Windows 98 build 1351

Windows 98 build 1351 is a Developer Release build of Windows 98, and also the earliest available build of the operating system. It was originally shared on 31 December 1996 by warez scene group GLoW, who described it as "the December release [...] it [wasn't] Beta 1 because IE 4 [wasn't] ready". It was included on the warez CD Dragon 5, with claims of performance improvements from various sources including the warez CD author, citing that "it's much faster".

Setup
The setup of this build has gained a massive visual redesign. It no longer has aspects of dark blue, instead it uses grey and teal as colors when the color depth is set to 4-Bit (16 colors) and white and grey when set to 8-Bit (256 colors) or higher.

A sidebar has been added to setup, showing the steps of setup. In this build, it only has basic functionality, as later builds introduce more steps, a time indicator, as well the Microsoft logo at the bottom of the sidebar.

Setup also makes usage of new billboards during the file copy phase. The images use teal as background as well as black for the symbols. The text has been changed to tell the user the improvements of Memphis compared to Windows 95.

The creation of a startup disk can no longer be canceled before setup begins to prepare the files for the disk. It only can be canceled when the user is prompted to insert a floppy disk. The startup disk is now created during "Collecting Information" and no longer between "Collecting Information" and "Copying Files".

During restart, the first boot screen is identical to Windows 95, except that the Windows 95 reference has been changed to mention Memphis. The default boot screen has been changed from the clouds in the background featuring a Windows logo with shadows as seen in Windows 95 to the clouds inside of an ellipse (keyhole effect) and a Windows logo without shadows, the wording "Developer Release" in a serif font and the Memphis branding.

After restart, setup is checking at first for Plug-and-Play compatible hardware, then also for non-PnP-hardware. Also, it now asks for computer and workgroup names. Both were shifted from the first stage.

Changes

 * Microsoft Plus! theming components such as 256 color icons are now installed by default.
 * A desktop watermark was included for the first time outside Check/Debug builds.
 * Beginning with this build, Boot disks created in Setup or later from the "Add/Remove Programs" applet in Control Panel now include a CD-ROM driver for IDE/ATAPI CD-ROM drives.
 * This build is the first to include the "FAT32 Conversion Utility", which can convert FAT16 partitions on drives to FAT32. However, the user is no longer able to use it for Windows 95 OSR 1 and earlier after conversion. The utility is also not listed in the Start menu.
 * This build includes a Start menu option called "Internet System Update", which will become "Windows Update" ultimately. It tries to connect to a website at winbeta.microsoft.com, which is no longer possible nowadays due to the server have been taken down many years ago.
 * There is also a bug reporting tool, also located at winbeta.microsoft.com.
 * has been updated to read "Microsoft(R) Memphis" and to have a copyright date of 1981-1997 instead of 1981-1996 in Windows 95 OSR2, despite being compiled in December 1996.
 * WordPad has been updated to version 2.0 using Microsoft Foundation Classes version 4.0.
 * has been redesigned to replace Windows 95 references with Memphis. Links to the Windows Tour and "What's New" as well as Online Registration were removed.
 * An Alpha 2-era build of Internet Explorer 4, build 1158 (from 10 August 1996, 10 days before the dumped build 1169), is included. IE4 shell integration is not included (Windows Explorer is from Windows 95 RTM,  is from a hotfix and   is from OSR2).   detects the lack of updated shell (by checking if SHELL32 exports DllGetVersion) and because of this claims to be IE3 in the about window.
 * A very early build of DirectX 5.0 is included.
 * Microsoft NetMeeting 1.0 is included.
 * Native DVD support has been added.

ACPI
ACPI support is in very early development and crashes easily. ACPI must be disabled or setup will crash with a red screen of death during the hardware portion (used in early builds for ACPI errors).

Network Setup
This build allows the user to specify the network setup during the initial phase of setup before copying files. If this occurs, the network adapters will be duplicated after the hardware detection phase.

System crash during Windows Help configuration
Sometimes setup crashes with a blue screen of death when configuring Windows Help. Should this occur, the user will need to retry the installation again.

Sounds
This build does not have a boot sound set by default. Trying to set it leads to an error which claims that the sound file is missing, however, it is still present in.

Infrared
Just like in Windows Nashville build 999, Infrared support can be uninstalled from "Add/Remove Programs", which also removes the Infrared Control Panel applet.

File differences
The following files have been introduced or removed compared to the RTM build of Windows 95 OSR2: