When you say Windows 98, do you mean Windows 98 or Windows 98se as there is quite a difference. Windows 98 has memory allocations bugs that were fixed in the Windows 98se release. These can cause random blue screen errors during startup with the standard client on some systems if you have other software loading like the newer Anti-Virus programs and/or a Firewall. Problem only shows up on some systems. Work around is to start BOINC after the system has finished booting or don't use an AV or Firewall. Windows 98se would be a much better choice as almost all drivers that work with Windows 98 also work with Windows 98se.

Windows ME is a different issue for your machine. Windows 98/98se drivers do not work with ME very well, so you need updated drivers if the default drivers in Windows ME do not work. Only way to know for sure is to try installing it. It will not install on a 133Mh as it has a processor speed check in the Install program, but there are ways around that and it does work OK. Windows ME also needs 128MB of memory to run well, but it does work OK on systems as small as 48MB without problems, just slow and beats the disk swapfile to death getting booted.

The other thing you have to consider is the amount of free space left on your disk drive. The default settings for BOINC require a lot of free space. You can change these for a venue to make BOINC download a large cache. BOINC kept complaining about the 1.2GB drives I am using after recent disk crashes, as Windows ME takes up most of the space on them.

With Windows ME, running Seti Classic you would get a wide range of crunch times depending on a WU's arc angle, due to its slow memory allocation code. But with the Seti clients I have not noticed that effect so much. In fact the newest optimized Crunch3r clients give very consistent run times on my Windows ME systems.

Windows 98SE is what I will be upgrading this system with, but I think the 5.2.13 BOINC installer's minimum Windows OS is Windows 98 (original edition). The popup error I encountered when attempting to install on Windows 95 actually listed every supported version of Windows by name, starting with Windows 98, then Windows 98SE and on up.

I have used Win ME before on another of my PCs and probably wouldn't go that route again -- even if the system supported its minimum installation requirements. IMHO, it was a very flaky and unstable OS. In any case, I already upgraded the RAM to the maximum that it will hold -- 80 MB -- so I don't think it would be wise to try to push the machine to run a more recent, more resource-intensive version of Windows on such a slow system. As long as I can get it to meet the minimum requirements for the latest BOINC client (and manage to crunch a few WUs here and there), I'll be happy. By the time BOINC stops supporting Windows 98 (assuming this machine is still in working order), I'll probably either try a Linux distro or relegate it to use as an e-mail terminal in some obscure area of the house. I'm somewhat of a pack rat by nature, I just hate to let go of things that might still be able to serve a later purpose... :-)

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When you say Windows 98, do you mean Windows 98 or Windows 98se as there is quite a difference. Windows 98 has memory allocations bugs that were fixed in the Windows 98se release. These can cause random blue screen errors during startup with the standard client on some systems if you have other software loading like the newer Anti-Virus programs and/or a Firewall. Problem only shows up on some systems. Work around is to start BOINC after the system has finished booting or don't use an AV or Firewall. Windows 98se would be a much better choice as almost all drivers that work with Windows 98 also work with Windows 98se.

Windows ME is a different issue for your machine. Windows 98/98se drivers do not work with ME very well, so you need updated drivers if the default drivers in Windows ME do not work. Only way to know for sure is to try installing it. It will not install on a 133Mh as it has a processor speed check in the Install program, but there are ways around that and it does work OK. Windows ME also needs 128MB of memory to run well, but it does work OK on systems as small as 48MB without problems, just slow and beats the disk swapfile to death getting booted.

The other thing you have to consider is the amount of free space left on your disk drive. The default settings for BOINC require a lot of free space. You can change these for a venue to make BOINC download a large cache. BOINC kept complaining about the 1.2GB drives I am using after recent disk crashes, as Windows ME takes up most of the space on them.

With Windows ME, running Seti Classic you would get a wide range of crunch times depending on a WU's arc angle, due to its slow memory allocation code. But with the Seti clients I have not noticed that effect so much. In fact the newest optimized Crunch3r clients give very consistent run times on my Windows ME systems.

