Microsoft Windows 98 SE : A Brief Tour

Description of Windows 98 Second Edition

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This article was previously published under Q234762

Retired KB Content Disclaimer

This article was written about products for which Microsoft no longer offers support. Therefore, this article is offered "as is" and will no longer be updated.

SUMMARY

Windows 98 Second Edition includes many improvements and enhancements not included in the original version of Windows 98. These include fixes for known issues in Windows 98, and new tools and capabilities to help you be more productive. It may be useful to install this version of Windows to update your system files, obtain access to the tools in Windows 98 Second Edition, obtain the fixes for known issues in Windows 98, and so on. This article describes the updates in Windows 98 Second Edition. Topics in this article include:

• Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM)
• Device Bay Controller
• DirectX Version 6.1
• Microsoft Connection Manager Version 1.2
• Microsoft Dial-Up Networking (DUN) Version 1.3
• Microsoft Distributed Component Object Model (DCOM98)
• Microsoft Internet Connection Sharing (ICS)
• Microsoft Internet Explorer 5
• Microsoft Data Access Components (MDAC) 2.1
• Microsoft Active Accessibility (MSAA)
• Microsoft NetMeeting Version 3.0 (build 4.4.3345)
• Microsoft Wake-On-LAN
• Microsoft Wallet Version 3.0
• Microsoft Windows Driver Model (WDM) Modem
• Microsoft Windows Media Player Version 6.2
• Microsoft Year 2000 (Y2K) Updates
• MSN, The Microsoft Network Version 5.0

NOTE: To determine if Windows 98 Second Edition is installed on your computer, right-click My Computer, click Properties, and then view the contents of the General tab. If the words "Second Edition" are visible, Windows 98 Second Edition is already installed.

After you review this article, if you do not find the information you are looking for, see the "Need More Information" section at the end of this article.

MORE INFORMATION

Windows 98 Second Edition includes these new or updated features:

Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) Network Support

Internet Protocol/Asynchronous Transfer Mode (IP/ATM)

Windows 98 already contains the capability to operate directly connected to an ATM network, exposing all of the speed and quality of service capabilities (QOS) of ATM. Currently, ATM obtains access for all programs through Local Area Network Emulation (LANE). To improve the usability of ATM for the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) protocol, IP/ATM has been added. IP/ATM goes beyond the support provided through LANE with increased performance, less network overhead, and use of the QOS capabilities of the network through Windows Sockets.

Point to Point Protocol/Asynchronous Transfer Mode (PPP/ATM)

The addition of Point to Point Protocol extends ATM network availability to Dial-Up Networking (DUN), and adds the ability for dial-up connections to be established over an ATM network. Also, this feature further enables an end-to-end solution for residential broadband networks such as Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL).

Windows Sockets 2/Asynchronous Transfer Mode

This feature is a transport service provider for Windows Sockets that has been added to provide user programs with direct use of the set of services provided by ATM. For additional information about ATM support in Windows 98, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

197672 Description of Windows 98 Asynchronous Transfer Mode Support

Device Bay Controller

Device Bay is an industry specification that defines a mechanism for easily adding and upgrading personal computer peripheral devices without opening the computer case. The Device Bay specification applies to all classes of computers, including desktop, mobile, home and server computers.

DirectX 6.1

This version of DirectX includes new DirectMusic, DirectDraw, Direct3D and DirectPlay features.

Connection Manager 1.2

For information about the Microsoft Connection Manager, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

221119 Microsoft Connection Manager 1.2 Readme.txt file

Dial-Up Networking (DUN) 1.3

This security upgrade for DUN is designed to enhance the protection of both dial-up and Virtual Private Network (VPN) connections. Microsoft Challenge-Handshake Authentication Protocol (MSCHAP) version 2.0 secure mode has been implemented, providing mutual authentication, stronger initial data encryption keys, and different encryption keys for the transmit and receive paths. Also, clients that support 128-bit encryption accept any level of encryption (128-bit or 40-bit) offered by the server. This upgrade provides a new registry flag, ForceStrongEncryption. When set, this flag requires 128-bit encryption for any connection that has already been set to require encryption. Because of this, setting the new registry flag essentially changes the meaning of the existing check box from "require encryption" to "require strong encryption".

Distributed Component Object Model (DCOM98)

The DCOM98 wire protocol transparently provides support for reliable, secure, and efficient communication between Component Object Model (COM) components such as ActiveX controls, scripts, and Java tools residing on different machines in a LAN, a Wide Area Network (WAN), or the Internet.

Internet Connection Sharing (ICS)

ICS provides support for multiple computers to obtain access to the Internet through a single connection using Network Address Translation (NAT). ICS routes TCP/IP packets from a small LAN to the Internet. ICS maps individual IP addresses of local computers to unused port numbers in the TCP/IP stack. Due to the nature of the NAT, IP addresses on the local computer are not visible on the Internet. All packets leaving or entering the LAN are sent from or to the IP address of the external adapter on the ICS host computer.

Internet Explorer 5

Internet Explorer 5 (build 5.00.2614.3500). For information about Internet Explorer 5, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

221787 New Features in Internet Explorer 5

Microsoft Data Access Components (MDAC) Version 2.1

This update includes the ActiveX Data Objects (ADO) version 2.1, and seek and index property method that adds fast, index-based location of rows in a record set. For additional information about ActiveX technologies, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

154544 Description of ActiveX Technologies

Microsoft Active Accessibility (MSAA)

This update of MSAA fixes several compatibility issues with programs and clients that use Active Accessibility. When you install this upgrade, your accessibility aids such as screen readers, voice-input utilities, and the Microsoft Magnifier performs better with a wider range of programs.

Microsoft Wallet Version 3.0

Wallet version 3.0 improves the capabilities for merchants to easily extend Wallet to support additional credit card payment protocols. Developers can build support for their own custom encryption and payment instruction methods into the Credit Card Payment Module.

NetMeeting Version 3.0

NetMeeting 3.0 is a smaller, easier to use interface, a Web-based directory for finding others, data security, as well as many other performance and ease-of-use benefits.

Wake-On-LAN

Wake-on-LAN enables a computer to be power-managed, yet available on the network. When a network interface card (NIC) and driver are installed, a computer can go into a low-power state and conserve energy. When activity to the computer from another computer on the network is detected, the NIC detects this, and "wakes up" the computer to respond to the request.

Web-Based Enterprise Management (WBEM)

WBEM is an industry standard you can use to administer Internet Web browser-based networked computers.

WebTV for Windows Update

The hardware updates in WebTV for Windows provide support for the ATI BT829 chip set and includes added support for the BT848, BT878 and BT879 chip sets. This update also provides support for WaveTop version 2.0. WaveTop is the nationwide data broadcast medium that is used to deliver multimedia content through existing television transmissions to your computer.

Windows Driver Model (WDM) for Modems

The WDM driver model is a standard that provides features so that independent hardware vendors (IHV) can write one driver for hardware that works on both Windows 98 and Microsoft Windows NT platforms. This feature also provides support for Universal Serial Bus (USB) modems.

Windows Media Player Version 6.2

The Windows Media Player offers FM-stereo quality audio over a modem, MP3 quality at a fraction of the normal file size, and more. With Windows Media Player, you can play most audio and video file types found on the Internet, as well as on your own computer.

MSN, The Microsoft Network Version 5.0

This updated version of MSN is faster, easier, and is much more powerful than before.