While Microsoft hasn't officially confirmed it, users upgrading their systems to Windows 98 has experienced some problems with the new OS recognizing certain kinds of hardware. When you've got literally millions of people upgrading, this is to expected, but Windows 98 seems to have a particular problem with PC card-based Ethernet and modem cards. While the best way to install Windows 98 is on a clean system, this clearly isn't an option for the majority of Windows 95 users, but some people are reporting success by simply removing any PC Cards during the upgrade. Then, after Windows 98 is installed, they insert the cards and let Windows 98 detect them one at a time.
Microsoft says there hasn't been an inordinate amount of problems reported.
"No one's jumped off the top of the building here, so I guess that's a pretty good indicator that it can't be all that bad," said Microsoft's Rob Bennett.
Personally, I've never seen this issue, and I have upgraded Windows 95 laptops with PC Cards to Windows 98. I did receive a couple of inquiries from people how hard heard about the problem, though none profess to have been experiencing it. In any event, while Windows 98 is the end of the line for the Windows operating system as we now know it--future OSes from Microsoft will be based solely on Windows NT--the company does plan to upgrade Windows 98 over the next three years. The first such upgrades, a Web-based task manager and a multimedia enhancement called "Chrome," are due in September. No doubt other enhancements--and the inevitable service packs--will come along as well