Success of a kind.

Remember I wanted to make a multi-boot machine with Win 98 for games? Well this evening I finally managed to spend 2 1/2 hours happily mech-warrioring away.

The answer for this machine was to install W98, sound card drivers, IE 5.5 SP2, then IE6, then run windows update to patch IE6, direct X and a bunch of stuff. The latest version of Nvidia detonator drivers repeatedly cause crashes and even prevented booting into safe mode. Eventually I tried an old version (2004 - 56. something - current version is 89. something) and it will now boot with only a single warning message.

I'm leaving the system effectively stripped down as much as possible: just the OS, minimal drivers, Opera for when I need drivers from the net (IE 5 and 6 are just SO dreadful, so slow and clunky) and direct X. Because I'm using a widescreen with an OS that wasn't designed for it, text is almost illegible and the graphics card can't offer native resolution. The down side - games seem to spread off the screen, which is a drag if much of your info goes off with it. I might see if this monitor will find a good use somewhere and try to add one of more *conventional* resolution - 1440X900 is a dumb set of dimensions.

Oh - one funny thing: after the last round of updates, Microsoft automatic update rejects my PC, suggesting that it is a mac, and that I need to visit their version of the site for macs. Still makes me want to shake my head in disbelief.