# Installing 98 over ME



## Ruby (May 10, 2002)

Can you install windows 98 over ME without messing something up? Or can you uninstall Me then install 98. How hard is that to do? There should be enough hard-drive to do it. It is a 20 Gig.


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## Gary in ohio (May 11, 2002)

The question is WHY are installing a dead non supported OS over anything.


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## Nevada (Sep 9, 2004)

Ruby said:


> Can you install windows 98 over ME without messing something up? Or can you uninstall Me then install 98.


You can install it in another directory, like c:\windows.000


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## OntarioMan (Feb 11, 2007)

Yup - about the only reason to run 98 now is to support those "defunct" pieces of oddball business software which will only run on 98 (and not in comptability mode of other OSs) - and even most of those folks have, by this point, found more modern alternative to whatever it is they were running. 

At this point, running 98 or ME is just wasting time and energy.



Gary in ohio said:


> The question is WHY are installing a dead non supported OS over anything.


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## Ruby (May 10, 2002)

BUT WHEN THAT IS ALL YOU HAVE AND DON'T HAVE THE MONEY TO UP GRADE THAT IS ALL YOU CAN DO.

Thanks for the answers, I guess we can experiment and if it screws it up my daughter will just be without a computer again, while she's saving up for a new one.


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## OntarioMan (Feb 11, 2007)

Run Windows 2000. If you can find the CD (or a copy), I'll email you a valid legitimate key code. IMO, Windows 2000 is far better than Win 98 or ME.

Does anyone know if you can still get updates for Windows 2000 from the Microsoft site? Its been awhile since I've run it.



Ruby said:


> BUT WHEN THAT IS ALL YOU HAVE AND DON'T HAVE THE MONEY TO UP GRADE THAT IS ALL YOU CAN DO.
> 
> Thanks for the answers, I guess we can experiment and if it screws it up my daughter will just be without a computer again, while she's saving up for a new one.


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## Gary in ohio (May 11, 2002)

OntarioMan said:


> Yup - about the only reason to run 98 now is to support those "defunct" pieces of oddball business software which will only run on 98


If your basing your business on old software that only runs on 98, I think your business has a big problem.


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## Ruby (May 10, 2002)

Gary in ohio said:


> If your basing your business on old software that only runs on 98, I think your business has a big problem.


I do not have a business. My computer has windows xp. My daughter's has ME and she has some games that won't play on it. That is why she wanted to put 98 on it because that is what CD she has. (Thanks to a kind person here on the computer forum) She has just started back to work and is trying to save up money to buy a new laptop.

It's not even connected to the internet. She wanted to put an XP on but 98 is what she has.


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## Alice Kramden (Mar 26, 2008)

WinME is on this old, third hand machine I'm using. I've got the disc for Win98se, and have thought a bunch of times about installing it. 

My old Gateway is in the back room, I have thought about dragging it out and re-installing 98 on it and see if it will work again. 

This thing is giving up and slowly dying. The harddrive does some very wierd things at times. So, it may not do any good to try anything on it. 

Like you said, one has to make do with what one has, because you can't afford anything new or better right now. 

You can try Google and find some links to some help forums about this. I've read about it, but would have to go back and look it over again. 

If I can EVER afford to get another 'puter, I believe it will be a Mac. They just seem to work and not have the issues that MS operating systems do.


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## HermitJohn (May 10, 2002)

Its been long time and depends on what kind of installation cd you have. If its OEM disk, it might object if it finds another windows distribution on the computer. In that case you use win98 boot floppy and run fdisk from dos commandline to clear the hardrive. Then set your bios to boot from cdrom first and plop in your win98SE disk and it should automatically guide you through the rest. The trick is whether your disk has all the necessary drivers. You might want to hunt down all the win98 hardware drivers for your hardware or at least the necessary ones either on cds that came with the hardware or off the internet and burn them to cd before you even start. Something like sound doesnt matter so much, you can hunt it down later, but if you have software modem, you arent even going to get on the web without the driver for that modem. 

By way Puppy Linux is free and friendly and current. It should run on any computer that can handle win98. Just a hint if win98 causes you problems. Win98 should still work fine for web surfing etc, you just may want a newer browser than what cd installs. And you may not have any current protection program for virus, etc. I have no idea really whats still available for win98. Course I had an ancient win95 laptop few years ago, it was minimal specs but some spyware got on it somehow. It immediately slowed to an absolute crawl. Not enough resources for the spyware to run un noticed in the background like it would have on modern computer. Kinda funny in a way. The author of the spyware never considered win95.....


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