Upgrading Windows98?

travel_freak

Hi there,

I hope someone can help with my queries below.
I'm going to place a number of posts as I have a few different questions.

I've just got AOL broadband. It's working fine with my desktop and laptop which both have Windows XP.

BUT, I have one much older desktop which I keep for a spare and which is really only used for basic Word stuff and for limited internet surfing. It's a really old spec (see below). I don't necessarily want to upgrade it but thought it would work better with broadband if I did. Also if at all possible I'd like to set it up on wireless broadband. The spec is below.

Intel Pentium III 450 MHz (I know this is ancient!)
MS 440ZX Chipset (?)
Processor Cache
96MB SD 100 (tiny, I know by today's standards!)
13Gb UDMA Hard Disk Drive
Onboard Enhanced IDE
ATI 8Mb Xpert AGP Card
Windows 98 software (the older version, not SE)

My questions are:

1. Need I upgrade to XP to get this to work on broadband either as a wired connection or wirelessly?

2. Either way, it doesn't have an Ethernet port. I've seen a "Fast Ethernet PCI Adapter" at Maplins which is compatible with both Windows 98 and XP. So that should be fine but it depends when I open it up if it will have a place to slot it into - I guess I won't know that till I take a look but in theory if there is a slot available should this work OK either keeping Win98 or upgrading to XP?

3. I asked at Maplins yesterday whether I would be able to find a wireless adapter which is compatible with Windows 98 (if I don't upgrade) and they said they thought not because 98 is virtually obsolete. A quick look at the ones on their shelves and at Tescos and these all said they would only be compatible with Win 98SE which I don't have and above. Does anyone know of any wireless adapters that would work with Win98 and be compatible with my AOL Netgear wireless adapter?

4. Last question - which I will also post as a separate post to see if I can get more replies - is, if people think I should or must upgrade, is it a safe/legal thing to do to buy secondhand/used operating system software from ebay? I had a quick look yesterday and there seem to be plenty of people selling this but I genuinely don't know if this is a legitimate thing to do - I would have thought not due to licensing laws but would be grateful for advice from anyone more knowledgeable!

Huge thanks in advance for any advice.

Regards,

gaming_guy

you would be better using linux on that as windows xp would run very very very slowly as it needs a minimum of 256mb ram to run satisfactorily

oh, and one more thing Linux is free!

espresso

Just get yourself an Ethernet card for less than a fiver. It is possible to use a wireless adaptor but you would most probably be restricted to WEP encryption.

dragonsoup

Well I've been running Windows 98 and broadband for a couple of years now with no problems. I do use a cabled system rather than wireless though.

woo

You can also get a wireless PCI card too which would be compatible with windows 98.

albertross_2

If you can, it would be better to wire it with ethernet, because of the difficulties in getting wpa encryption to work on 98. (You have encrypted your router haven't you?).

If you do decide to go the XP route, the processor spec is fine, but you may need some more ram to make it run smoothly.

vultura

I would opt for PCI 10/100 card, not a wireless device. XP on that PC will be slow in use, more ram may help, but if its not use much is there any point in spending money upgrading it?

travel_freak

gaming_guy wrote:

you would be better using linux on that as windows xp would run very very very slowly as it needs a minimum of 256mb ram to run satisfactorily

oh, and one more thing Linux is free!

Hi Gaming Guy,

Many thanks for your post. This sounds interesting and the free bit sounds great! I've never heard of Linux before, can you tell me a bit about it? Is it easy to use? Would I still be able to reload my Word software and other software using Linux as an operating system?

Also, where can you get Linux from for free?

Thanks again.

Regards

espresso

Freely available on the net.

BillScarab

You wouldn't be able to use word or other microsoft office programs as it's a totally different OS. However you can get equivalent software which will load word or excel documents etc.

Openoffice (https://www.openoffice.org) is probably the most popular, it's also available for windows and it's free.

There are loads of different versions of Linux around, RedHat, Suse, Mandrake and Ubuntu for example. Ubuntu seems to be the most popular at the moment for home use.

To be honest if you just want to get it working on broadband and carry on using it just get a network card and some ethernet cable, it's cheap and you won't have to learn a new OS and software. If you like playing around with computers and want to experiment and learn some new things installing Linux is not a bad idea.

nowtsquared

If you want to move away from Win 98 - tho you don't really have to I suggest looking at Kubuntu or Ubuntu (flavours of Linux). Only an option if you use the money you save to buy a bigger disk drive. The OS is very easy to use and then you can have a dual boot system - change between windows and Linux as you wish.
Lots of info on the net - see Ubuntu forums for info before you make your choice.