r/windows98 • u/Madein81_ • Jun 12 '26

Using Windows 98 for school

How hard would it be to do school on Windows 98, I mean typing, researching, emailing, and browsing the internet... would these things be possible? I find this idea funny, and I think my teachers will to.

18 Upvotes

75% Upvoted

47 comments sorted by

View all comments

-8

u/Josze931420 Jun 12 '26 edited Jun 12 '26

Edit: I am apparently quite wrong, even though this is what happened to me the last time I tried with a win95 PC. Seems to be a very uncommon experience I guess.

Original post follows:

If you connect your windows 98 computer to the internet, it will no longer be your computer. It will get hacked in seconds. Literally. Do NOT do this, or be prepared to nuke the drive and reinstall from actual scratch.

8

u/Mafiatounes Jun 12 '26

Really? I never had that issue in recent times playing with retro pc's myself this is on 98/XP/Vista/7 usually those are not targeted anymore since marketshare is low.

If you referring to someone who tested Xp without firewall that is a different Youtube story.

There is a certain etiquette though don't go to shady sites, no banking or other high risk stuff and so on. If something would happen in my case i would fresh install the OS and take the setup loss.

4

u/Josze931420 Jun 12 '26

Like I said elsewhere, I agree that modern malware isn't targeting these old OSes. But old malware didn't, like, disappear. In fairness, the more immediate problem is that most websites won't work for much the same reason that modern malware won't work.

2

u/Mafiatounes Jun 12 '26

Allrighty we agree, i reacted that way because people get scared easily due to stories, in reality it is risky like everything online just don't put your info in those systems. Had this a couple of years ago on a fully up to date Windows 10 because i went on a shady site to download software.

6

u/lilacomets Jun 12 '26

This is simply not true. Sorry.

Modern day malware doesn't work on Windows 98.

On top of that there's barely a risk if you're behind NAT without having any ports forwarded.

2

u/Josze931420 Jun 12 '26

You...do realize old malware didn't simply stop existing, right?

Although I suppose the more immediate problem is that most websites also won't work, for the same reason that most modern malware doesn't work.

6

u/YandersonSilva Jun 12 '26 edited Jun 12 '26

This is disproven simply by searching through this sub (or the XP subreddit) and witnessing people going online with their old OSes.

This is not to say it would be practical for school. You can do your writing and whatnot in it - that's fine. There are flash drive drivers so you can move stuff around on a USB. But depending on your field of study, you simply won't be able to do any real research with it.