98 ... what is new in windows98 true web integration. active desktop. new settings menu items. my ... – powerpoint ppt presentation.

• Bülent BAYÇELEBI Tarik YÜKSEK
• History of Windows 98
• Design of Windows 98
• System components of Windows 98
• File system of Windows 98
• Networking of Windows 98
• Programmer interface of Windows 98
• Microsoft Windows, version 1.0 Released in 1985
• Microsoft Windows, version 2.0 Released in 1987
• Microsoft Windows, version 3.0 Released in 1990
• Microsoft Windows, version 3.1 Released in 1992
• Microsoft Windows for work groups, version 3.1 Released in 1992
• Microsoft Windows NT, version 3.5 Released in 1994
• Microsoft Windows 95 Released in 1995
• Microsoft Windows 98 Released in 1998
• Microsoft Windows 98SE Released in 1999
• True web integration
• Active desktop
• New settings menu items
• My documents folder
• Interface animation effects
• Display enhancements
• Support for multiple displays
• Performance enhancements
• System Kernel
• Device Drivers
• User Interface
• Application Enviorenment

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