However, this process shouldn't take more than 20 seconds (I've just tested it on a virtual machine)- you could try and search for updated drivers for your ethernet card? Whereas Windows 2000 onwards initialises these components after the main OS has started. You may see a black screen during this time with white writing giving details about the driver. If I recall correctly, the architecture of Windows 9x (95, 98, Me) means that when you install drivers for networking components such as ethernet cards it will usually check the hardware and attempt to check for/make a connection whilst starting up Windows.

Is there no updates from Microsoft for Windows 98 FE to support the networking requirements needed for a wireless adapter? I could use an ethernet cable to connect it up if wireless isn't possible, however, I don't know if anyone knows why, but if I install drivers for the ethernet card, Windows suddenly takes about a minute or so longer to start than without the drivers installed. We have two newer computers running Vista and an Apple Mac so we are not having to upgrade it to run new software or anything. I have considered upgrading the RAM but the motherboard takes 'RAMBUS' Memory which costs around £50-£60 for an extra 128MB!!! So I decided not to bother upgrading it! Windows 2000 would probably work okay but I'd preferably like to keep Windows 98 on that system because I have a lot of old software and MS-DOS games that won't work on computers running NT based systems without emulation. You might also like to consider placing the router/PC next to each other and using ethernet? May I ask what specification the Windows 98 computer is? Why not consider installing Windows 2000? Similar specifications required to run as Windows Me and a lot more stable than Windows 9x- plus it is less resource hungry than Windows XP (you can turn off most of these in Windows XP anyway e.g. Windows 98 SE, as you specified, provided basic support for these technologies and therefore is the minimum requirement for wireless networking. Hi, Unfortunately Windows 98 FE has networking components which are not compatible with wireless networks (Win 98 FE was basically a bug fix of Windows 95 with one or two additions).

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