BOINC-SETI will run under Windows 95, as long as it has the latest version of Internet Explorer (there's certain dynamic link libraries included that are needed) and all the latest patches, as well as the aforementioned 64MB of RAM free after loading the OS.

One more thing needed that may be part if the IE update or may have to be updated seperately is the winsock 2 libraries.

I attempted to install the 5.2.13 client on my antiquated Win95 pc (80 MB RAM), which has the latest IE version supported for the OS (IE 5.5) and all the latest patches and updates from the Microsoft Windows 95 download site, including the Winsock 2 update.

The BOINC installer still refuses to install. A popup error appears, stating that only Windows 98 and later versions are supported.

I was able to install the 4.45 client without any problems. Seems to run SAH WUs ok... had to disable the screen saver though, it crashes the WU immediately if I try to preview it via the "Show Graphics" button in the BOINC manager.

It looks to me like the Windows installer was revised at some point between 4.45 and 5.2.13 to prevent ANY installation on Windows 95 (regardless of patch level/installed libraries). IMHO, the BOINC team should mention this in the Windows client requirements or in the version details.

Also BTW, I discovered that the PrimeGrid application isn't compatible with Win95 either -- one of the application DLLs (MSVCP80.DLL) references a function in KERNEL32.DLL that is not available in 95 -- "InterlockedCompareExchange". It is apparently present in Win98 and later.

I'm planning to upgrade this machine to Windows 98 very soon. Fortunately, the minimum requirements for the Win98 OS aren't that high... :-)

Interesting feedback and thanks for sharing.

It will help us with others perhaps. Or perhaps not. I have to agree with UCB for not supporting Win 95 though. MS dropped support for it 1999 as I recall so good move to get away from it. I'm not sure a move to 98 will be long lived however. Virtually no support for that now either these days so it may be a dead end for you. ME is an option I guess although I do think XP is the very best yet produced from MS for desk tops. So how about XP instead which is well supported and you will then be in the good company of many many others here.

Unfortunately Windows 98 is the only later version that this particular machine will support (Monorail All-in-One Pentium 133MHz, 80MB RAM, 2 GB HDD). It was the first PC I bought for myself in college back in 1997. It's been collecting dust until recently, so I decided I might as well put it to some good use. I might be able to install some flavor of Linux on it, but I think I'll stick with Windows 98 for now -- probably less chance of missing driver conflicts with all of the antiquated hardware attached to the system.

I have several other machines running XP and Mac OS X, so I think I'm in "good company" as you put it (at least I hope). :-)

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BOINC-SETI will run under Windows 95, as long as it has the latest version of Internet Explorer (there's certain dynamic link libraries included that are needed) and all the latest patches, as well as the aforementioned 64MB of RAM free after loading the OS.

One more thing needed that may be part if the IE update or may have to be updated seperately is the winsock 2 libraries.

I attempted to install the 5.2.13 client on my antiquated Win95 pc (80 MB RAM), which has the latest IE version supported for the OS (IE 5.5) and all the latest patches and updates from the Microsoft Windows 95 download site, including the Winsock 2 update.

The BOINC installer still refuses to install. A popup error appears, stating that only Windows 98 and later versions are supported.

I was able to install the 4.45 client without any problems. Seems to run SAH WUs ok... had to disable the screen saver though, it crashes the WU immediately if I try to preview it via the "Show Graphics" button in the BOINC manager.

It looks to me like the Windows installer was revised at some point between 4.45 and 5.2.13 to prevent ANY installation on Windows 95 (regardless of patch level/installed libraries). IMHO, the BOINC team should mention this in the Windows client requirements or in the version details.

Also BTW, I discovered that the PrimeGrid application isn't compatible with Win95 either -- one of the application DLLs (MSVCP80.DLL) references a function in KERNEL32.DLL that is not available in 95 -- "InterlockedCompareExchange". It is apparently present in Win98 and later.

