About Windows 98
Windows 98 (called "Memphis"
during development and previously called "Windows 97"
based on an earlier schedule) is a widely-installed
product in Microsoft's evolution of the Windows
operating system for personal computers. Windows 98
expresses Microsoft's belief that users want and
should have a global view of their potential
resources and that Web technology should be an
important part of the user interface. Although
building Microsoft's own Web browser into the user
desktop has been an issue in the U.S. Justice
Department's suit, Windows 98 was released as planned
with its tightly integrated browser.
In Windows 98, Microsoft's Internet Explorer is an integral part of the operating system. Using the Active Desktop of Windows 98, you can view and access desktop objects that reside on the World Wide Web as well as local files and applications. The Windows 98 desktop is, in fact, a Web page with HTML links and features that exploit Microsoft's ActiveX control.
With Windows 98 (or with Internet Explorer 4.0 in Windows 95), you can set up news and other content to be pushed to you from specified Web sites.
- Windows 98 also provides a 32-bit file allocation table (FAT) that allows you to have a single-partition disk drive larger than 2 Gbytes.
Other features in Windows 98 include:
- Support for Universal Serial Bus (USB), which makes it easy to plug in new devices.
- Support for Digital Versatile Disc (DVD)
- Support for a new industry-standard form of power management called Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI)