Windows 98 is a sick, sad, sorry excuse for a program. It's unstable, eats more system resources than even Win95 managed to hog (quite a feat, good job Microsoft, idiots)
They really didn't add anything that Win95 couldn't already do (with freeware patches in some cases), it takes ages to boot, even on a top of the line system, even after you remove all the stupid little systray programs everyone seems to have run at boot these days. It seems to grind the C:\ drive pretty much constantly, updating the swap file maybe? Or maybe just playing around?
Windows, any version of Windows, will slow your system down, but it's really getting out of hand with Win98. I have a P-150 with Win95, and my brother's got a P3-600 with Win98, running the same programs, right after boot, with no extra stupid utilities running in the background, my system is faster than his. What does that tell you about the gulf between these 2 "operating systems"? And it's not just his system either, I've seen several computers running Win98, all new ones, P3s, and every single one of them acted like a 486/66 with a hangover. I kid you not.

The other day, I went into Best Buy, looking at monitors, and happened to take a look at a Win98 box, just to see what they had listed as the system reqs. I was stunned and almost dropped the box, it called for a 486 system or higher. Now I remember running 95 on a 486, it works, if you have at least 16MEG of RAM, but it's not really a great idea. Running 98 on one would be nuts, if it were even possible. Microsoft really needs to stop lying so much.

Of course, Microsoft makes sure, to the best of their ability, that Win95 is no longer available, and that all systems are packaged and shipped with 98 now. A lot of people are going to be stuck with this nightmare, so I advise you, if you get a new system, and you have a copy of Win95 laying around, don't hesitate to "downgrade" your Windows to this former version, so you can get at least some of your money's worth out of your computer.(that is, unless you're sick of Windows altogether, and who could blame you?)

I never liked Windows, but I hate Win98 and all it stands for (Weblike interface? as if newbies need to have the line between home system/web further blurred by this garbage) that I've been tempted to stand in the software section of Wal-Mart and give these same warnings to anyone who so much as looks at the Win98 package.



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