Question on burning a Windows 98 CD

[Wolfshanze]

Ugh, what is everyone fighting about here?

I read all the posts, and I can't believe nobody knows the differance... are you all so wrapped up in XP you forgot the Win98 days?

Let me set the record straight... I have HOLOGRAM ORIGINAL WIN98 CDs FROM MICROSOFT... I HAVE TWO OF THEM.

One of them boots from CD... one of them does not.

The reason?

One is an "upgrade" Win98 CD (like going from Win95 to Win98) it doesn't boot from CD.

The other is the "full" Win98 CD... it boots from CD.

Of course the funny thing is the "upgrade" had a full version of Win98 on it anyways... it just wouldn't boot from CD (you had to boot from floppy disc to install the "upgrade" Win98 CD, wether it was an upgrade or full install).

 

[VirtualLarry]

Very interesting, actually. Thanks Wolfshanz. I had always thought that the split was between OEM (some are bootable) and retail (non-bootable), but I guess that it could also make sense that the full versions would be bootable (and most OEM versions would also be considered "full" versions), whereas the upgrade versions would not be. My (original, official, retail, upgrade) Win98se CD-ROM is not bootable. However, I have seen WinME (original, official, retail, upgrade) CDs that are. I've also seen (bundled OEM) Win98se CDs that are bootable. Interestingly, my Win2000 (original, official, retail, upgrade) CD is bootable. I think all W2K and WinXP CDs are bootable, regardless. Some (bundled OEM) Win95 OSR2.1/2.5 CDs are bootable as well, I -think-. I'll have to check on that.

But yours is the first that I've seen ... hey, scratch that - is the "full" win98se CD that you have, verified to be a legit retail CD, or just a bundled OEM "full" version that shipped with a pre-built box? Unless you have some substantial proof that it is a retail CD, I'm going to stick to my original OEM/retail split theory for now.

The funny thing is, the "upgrade" versions are actually the more useful ones to have, since the Win9x "full" versions, will refuse to do an overtop re-install, or at least they used to. But the "upgrade" versions could still be used to do a clean install, all you had to do was present install media from a prior OS version during the install process.

 

[Fokks]

Just wanted to chime in that I had to do this very thing last week.
I installed from a legit Windows 98 FE on a PC with NO FLOPPY, booted, fdisked, rebooted installed windows all off the CD.

 

[Dragonbate]

Strange- Had to add I have a legal copy of windows 98 and it won't boot. I remember back when win me was supposedly the first bootable cd. I also remember a hack to make a win me disk bootable but it didnt work on 98.