Windows 98

Windows 98 is a widely-installed product in Microsoft's evolution of the Windows operating system for personal computers. Windows 98 was code named "Memphis" during development and was, at one point, called "Windows 97" based on an earlier production schedule. Windows 98 expressed Microsoft's belief that users want and should have a global view of their potential resources and that Web technology should be an important part of the user interface. Although building Microsoft's own Web browser into the user desktop was one of the defining issues in the U.S. Justice Department's antitrust suit against Microsoft in the 1990s, Windows 98 was released as planned with its tightly integrated browser.

Microsoft's Internet Explorer was designed to be considerably more with the operating system than previous versions. With Active Desktop, users can view and access desktop objects online as well as local files and applications. The Windows 98 desktop is, in fact, a Web page with HTML links and features that exploit Microsoft's ActiveX control.

Windows 98 and Windows 95 (with Internet Explorer 4.0 or another web browser installed) had early versions push technology installed, the ability to have news and other content delivered automatically by specified Web sites. RSS is a more current example of this functionally.

Windows 98 also provides a 32-bit file allocation table (FAT) that allows users to have a single-partition disk drive larger than 2 GB. Other features in Windows 98 include Support for Universal Serial Bus (USB), which makes it easy to plug in new devices Support for Digital Versatile Disc (DVD) Support for a new industry-standard form of power management called Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI)