Windows 98 FE Keys will not work.

ratman743

I have had several issues when installing Windows 98 FE onto a VM. It seems that the keys provided on the page will not work when typed into the prompt. I have made sure to retype them to make sure I had not made any errors, but they would not register. I tried both keys, too. I hope you have this error fixed soon, I personally believe the issue to be a simple typo, as I have not ever had a problem with any other .iso file.

-Thanks, Ratman743

Skora

ratman743 wrote:

I have had several issues when installing Windows 98 FE onto a VM. It seems that the keys provided on the page will not work when typed into the prompt. I have made sure to retype them to make sure I had not made any errors, but they would not register. I tried both keys, too. I hope you have this error fixed soon, I personally believe the issue to be a simple typo, as I have not ever had a problem with any other .iso file.

-Thanks, Ratman743

I've had this same issue with 98 First Edition, however, one of the keys (i believe it was the second one listed) on 98 Second Edition worked flawlessly.

ratman743

I know the SE keys will work because i have installed it onto a VM. XD. I will try the second FE kay agian, and see if it will work. The only reason I needed the FE is because my VM wasn't running the SE .iso correctly, but i fixed it. btw, your site is awesome, All of my vms are installed by .iso's and .img's found on this website. Thanks!

Duff

I noticed I personally never tested a First Edition CD key, so it's possible the ones listed with the download aren't valid.

However, there's a huge list of serials in our Official Serials Thread so looking in there might be worth a look.

If/when you get a working one, please make a post letting us know which one so we can add it next to the download and save other people the trouble in the future.

02k-guy

This key: VP9VV-VJW7Q-MHY6W-JK47R-M2KGJ

Is a known good key for both FE & SE. It in fact came from Microsoft, and if IRC, it was either to do with VPC 2001 beta release, or the Visual F# language pack.

luckyhusky

I have found a website full of serials/product keys for old abandoned Windows 9x releases. I just looked through the list (this was for Windows 98 First Edition) and looked at the Windows 98 OEM section and found it!

The link to the site is here: http://rosshaynes.com/windowsos.html

SomeGuy

There is also a fairly simple way to modify the SETUPX.DLL in Windows 98 and ME so that it does not ask for a serial number at all. And in Windows 95, all it takes is an entry in the Msbatch.inf to make it not ask for a serial number.

po lu

SomeGuy wrote:

There is also a fairly simple way to modify the SETUPX.DLL in Windows 98 and ME so that it does not ask for a serial number at all. And in Windows 95, all it takes is an entry in the Msbatch.inf to make it not ask for a serial number.

How?
Thanks, po

SomeGuy

That is an old trick. You extract the setupx.dll from the precopy cab in to your setup folder, edit setupx with a hex editor. Near the end of the file you will see something like:

46789........0.120..........File Copy Engine....

Where "120" indicates an OEM type. "101" is retail, "102" is upgrade, etc.

Change this number to "100" and it will not ask for a key.

You do not need to put the setupx.dll back in the CAB. Just keep your modified DLL in the same folder as setup.exe and the cab files, and it will read your DLL instead.

Bry89

I believe that was also done for one of XP's setup files too, of a disc containing its installer that I got from a friend years ago (and it was of XP SP2). That's the reason why one day when I wanted to have a look at it again, it didn't ask me for the product key. It was quite interesting at its time...