A point-release of windows 98, that (unlike windows 95 osr2) was released in boxed, consumer editions. Second edition's advertised features were

* Internet connection sharing - Installs a hacky pseudo-network driver device that attempts to multiplex your existing internet connection. Very scary, and not as good as wingate, winroute pro, linux ip-masquerade, etc.

* Internet Explorer 5.5 - More stable than the last one (apparently)



Though they don't advertise it, 98SE has vastly improved hardware support over any previous windows 9x. It finally supports ACPI IRQ steering properly, meaning that PCI cards can share the same IRQ and even have their IRQs changed without rebooting. Most ISAPNP cards can have their settings messed with on the fly as well. This means that a hard disk with a 98SE installation on can be taken out, put in a completely different machine, and be going again in two reboots or less.

98SE has proved itself to be the best choice for small businesses that don't want to deal with administering NT, and home users who need to use dos programs. At the time of writing, 98SE has a greater market share than either windows 2000 professional or windows me, although windows xp will probably finish it.

Windows 98 Second Edition, build number 4.10.2222, has some features not seen in the original Windows 98 like Internet Connection Sharing and probably upgraded DirectX and other system libraries.

The difference between the original Windows 95 and its later OSR updates is much bigger. Windows 95 OSR2 (and later OSR2.1 and 2.5) actually is a bigger step up than the difference between 95 and 98.

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