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“Win 98 and 98SE” CD’s. How can I see what versions’ I have? And which is a bootable CD?

I have a few “Win 98 and 98SE” CD’s. How can I see what versions’ I have via a disk search or whatever would work like doing a “Windows explorer” or similarly? Can I see the versions through a “Dos” window or directly in “Windows”? Also how can I check to see which see a bootable version? And could these searches be used on other pieces of software? Thanks.

Luc Franken

Hi Zamman002,

Rightclick "my computer" and click "properties"
There the version is listed.
Another way is: Start => Run => type "winver" (without the quotes) and press enter.

All win98SE cd-roms are bootable, most 1st editions are not, just check by trying to boot from the cd :o)

Greetings,

LucF

Zamman002

ASKER

Can I check for the version on the CD, without installing the “OS”? And I seam to remember someone mentioning a way to retrieve the product key? Can the product key be found on the CD without it being installed?

gonzal13

The product key cannot be retrieved, since it is used to verify the authenticity of the cd rom. If they are original cd roms, you can call microsoft and they will exchange them with product keys.

gonzal13(joe)

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

BillDL

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Zamman002

ASKER

Thanks; Bill. You have straitened me out and given good useful information. Well, after many years of using computers. From teletypes in the 70’s to the “Commodore 64” in the 80’s to “IBM” style desktops in the 90’s. I’m still learning and I know I have so much more to learn. Thanks again.

BillDL

You are welcome, Zamman002, but I'll bet you could teach ME a thing or two about those 80's machines. Amazing the technology leaps since those old pub "Space Invaders" machines. It's not that I'm too young to know about them, it's just that I kind of "missed the boat" so to speak.

I was leaving school just as computers were being introduced, and I never had the opportunity until about 1991 to get into computing with a 2nd-hand Pentium 166 (a tolerable spec back then when 233 MHz was about the fastest in affordable desktops). My younger brother bought a Sinclair ZX 128 or something, and I remember watching in awe as he created a program to calculate the fret spacings for an electric guitar that I was planning to build from scratch. (ref: http://www.mail-archive.com/guitarist-l@mana.landofhaze.com/msg00930.html). Of course, this would be simplicity using something like Excel nowadays, and I did write a program like it in C when studying at college many years after that.

I do, however, remember working in a large office many moons ago where the mainframe was about the size of a house with reel-to-reel tape backups, and we used some strange green-screen UNIX-type terminals. The "teletype", as you mentioned, was the size of a shed and generated punched ticker tapes that were then fed back in and run "live" to transmit the data.

Amazing the advances in technology, and it wasn't THAT long ago :-)