It bundles a bunch of updates and fixes a ton of bugs. Plus, it makes it play nice with 512-768 megs of memory. I find that it generally makes windows more stable. It also adds a few choice utilities like "command prompt here" and "TweakUI".
Features of 2.1a:
# 120+ updates and hotfixes (Detailed list will be prepared soon).
# Solves 512 MB of RAM problem.
# 256-color tray icons.
# Better Notepad: MetaPad 3.5 (Optional).
# Optimized swap file usage (Optional).
# Better WDM and USB support.
# Adaptec ASPI 4.60.1021 drivers (Optional).
# Windows Scripting Host 5.6.
# DCOM98 1.3.
# OLE Automation Libraries 2.40.4522.
# Dial-Up Networking 1.4.
# Microsoft Installer 2.0.
# HTML Help 5.0.
# TweakUI (Optional).
# Command Prompt Here (Optional).
# New Animated Boot and Shutdown Logo (Optional).
# Microsoft Layer for Unicode.
# Visual Basic 5.0 SP2 runtime library.
# Visual Basic 6.0 SP6 runtime library.
# Visual C++ 6.0 SP6 runtime libraries.
# Updates JET 3.5 files to JET 3.5 SP3.
# Supports 98lite 4.7.
# Windows 2000/ME desktop icons.
# Windows 2000 color scheme (Optional).
# Supports custom "Program Files" directory.
# Shows attributes column in details view on the Windows Explorer.
# Semi-slipstreaming support.
# Some tweaks (Optional).
More info here...
http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=61749I install every option except "MetaPad" since I already use UltraEdit.
If you use USB mass storage devices with Windows 98SE, you'll also want to get this too...
Maximus Decim Native USB ver.2.2
http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=43605It basically grafts the Windows ME USB mass storage device support into Windows 98SE.
If you're really feeling adventurous, there's also a utilty that will graft *all* the good parts of Windows ME into Windows 98SE....
http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=46349I haven't tried this one yet, but a lot of people are using it and swear by it.