WTF?!? No Win98 drivers in the box?!?

[KvHagedorn]

The best farts are attained with beer and popcorn... not the smelliest, but the loudest and most voluminous.

[Greebe]

Naw Chuck, the most flatuous (sp?), nasty, gasous, odoriferous eminations come from eating Malt balls after lining your intestines with particially cooked eggs (sunny side up)

also can be deadly as the bacteria in the malt thrives on the yoke protein and generates massive toxins... this is also the reason you cannot buy REAL Malted Milkshake today like when I was a kid. Many people would get deathly sick. Shelf life of the combination is something like 1 hour MAX (may be less). Ice cream parlors and the like cannot keep the equipment clean on that timetable.

[Umfriend]

DGhost: Win95 goes for $90 retail if its an upgrade. same as Windows 98, Windows Me, Windows XP Home Edition. they all also cost about $200 for a full version. always have. the cost of the OS has not gone up at all.

Me Upgrade set me back NLG 145 at the time, it was retail. Upgrade to XP Home now costs Euro 129 which is about NLG 280. Nuff said.

Also:

Also, i have never had a problem with USB devices and Windows XP Pro. nor have i had problems with XP Pro and any sort of decent computer with quality components. go figure.

Indeed, imagine that you did have problems?! I don't think this is a recommendation, it's a requirement. Also, Rainbow Runner comes to mind.....

xortam:Umfriend ... You're misusing the term middleware.

I do apologise. I have not looked this up in a dictionary, which would agree with you. I was talking about "middleware" as it is often used like, e.g. by The Register.

Rags: I never had any probs with an install of W95 or Me, so I did not ever need to get it back up and running. At work though, running NT4, they need to re-install almost every quarter....

Stingy said:

In order to get people to buy their "latest" OS they must make "improvements" to the OS, which usually means including external apps into the OS so they work seemlessly within the OS enviornment

I don't think this makes a lot of sense. Do you mean "including external apps into the OS" in a way that the OS will not run without it? How is that an improvement? Or do you mean adding programs on the CD that do all sorts of stuff for you? I don't want those. I'll pay for a better kernel that schedules tasks, manages memory, interface between SW and HW (i.e. IO) and has some essential protocal drivers (OK, I'm not a developer so maybe I mistate this for the purists...FLAME ME, or, wonder what t is I am trying to say).

I would have been willing to pay for a driver update that would have enabled W95 to handle USB devices. That was THE ONLY reason it was neccesary for ME to upgrade to Me. Don't tell me that that should cost $80 at the time.

Can;t use linux. Won't run Office nor Red Alert 2. Also, a lot of companies had troubles migrating from NT4 to W2K. I seem to remember there is some Matrox hardware that was not supported anymore in W2K? Didn't HP have huge problems getting their printer drivers in order for W2K? Nice improvements. I do NOT own a DigitalCam. Also, assuming it connects to a port that is supported by my current OS (like USB), I don;t need no f****** XP.

BTW, have I ever told you that these upgrades get more and more expensive?

Umfrustratedandignorantfriend

[KvHagedorn]

Now what about getting an aluminum perchlorate enema followed by a lit match?

[Hati]

Strange what direction this thread is going
After more than 20 years in the IT-bussiness I think I've seen and used all of M$ attempts to make an OS
I am currently using a WinNT4.0/Win2K dual boot configuration at work and installed several WinXP clients in the last days (we will start migrating about 900 PCs from Nt4.0 to WinXP next year).
I do understand people who complain about MS attitude stuffing more and more crap into their operating systems - why first install a bunch of software you don't want and do not need and then spend a lot of time to deactivate services, remove software and registry keys etc to get rid of it.
At home I stayed with Win98SE for several reasons : I don't miss any features and i don't remember when it was crashing on me for the last time (except when one of my IBM HDs died, but that was not due to the OS).
One more advantage of running Win98 at home is that I won't have the opportunity to keep on doing things for work at home (try running Oracle9i Enterprise edt on Win98) and I am very happy about this!
But I think Win9x is indeed a 'dying' OS so I will move on to WinXP this year - no need to start an OS flame war I think.
Have a fine day everyone!
Hati

[Neptune]

I really hope that matrox releases win9x drivers for parhelia, because right now my home box is dual boot win98se/linux (games/work), so it is 2 misses out of 2... :-(
As for the OSs war that's been goin through here, here's my opinion:

1) win98se supports all kinds of current hardware (including my CANON S30 dig. camera)
2) Parhelia is the first piece of hardware I know of that supports only Win2K and up. Perhaps I' wrong on this, one can never be sure.
3) Matrox is narrowing their client base. Many people should include at least OS cost for their upgrade to parhelia.
4) Finally, the main reason I'm keeping win98se is FAT32. Linux cannot read/write NTFS (and this is M$'s fault, of course). There is no way to share mozilla mail directories between win2k and linux, except if you set up win2k on FAT32. But this greatly compromises the so famous win2k stability, doesn't it?

[GNEP]

win2k on FAT32. But this greatly compromises the so famous win2k stability, doesn't it?

Not that I've experienced. People will argue, but really this has not been a problem as far as I have seen. Win2k on FAT32 is fine.

gnep

[dneal]

Win98 is a lot more efficient for sound and video hardware. Just run AudioWinbench in both and you'll see what I mean. Or run a UT Bench with and without sound, tons of difference between 98 and XP. (On a Live! anyway, it's a difference of 1% and 15+% CPU utilization)

I like XP too, of course, since it's amazingly more stable. But when you just want the game to run as fast as possible Win98 is the only option. In a little benchmarking bout I had a few days ago, I saw I was ahead over 500 3dmarks in 98 with SLOWER core/mem clockspeeds on my Radeon 8500 when compared to XP!

