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Watch Computer Pros Get Excited About Windows 98 in 1998

“Convince me and our viewers that it’s worth upgrading to 98,” said one TV host.

Microsoft's Windows 98 comes off the packaging line.
Microsoft's Windows 98 comes off the packaging line. | Jeff Christensen/RETIRED/GettyImages

A decade before fans started lining up outside Apple stores for the release of each new iPhone model, computer enthusiasts in the '90s were stoked when the big tech companies dropped new operating systems.

Windows 98 was released on June 25, 1998, and unlike today, you had to go to a computer store and buy a physical product with CD-ROMs when you wanted to update your PC’s functionality. Though some consumers felt Windows 98 wasn’t a significant step forward from Windows 95, the new version featured more web integration and slightly improved graphics, plus handy tools for networking and driver support.

“Computer users could watch a televised golf game while simultaneously looking up information about the course and golfers,” The Seattle Post-Intelligencer marveled, noting Windows 98’s ability to turn a PC monitor into an “interactive television ... without tying up a telephone line.”

Stewart Cheifet, host of the TV show Computer Chronicles, devoted an episode to discussing the new OS to answer a key question: “Is it worth the 90 bucks?“ Kim Akers, a product manager from Microsoft, tries to sell Cheifet on an exciting new feature. “One of the things you can do with Windows 98, similar to the web, you can navigate on your hard drive using the backwards and forwards buttons, just like you would on the web,” she says. Akers demonstrates another function that lets users navigate from the hard drive to a web page—in this case, the 1998 version of ESPN Sportzone—and back again using the newfangled buttons.

Stick with it for an interview with Linus Torvalds, the then-28-year-old inventor of Linux, one of Windows’ competitors in the late 1990s. Also fascinating is a review of a very fancy pager with a hardware keyboard made by the Canadian software company RIM, which went on to launch the BlackBerry in 1999.

The release of Windows 98 wasn’t the first time computer pros freaked out about a new Microsoft operating system. Watch them get excited about Windows 95 in 1995.

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A version of this story was published in 2016; it has been updated for 2024.

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