Two different Windows 98 FE OEM CDs

steeviebops

I've been creating ISOs of my old Windows CDs recently and noticed that I have two different Windows 98 OEM CDs in my collection.

The first one is the same as the OEM Full ISO on this website:
0398 X03-36182
SHA1: c95fe41b1bc7c83e16bdd9ec8cbd97866552a06b
Timestamp: May 11th, 1998 at 20:01

But the other one is a slightly newer one:
1298 X04-04214
SHA1: 52ec5d1376036bf3f0edfb1ce7647c3bb04dc696
Timestamp: November 24th, 1998 at 08:02

Does anyone know the difference between these? I found a forum post on MSFN which claimed that the newer version is missing the MS Java VM but I installed it in VMware Workstation as a test and can confirm that the JVM is present and working. The timestamps of the installed files are May 11th, 1998 at 19:01 (so an hour out compared to the original Windows 98 CD).

02k-guy

The only good way to determine diffs is to unpack each iso to a directory on your local drive, then use a binary compare tool. I have found several SE and Office 2K iso differences in just this same way.

steeviebops

I decided to extract every CAB file in the win98 folder to see what I could find based on the timestamps. Easy to do with:

extract /a base4.cab /e /l c:\win98

Almost every file has the May 11th, 1998, 19:01 timestamp. The exceptions are as follows. Most of these are Java-related so maybe they released a new version of the JVM on the disc?
SYSDM CPL 385,104 11/05/98 20:01 SYSDM.CPL SUWIN EXE 456,720 11/05/98 20:01 SUWIN.EXE DEFAULT SFC 70,473 11/05/98 20:01 DEFAULT.SFC LAYOUT INF 55,224 11/05/98 20:01 LAYOUT.INF LAYOUT2 INF 49,144 11/05/98 20:01 LAYOUT2.INF MWCNAMED DLL 19,031 27/05/98 15:43 MWCNAMED.DLL MWCNAMEW DLL 14,423 27/05/98 15:43 MWCNAMEW.DLL IEEULA CHM 46,026 29/05/98 12:30 IEEULA.CHM LICENSE CHM 46,026 29/05/98 12:30 LICENSE.CHM IE INF 24,179 20/11/98 17:46 IE.INF WIN32IE4 CAB 158,542 23/11/98 18:00 WIN32IE4.CAB XMLDSO4 CAB 56,586 23/11/98 18:00 XMLDSO4.CAB DX3J DLL 313,856 23/11/98 18:00 DX3J.DLL JAVACYPT DLL 234,768 23/11/98 18:00 JAVACYPT.DLL JAVAEE DLL 131,072 23/11/98 18:00 JAVAEE.DLL JAVAPRXY DLL 26,896 23/11/98 18:00 JAVAPRXY.DLL JAVART DLL 183,056 23/11/98 18:00 JAVART.DLL JAVASNTX DLL 82,432 23/11/98 18:00 JAVASNTX.DLL JIT DLL 126,736 23/11/98 18:00 JIT.DLL MSAWT DLL 200,976 23/11/98 18:00 MSAWT.DLL MSJAVA DLL 771,856 23/11/98 18:00 MSJAVA.DLL MSJDBC10 DLL 20,992 23/11/98 18:00 MSJDBC10.DLL VMHELPER DLL 216,576 23/11/98 18:00 VMHELPER.DLL CLSPACK EXE 44,544 23/11/98 18:00 CLSPACK.EXE JDBGMGR EXE 48,640 23/11/98 18:00 JDBGMGR.EXE JVIEW EXE 179,200 23/11/98 18:00 JVIEW.EXE SETDEBUG EXE 42,496 23/11/98 18:00 SETDEBUG.EXE JAVAPERM HLP 11,403 23/11/98 18:00 JAVAPERM.HLP JAVASEC HLP 21,444 23/11/98 18:00 JAVASEC.HLP JAVASUP VXD 7,876 23/11/98 18:00 JAVASUP.VXD CLASSES ZIP 5,568,435 23/11/98 18:00 CLASSES.ZIP DX3 ZIP 323,696 23/11/98 18:00 DX3.ZIP MSJDBC ZIP 136,923 23/11/98 18:00 MSJDBC.ZIP TCLASSES ZIP 203,645 23/11/98 18:00 TCLASSES.ZIP MSJAVA16 INF 6,496 23/11/98 18:00 MSJAVA16.INF CLASSES CER 2,678 23/11/98 18:00 CLASSES.CER DX3 CER 2,678 23/11/98 18:00 DX3.CER JAUTOEXP DAT 6,550 23/11/98 18:00 JAUTOEXP.DAT MSJDBC CER 2,678 23/11/98 18:00 MSJDBC.CER TCLASSES CER 2,678 23/11/98 18:00 TCLASSES.CER COPY INF 52,223 23/11/98 18:48 COPY.INF COPY1 INF 50,730 23/11/98 18:48 COPY1.INF COPY2 INF 48,533 23/11/98 18:48 COPY2.INF DEL INF 47,263 23/11/98 18:48 DEL.INF DEL1 INF 38,067 23/11/98 18:48 DEL1.INF DEL2 INF 45,172 23/11/98 18:48 DEL2.INF REN INF 2,918 23/11/98 18:48 REN.INF LAYOUT1 INF 50,706 23/11/98 19:03 LAYOUT1.INF