W98 SE thinks it is W98 Gold

[Paul]

I tried to install Roxio EasyCD but it fails with a
message "not supported on Win98 Gold". My laptop was
purchased as W98 SE and I have the OEM W98SE CD, but if I
run the CD setup it tells me I have a previous version of
W98 that can't be upgraded, by the CD it came with! How
do I persuade W98SE that it is still installed?

[Ron Martell]

"Paul" > wrote:

>I tried to install Roxio EasyCD but it fails with a
>message "not supported on Win98 Gold". My laptop was
>purchased as W98 SE and I have the OEM W98SE CD, but if I
>run the CD setup it tells me I have a previous version of
>W98 that can't be upgraded, by the CD it came with! How
>do I persuade W98SE that it is still installed?

Open Control Panel - System - General.

What is the Windows version that is shown there?

If it says 4.10.1998 then you have Windows 98 Gold installed.

If it says 4.10.2222a then you have Windows 98 SE installed.

It is possible that the laptop manufacturer, for whatever reason,
installed 98 Gold at the factory but sent out the 98SE CDs when the
machine was shipped. This might have happened, for example, if your
laptop was produced at the time of the changeover from 98 Gold to 98
SE at that factory.

Or it might have happened that the dealer you bought it from had it in
their service department for some reason or other and they had to
reload Windows and used a 98 Gold CD instead of the 98 SE one that
came with that machine.

There is no easy way to upgrade from 98 Gold to 98 SE by using an OEM
CD. About your only choice, if you need to have 98 SE on the machine,
is to back up all of your data files then reformat the hard drive and
install 98 SE clean then reinstall your apps and finally restore your
data backups.

One final point - does the 98 SE CD disk have the name and logo of the
laptop manufacturer on it? If not then it is probably a generic OEM
version and may not actually be intended for use on your laptop.
Pretty much all laptop models have proprietary hardware that requires
specific drivers from the manufacturer and therefore they almost
invariably come with an OEM CD that was prepared by the manufacturer
so as to include the needed drivers for that particular laptop model.

Good luck


Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca

"The reason computer chips are so small is computers don't eat much."