Some of the VIA chipsets from years ago did suck pretty bad, and their rep is still suffering because of these. The new chipsets are fine (at least by my experiance), and they were the first ones around to support the (non-RAMBUS) 133 bus speed. I did my research on them at
http://www.tomshardware.com (a great motherboard and tech reference website).
As for the issue with EZCD Creator, you can find more info on it at
http://www.sandisk.com/cons/imagemate.htm
Here is the bottom line on it, from the Sandisk site:
"The Easy CD Creator program uses certain APIX.vxd functions that are also incorporated into Windows 98. This alone is not a problem. However, when CD Creator is installed, it renames Microsoft's APIX files. When these files are renamed, compatibility issues arise between CD Creator and other peripherals (such as ImageMate) that use the APIX functions."
I am inclined to believe them since I had the exact same problem as described at their site. They have a batch file you can download, which contains the following fix:
echo off
cd \windows\system\iosubsys
if not exist APIX.BAK goto end
:ren
copy APIX.VXD APIX.ADP
copy APIX.BAK APIX.VXD
cd ..
if not exist WNASPI32.BAK goto end1
copy WNASPI32.DLL WNASPI32.ADP
copy WNASPI32.BAK WNASPI32.DLL
:end1
echo "Please type any key to continue then reboot the system"
pause
:end
echo on
As you can see it just restores from backup files that EZCD Creator makes when it installs itself.
Strangely this batch file would not fix my problem before I did my complete Win98 re-install. After I re-installed everything and then put EZCD Creator back on I had the exact same crash, but this time the above batch file fixed my problem and now everything works perfectly.