Is it possible to install Windows 98 in a modern computer and run modern software? If not, why?
24 Answers
As for installing Windows 98 on a modern PC: you will not be able to find device drivers, also Windows 98 may have problems with large amounts of RAM.
For applications, most current applications are designed to use Windows XP/Vista/7-exclusive features which don't exists in Windows 98. There are kludges, such as KernelEx, to implement those features in Windows 98, however it's not very complete (but some applications do work).
If you really need Windows 98 (e.g. for old devices or software that doesn't work on newer versions of Windows), you are better off with virtualization. Note that VirtualBox doesn't run Windows 98 correctly, since it has no device drivers for that OS.
1It is still possible to install Windows 98 on most x86 architecture PCs, although you will likely have to use generic drivers for some devices (graphics card), and won't be able to use some others.
However, you will not be able to run most modern applications, as they often require modern Windows functionality (e.g. Unicode support, various shell or graphics APIs) only existing in Windows NT series.
Take a look at VirtualBox and Microsoft Virtual PC, which allow installing Windows 98 as a "virtual machine" on top of your current operating system.
2I had the joy of finding a computer that was able to support Windows 98, which was a pain to begin with, as many devices just flat out aren't supported. The most difficult part for me was finding a printer that would work with it. All because some company that had sold us a >$10k spectrophotomoter or some such was too lazy to develop a driver for anything newer...
1The most likely snag you'll run into is finding drivers for things like the video and sound cards. Manufacturers don't generally provide support for old operating systems when they release new hardware (there's a cost associated with each OS/version that you have to test against, so they drop support for older OS's as soon as they think they can get away with it).
...so, you may be stuck with 800x600 video, and no sound.