I'm planning to upgrade this machine to Windows 98 very soon. Fortunately, the minimum requirements for the Win98 OS aren't that high... :-)

Interesting feedback and thanks for sharing.

It will help us with others perhaps. Or perhaps not. I have to agree with UCB for not supporting Win 95 though. MS dropped support for it 1999 as I recall so good move to get away from it. I'm not sure a move to 98 will be long lived however. Virtually no support for that now either these days so it may be a dead end for you. ME is an option I guess although I do think XP is the very best yet produced from MS for desk tops. So how about XP instead which is well supported and you will then be in the good company of many many others here.

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BOINC-SETI will run under Windows 95, as long as it has the latest version of Internet Explorer (there's certain dynamic link libraries included that are needed) and all the latest patches, as well as the aforementioned 64MB of RAM free after loading the OS.

One more thing needed that may be part if the IE update or may have to be updated seperately is the winsock 2 libraries.

I attempted to install the 5.2.13 client on my antiquated Win95 pc (80 MB RAM), which has the latest IE version supported for the OS (IE 5.5) and all the latest patches and updates from the Microsoft Windows 95 download site, including the Winsock 2 update.

The BOINC installer still refuses to install. A popup error appears, stating that only Windows 98 and later versions are supported.

I was able to install the 4.45 client without any problems. Seems to run SAH WUs ok... had to disable the screen saver though, it crashes the WU immediately if I try to preview it via the "Show Graphics" button in the BOINC manager.

It looks to me like the Windows installer was revised at some point between 4.45 and 5.2.13 to prevent ANY installation on Windows 95 (regardless of patch level/installed libraries). IMHO, the BOINC team should mention this in the Windows client requirements or in the version details.

Also BTW, I discovered that the PrimeGrid application isn't compatible with Win95 either -- one of the application DLLs (MSVCP80.DLL) references a function in KERNEL32.DLL that is not available in 95 -- "InterlockedCompareExchange". It is apparently present in Win98 and later.

I'm planning to upgrade this machine to Windows 98 very soon. Fortunately, the minimum requirements for the Win98 OS aren't that high... :-)

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I was looking at Zain's OS stats earlier for a previous post and on Seti there is about 300 hosts using Win95.

Boinc will run on a 95 machine but you must have at least 64 meg of RAM. I recommend if you are on a 95 machine with limited RAM that you disable the screen saver -

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I was looking at Zain's OS stats earlier for a previous post and on Seti there is about 300 hosts using Win95.

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Mercy - My old machine is running on a WinME platform, and I'm seriously planning on changing. Probably use carcass as either a doorstop or a boat anchor ...

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BOINC-SETI will run under Windows 95, as long as it has the latest version of Internet Explorer (there's certain dynamic link libraries included that are needed) and all the latest patches, as well as the aforementioned 64MB of RAM free after loading the OS.

One more thing needed that may be part if the IE update or may have to be updated seperately is the winsock 2 libraries.

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BOINC WIKI

BOINCing since 2002/12/8

BOINC-SETI will run under Windows 95, as long as it has the latest version of Internet Explorer (there's certain dynamic link libraries included that are needed) and all the latest patches, as well as the aforementioned 64MB of RAM free after loading the OS.

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When the enhanced seti app comes out, this should come down to 32MB or so, in which a lot of older computers will then be able to be brought in (I think)

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Join TeamACC

Sometimes I think we are alone in the universe, and sometimes I think we are not. In either case the idea is quite staggering.

I was under the distinct impression that BOINC would run under 95, but you needed 64MB reported free. Many Win 95 machines do not have this much RAM.

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BOINC WIKI

This post

Windows 95 will not run BOINC. Unfortunately you need Windows 98 or higher.

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"By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God's command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible". Hebrews 11.3

This post

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Boinc V7.2.42
Win7 i5 3.33G 4GB, GTX470