It is sad that MS can't pull together a OS that's more specialized for gaming. Something that still allows VXDs. And, no, I certainly don't mean ME

[cjolley]

Originally posted by Hati
One more advantage of running Win98 at home is that I won't have the opportunity to keep on doing things for work at home (try running Oracle9i Enterprise edt on Win98) and I am very happy about this!
Hati

The client works fine on W98.
Get to work!!!!
chuck

PS You could solve this problem by telling them you have ME.
Oracle won't install on it at all.

[Stringy]

UmFriend

I don't think this makes a lot of sense. Do you mean "including external apps into the OS" in a way that the OS will not run without it? How is that an improvement? Or do you mean adding programs on the CD that do all sorts of stuff for you? I don't want those. I'll pay for a better kernel that schedules tasks, manages memory, interface between SW and HW (i.e. IO) and has some essential protocal drivers (OK, I'm not a developer so maybe I mistate this for the purists...FLAME ME, or, wonder what t is I am trying to say).

I beleive the phylosophy being used with the install of all the added app's is that if its not installed then the "average Joe" won't know they are there... I do agree they should be more easily removed... one that comes to mind is MSN being attatched to Outlook - tho I did get that removed
the XP/2K core is Improved!(over win9x core) it Does have better I/O between SW and HW...
I guess I'm not a normal user, I have a home LAN, and ever since I updated my machine to 2k everything was smoother, and then I updated the Wife's machine to XP and now the LAN works the way it should...

Well back on the point, I do think Matrox will support Win9x, but They maybe making a point by not including it on the CD... Call it snob-ish or just practical or just plain cost effective...
I'm sure Matrox would love to have only 2 Driver Dev. teams, ie one for XP/2k and one for Linux/Unix.... Instead of a Win9x, XP/2K, and a linux componient....


Craig

[Pace]

Originally posted by Neptune
I really hope that matrox releases win9x drivers for parhelia, because right now my home box is dual boot win98se/linux (games/work), so it is 2 misses out of 2... :-(
As for the OSs war that's been goin through here, here's my opinion:

1) win98se supports all kinds of current hardware (including my CANON S30 dig. camera)
2) Parhelia is the first piece of hardware I know of that supports only Win2K and up. Perhaps I' wrong on this, one can never be sure.
3) Matrox is narrowing their client base. Many people should include at least OS cost for their upgrade to parhelia.
4) Finally, the main reason I'm keeping win98se is FAT32. Linux cannot read/write NTFS (and this is M$'s fault, of course). There is no way to share mozilla mail directories between win2k and linux, except if you set up win2k on FAT32. But this greatly compromises the so famous win2k stability, doesn't it?

2. I could easily get a list of NT4 only apps and hardware, and again with Win2k. Various professional sw/hw need the NT kernel.
3. Upgrading OS will give you more than Parhelia compatibility, it'll give you notepad with extras It's a fair point though, that they are narrowing their market - but possibly targetting Win2k will encourage Pro users that this card is indeed Pro!
4. Setup a 50MB FAT16 partition then. Linux not reading NTFS isn't Microsofts fault - its their decision.

[DGhost]

yeah, the Fat32 vs NTFS for being able to get to files is really moot.

BeOS had an NTFS driver. there are NTFS drivers for DOS/Win9x. they allow read/write support.

the only difference that running a Win2k or XP machine on Fat32 is that you loose security features... per-user permissions, encrypted file system support on 2k and higher, etc. on a Windows XP Home machine it is a pretty moot point though because you can't access those features.

As far as Windows XP driver support, there are a lot of companies that are having problems getting Windows XP or 2000 drivers out the door. Creative Labs is one of them. ATI is another. Matrox has shown themselves to be better then either of those two, but the G400 series of cards didn't work in 2k or XP nearly as well as they did in 9x (from my personal experience).

Since Microsoft is no longer developing for the 9x kernel, i believe it is a good thing that Matrox is first and formost developing 2000 and XP drivers. taken straight from the website, "Designed for demanding professional and business users, discerning PC enthusiasts and gaming connoisseurs". professional and business users have been using Win2k/XP for a while now. Most of the PC enthusiasts and gaming connoiseurs that are gonna drop $400 on a new graphics card at the drop of a hat (and probably already have a GF4Ti of some sort or an Radeon 8500), and have the money to aquire extra monitors are probably already running on Win2k or XP.

i should tack onto this that i work at a computer repair shop. yes it is more common for people to be running Win98/Me. And we see more of Windows XP than we do of Windows 2k. But, we see a very certain market, and i don't think that anyone i see on a day to day basis is gonna go out and buy a Matrox card. why? "oh, well, i've never heard of them" "oh, well, its $400, i don't need that in a graphics card".

how many people who are running Windows 9x were seriously planning on buying this card the moment it became available, and not up to 3 months down the road.

And if you don't like the bloat of XP, install Windows 2000. It doesn't have some of the nice extra features of XP, but it does the same job and maintains a good level of stability.

[The PIT]

They are some products that Microsoft sell that they're not making win2k/xp drivers for which is really incredlous.
Yes win2k and Xp are the way forward but if Microshaft can't be arsed to make drivers why should anyone else. Matrox are being a little silly on this. A lot people have drifted away over their product cycle and limiting there new card to win2k/xp only is discarding a little more market share.

[Technoid]

The G400 actualy has drivers for Win3.11!

And that os was much older then, than W98se is now!

[TdB]

well, i would assume that parhelia will get win9x drivers evetually, just not on the driver-cd.
I guess matrox thought that the majority of people that buys hardware the same month it is announced, also have win2k/xp in their system.