Windows 98 build 1351

Windows 98 build 1351 is a Developer Release build and the earliest available build of Windows 98. This build was originally leaked on 31 December 1996 by warez scene group GLoW, who described it as "the December release", and that "it wasn't Beta 1 because IE 4 wasn't ready". It was included on the warez CD "Dragon 5" who claimed that "people say it's 75% faster than Windows 95" and the warez CD author "thinks it's much faster".

The setup routine has been revamped in this build, making it resemble the 98/ME setup routine in layout, if not in overall look and feel. It also installs Microsoft Plus! theming components by default, such as 256 color icons. It is the first non-debug Windows build to include a desktop watermark.

ACPI
ACPI support is in very early development and crashes easily. Turn off ACPI or setup can crash during hardware setup with a red screen of death (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.

BSOD 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 startup 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.

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