Win98 Generic drivers?

[bevills1]

Does anybody know anything about or have any experience with generic USB drivers for Win98 from http://www.technical-assistance.co.uk/kb/usbmsd98.php? Does anyone know whether they supposedly work the same as WinMe USB which supposedly doesn't require separate drivers for each USB device? For standard Windows drivers in Win98 separate drivers must be loaded for each USB device, i.e. printer, flash drive, etc. I've been told WinMe USB functions similar to Win2k and WinXP, i.e. no separate drivers needed for each USB device.

[jman98]

I don't know with 100% absolute certainty, but my brother has an old PC still running Win98. USB is about the only thing that piece of crap still does OK. I've worked some on his PC and I don't remember ever having to load special USB drivers for each device. It's not my PC, so I haven't plugged a lot into it, but you shouldn't need separate drivers. WinME is Win98 with some patches and nothing more. It's not really an "upgrade" over Win98, at least not how anybody but Microsoft would view it. They pushed the upgrade angle big time because nobody would have bought it if they truly knew how little the 2 differ from each other.

[Ai Haibara]

Hey, the two Win98 towers I have running off in a bedroom still run relatively fine.

You generally have to have drivers for most of the USB devices you insert into the system, under 98. 98SE and ME are a little better about their USB handling, but certainly not as much as the more recent versions of Windows.
I haven't had as much luck with drivers that have claimed to handle multiple USB devices (such as ranges of flash drives), but I probably do need to install USB 2.0 cards in those towers, if I really wanted to work more with USB devices on them.

That said, slightly better USB handling is about the ONLY reason I'd get anywhere near WinME, these days. 8)

[bevills1]

Ai Haibara, are flash drives or external drives (DVD and hard drives) recognized by WinMe without having separate drivers for each? I have an external USB 2.0 DVD burner and 4 different flash drives that simply aren't recognized in my Win98SE plus an internal USB 2.0 card reader for which there are no Win98 drivers. The only USB devices that work for my Win98SE are USB printers for which drivers are available and are installed.

[Ai Haibara]

I'm not sure (I don't have a working WinME setup with which to test at the moment). I think it's technically supposed to, if you have it connected to a USB2 port... but I can't be sure. ME's support, as far as I know, is supposed to be about as good as 98SE's, but I still wouldn't make any guarantees.

Wonder if it'd pick up that old 32MB flash drive of mine, that I can't get Win98 to see.