Win98 Build 1721 NIGHTMARE!!

[Doug the Desert Tripper]

I tried installing build 1721 on my home computer tonight, after
successfully upgrading my PC at work. I ended up uninstalling it in
exasperation!

I have a DFI Intel P200MMX equipped motherboard, TX chipset, 64 RAM,
AWE32, Philips video capture, MGA Millenium, Adaptec 1510 w/scanner
and tape drive attached.

Some of the strange stuff I ran into:

1. When it got to the part about the startup disk: I let it create a
disk, then it said to remove the disk and hit ok to continue setup. No
sooner had I done this than a "blue screen" came up and said to
re-insert the disk into drive A. I tried ignoring it-it persisted. So
I reinserted the disk and it went back to graphics mode and showed a
dialog telling me to remove it. "Catch-22"! After a couple of cycles
of this a GPF occurred and although it said it was getting ready to
copy Win98 files it was hung. Upon rebooting I had to go through
everything again, INCLUDING typing that godawful serial number. AARGH!

2. When it rebooted after copying Win98 files and began hardware
detection, the "magnifying glass" on the "detecting HW and PNP
devices" dialog would hang. After about 45 seconds a blue screen would
come up - "Data could not be written to the disk in drive C. Data may
be lost." Rebooting had no effect on this outcome. I finally had to
restart in Safe Mode and remove a formerly disabled busmaster IDE
controller (which has given me problems from day 1 that I installed my
Intel TX-based motherboard).

3. The ludicrous, insane, sophomoric (Are you reading this, billg?)
"Windows Protection Error - you need to restart your computer" message
is alive and well in Win98. I continued to get that after Win98
installed the Intel Busmaster drivers. I would think that they would
have cleaned up the support for the TX chipset by now!

4. What could Setup possibly be doing for so long when it is
"Repairing the registry database"? It took about 15 minutes on my P200
system. No disk activity either while this was going on.

Rather than continue fighting I decided to uninstall and use win95 for
the time being.

Has anyone else had similar experiences with billg's latest
monstrosity?
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Doug the Desert Tripper - Exploring Southern Cal deserts and the Net since '94
*Replace 'see-below.no-SPAM.net' with 'jps.net' to email me.*
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[Thomas]

I have been running Windows 98 build 1691 on my Cirrus 75 MHz Pentium
based computer for over three weeks now and have had NO problems what so
ever. In fact, my computer has never worked better. It even ceased to
drop my CD-ROM from the system when it felt like it. (Windows 95 liked to
throw my CD away and not even a reload of the driver would get it back.)
Installation went very smoothly and took only about 30 minutes for the
entire process. I know that some of the later versions have been real
bastards when it comes to system errors, but this one seems to be working
fine.

Ah, Yes, that incredibly insane serial #. Need I say more?