New to Mr Red

Information about possible problems relating to whether Win98SE is appropriate for a given machine may be found in Microsoft Knowledge Base article "Microsoft Windows 98 Second Edition General.txt File Contents" (Q234856).

You can also find this same information on any Win98SE insatallation CD, in the file named "General.txt."

There are no identified problems specifically related to processor speed.

Win98SE is intended for use with processors that conform to the "instruction set" for Intel Pentium processors of certain types. Other processor manufacturers have "emulated the instruction set" to make their processors compatible with Windows. There are a few known "nonconformance issues" with some non-Intel processors, but none that are considered "significant" except in cases of some specific "professional" software packages - not likely to be encountered by anyone who's not already informed.

Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) who supply Windows with new machines are permitted to make changes to Windows to make it work better with their own machine. Windows purchased "over the counter" from Microsoft should run on any machine using the Intel instruction set. An OEM Windows "copied" from its original machine to another machine - even from the same manufacturer - may have some problems - but only the manufacturer can tell you anything about this (and probably won't know anything relevant).

Knowledge Base Article "Windows Me/98/95 Do Not use Multiple Processors" (Q193645) gives a clarification of "multiple processor" support in different versions of Windows. This issue as been the basis for the claim, by some poorly informed "techs," that earlier versions "aren't right for really fast machines."

WinME/98/98SE/95 will not automatically use more than one processor in a multi-processor machine unless the running program is written to use more than one. WinNT, and probably Win2000, and WinXP, will use multiple processors if needed, without requiring a program to "call for" a multi-thread operation. The "catch" here is that there are very few times when multi-threading is really useful unless a specific program is written to use it - so for the majority of users there is not "real" difference.

Knowledge Base Article "Deciding Whether to Upgrade from Windows 95 or Windows 98 to Windows 2000" (Q256070) has additional information that may be of help. Note that this article is "Pre-XP."

I have not seen any problem with "high speed" machines identified by any "authoritative" source. (Of course - I don't read everything.

John