Grez Seven

About me

Hello viewers! Thanks for viewing and a big kiss to all the gorgeous girls on My Opera. Although I have a picture at this time, I assure you I'm definitely not gray, nor Arnold Schwarzenegger above. :)

Although Opera 10.63 is the very final version that works on Windows 98, the 'Arrange' menu item is missing unless you use KernelEx. You also need 'KernelEx' for Flash 10, and I believe Flash 10.2 is the highest to work on non-SSE enabled CPUs. Search the web for 'KernelEx' and read before you try.

Opera's auto update does not complete on Windows 98, it produces an error message. If you manually install Opera 10.63 on Windows 98 you may also get an error message. Double click My Computer, find and double click C:\Program Files\Opera\opera.exe, it will update then Opera will start. After restarting Windows 98 then starting Opera again, the error message may return. Simply re-install Opera again and it will work permanently this second time, even after restarting Windows 98. Frustrating I know, but worth the effort as Opera is so fast and secure. I would hope the developers read this and can fix.

The upgrade to Opera 10.63 was long and full of problems. Opera continued refusing to start with the same error message about OUniAnsi.dll. Even downgrading to previous versions like 10.62 and restoring the registry would not prevent the error so I could not start any version of Opera during tests.

I eventually discovered you simply need to delete this folder C:\WINDOWS\TEMP\CPROGRAM FILESOPERA\ and Opera 10.63 starts normally! If this does not work for you, you may solve this problem by copying C:\Program Files\Opera\OUniAnsi.dll to your C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM folder. Good luck Windows 98 users.

After reading up, I did not attempt to install Opera 11.00 or later despite the fact it mostly works with KernelEx. As a Windows 98 user, I'm continuing with 10.63 for now.

Update, 2011 July 1st Friday: I have now installed KernelEx 4.5.1 which seems to be the final version. While continuing with Opera 10.63, I am now using KernelEx's recommended 'Windows 2000 SP4' mode. Pages seem to load faster and scrolling slightly smoother.

Update, 2011 July 17th Sunday: I've clean installed Opera 11.50 and indeed it does work on Windows 98 with KernelEx 4.5.1 installed! As read in a forum, Opera Turbo works briefly, but causes an illegal instruction then closes. However, I have never used Turbo except for testing so am keeping 11.50.

Update, 2012 October: Grez Seven finally ran out of patience with his rickety 15 year old antique computer, took it out into the garden and proceeded to chop it into thousands of peaces with an enormous axe, then fed it to the dog. I then went shopping and bought a brand new one. I'm just kidding - I haven't got a dog!

I've been doing some testing with another computer on the satellite map sites and created this chart to give a rough idea of which browser performs best. But I prefer Opera's looks and features far more than others!

Pentium4+HT 512MB ` ` ` ` ` ` ` Bing Maps ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` Google Maps
` ` ` ` ` WinXP SP3 ` ` ` ` ` ` Scroll / Zoom ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` Scroll / Zoom ` `- ` `Street View
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Internet Explorer 8 ` ` ` ` ` ` Jerky ` Medium ` ` ` ` ` ` Medium Slow ` ` ` ` ` `Jerky
Opera 10.63 ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `Jerky ` V.Fast ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `Smooth V.Smooth ` `Jerky
FireFox 3.6.10 ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` Smooth Fast ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` Smooth Jerky ` ` ` ` ` Medium
Chrome 6.0 ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `Smooth Fast ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` Smooth Smooth ` ` ` V.Smooth

I'm sure any weaknesses will be optimized making Opera the over-all fastest in the next version.