The Essential Guide to Installing Win98

Uninstalling Win98
Maybe it's a bit premature, but here's how to uninstall Win98 should the need arise. There's no automatic uninstall method for clean installs. Just follow the same steps you followed to prepare your system for a clean install, substituting the installation process of Win95, NT or whatever OS you prefer.

If you upgraded an existing Windows installation and chose to save system files, you can uninstall Win98 and revert back to your previous version of Windows, provided you haven't used the Drive Converter to convert any drive on your system to FAT32 and you haven't installed disk compression since you installed Win98.

To uninstall Win98 to your previous Windows version, select Uninstall Windows 98 from Add/ Remove Programs. Be sure you don't select Delete Windows 98 Uninstall Information; that deletes your saved system files, making it impossible to uninstall Win98. The uninstall process entails confirmation and restarting of Windows. While passing through DOS on the reboot, Windows checks all files and directories, runs some conversions, reconfigures your previous OS and starts it.

If for some reason uninstall is unable to shut down Win98 to initiate the process, shut it down yourself by turning it off and on, if you have to. Once Windows loads, restart again. Hold down the Ctrl key while your drive is booting, and when the boot menu appears, click on Command Prompt Only, type UNINSTAL on the command line and press Enter.

The uninstall process isn't perfect. Some Win98 files and folders will be left behind, but nothing that inhibits the operation of your previous OS. In converting back to Win95, you may discover you've lost long filenames, usually in Start menu program folders. But this may be just a small bug in the late prerelease version of Win98 we used.

Adopt And Adapt
As with any OS, getting used to new ways of doing things is more than half the battle. Microsoft got a lot of things right in Win98, and many of Win95's most annoying aspects have been rectified. If you keep an open mind to the changes, you'll adapt to Win98 in short order.