How to Install Windows 98, Windows ME

This procedure demonstrates how to install Windows ME operating system. The procedure to install Windows 98 is very similar to ME. Since Windows ME is the latest Windows 9x family operating system, it will be used to demonstrate the installation procedure.

Boot your system with Windows 98 or ME boot disk. When the system starts you will be presented with a menu which gives you the option to boot with or without CD-ROM support. Select the option to boot with CD-ROM support. This would create a RAM drive and load a device driver to support your DVD/CD-ROM. The RAM drive is assigned to D: (D drive) and your CD-ROM should be assigned to E: (E drive).

Place the Windows ME CD into the drive. At A: command prompt type E: and press enter. Then type setup. At his stage Windows runs DOS based scandisk to verify if your hard disk has any problems. If there are no problems Windows proceeds with the setup and launches the Windows ME setup wizard as shown in figure 1.

After agreeing to the license agreement Windows will ask you to type in your product key. The default directory to install windows is c:\windows, I recommend that you leave it as default. Next you would be given four types of installation options which are Typical, Portable, Compact, and Custom. Choosing typical would install the most common components and is suitable for most people. If you want to specify which components to install then choose custom. You would be presented with few other dialog boxes such entering your name and company name, option to create a Windows ME boot disk before file copy process begins. After completing the copying process Windows restarts and boots from the hard disk, make sure you remove your floppy disk from the drive. It will detect your plug and play devices and would present a few more dialog boxes. Just read the instructions on dialog boxes and proceed as required. Windows would restarts again after completing final setup stage. This does not mean everything is completely setup. Some of your hardware device may have conflicts or may not have drivers loaded as Windows does not contain those drivers.

From device manager you can check if all the drivers has been loaded or if there are any conflicts. From the start menu select Start -> Settings -> Control Panel. Click on theSystem icon and then from the System Properties window select the Device Managertab. This lists all the devices as shown in figure 2.

If there are any yellow exclamation mark "!" next to any of the listed device, it means that no drivers or incorrect drivers has been loaded for that device. Your hardware should come with manufacturer supplied drivers. You need to install these drivers using automatic setup program provided by the manufacturer or you need to manually install these drivers. If you do not have the drivers, check the manufacturers website to download them.

To install a driver manually use the following procedure:

1. From the device manager double click on the device containing the exclamation mark.
2. This would open a device properties window.
3. Click on the Driver tab.
4. Click Update Driver push button. The Wizard for updating device driver pops up as shown in figure 3.

5. You now get two options. The first option provides an automatic search for the required driver. The second option allows you to specify the location of the driver. If you don't know the location of the driver choose the automatic search which would find the required driver from the manufacturer supplied CD or Floppy disk. Windows would install the required driver and ask you to restart the system for the changes to take affect. Use this procedure to install drivers for all the devices that contain an exclamation mark. Windows is completely setup when there are no more exclamation marks in the device manager.