Best/worst Windows version ever?

[bigred]

IMO best was Win 2000. NEVER crashed on me, never gave me any real problems I can recall, yet very versatile and more features than I ever really needed. Honorable mention to Win 98 and Win 3.11.

Worst? That's so easy: Win ME. "ME" must have stood for "Massive Error" - as in what releasing it was. What a POS!

[McFunley]

First, some history -

There were, at one point, a few distinct branches in the Windows evolutionary tree. There was the 9x branch (95, 98, Me), which was not really connected to the NT branch (NT, 2000, XP, Vista). Generally speaking, the 9x branch was fraught with deep architectural problems and it was ultimately discontinued for this reason. So I agree that Me is the worst version ever released, given that it was only a very slight update of 98 released in 2000 (the year, that is).

I think it's a little difficult to compare the stability of the NT branch to the 9x branch, because in a sense it's apples and oranges. It's possible (even common) for a very basic user application to hang an entire 9x system, and this problem just does not exist on NT.

But that being said, I think the NT kernel has improved overall with each release, so I think XP performs better and is more stable than 2000. What may very well be less stable is the specific set of device drivers for the hardware that you currently own if you run XP. Kernel bugs are far from impossible, but the majority of blue screens will be caused by drivers (and I suppose malware).

How's that for an answer!

[RayG]

Windows XP Pro = thumbsup

Windows ME = Miserable Edition

'Nuff said.

RayG

[AnotherSillyAlias]

Worst = All

[LawnOven]

ha HA!

Its a trick question there is no 'best' version of windows!

The worse one by far is millenium edition *shudder*

Edit: XP Pro is ok aslong as you disable all the stupid ram and cpu hogging visual effects

[El Greco]

I haven't tried 2000 or the allegedly very good Server 2003, but XP Pro is pretty good for me as far as stability is concerned. Besides, when messing with asm programming I'm pretty sure I can freeze pretty much every OS. There are only a few things I'd like to see improved in Vista but I'm not holding my breath. And yes, Me was the worst.

[Zep]

Agree with the above comments.

The 95/98/ME line was REALLY just a fancy file-loader for DOS 7 (*crosses self*), in the same manner as Windows for Wallies, erm, Workgroups was. Hence the root of all limitations and problems with them.

If I remember my Microsoft lore correctly...

*cue flashback music...*

The wizzo "Start button" interface on Windows 95 was actually developed many months before for NT4 (which was ready to roll long before W95). The interface was then grafted onto the DOS 7 base, thus making "Windows 95", the product (it is DOS 7 you get if you boot them in "DOS mode"). All the drivers issues happened at the DOS level...

Windows NT4 was held up from release until Windows 95 had gathered enough market momentum, even though it was nearly 2 years ready - MS did not want to kill off W95 with competition from their own (better) product!

Ultimately, W98 became the last functionally useful variant of the DOS-based product. And even it was perilously close to the abyss of unweildiness most of the time. And so Windows ME was the next step beyond that... :)

*cue flash-forward music*

[Ian Osborne]

Anyone have any experience of pre-3.1 Windows, which I'm told barely functioned?

[El Greco]

Anyone have any experience of pre-3.1 Windows, which I'm told barely functioned?

I had 3.0 installed on a 386 without coprocessor and with 32MB of memory (upgraded from 4MB). It wasn't really something you would take seriously, at that time Windows was just another program in my DOS menu, mainly a gimmick which could do the pretty amazing thing of having more than one program open at the same time. Then, when one wanted to do some serious work or play a game, would exit back to DOS.

[Darat]

Anyone have any experience of pre-3.1 Windows, which I'm told barely functioned?

Yep - I even trained people on using it! It was really a very simple graphical program manager at the time GEM (before it was brain-killed by Apple) was far superior. Back in those days the best "windowing" system was by far DESQview (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DESQview)

[NeilC]

My Win2000 Pro crashed all the time. Now I have XP sp2 and it feels noticably faster and is much more stable. When it does fall over it's easier to recover.

[Mongrel]

Best - Win XP. I'm a gamer and the stabilty and utility far surpasses any other Wondows product.

Worst - Win ME. Minty Edition. Why this steaming pile of faeces was ever allowed on the market is anyones guess

[a_unique_person]

Anyone have any experience of pre-3.1 Windows, which I'm told barely functioned?

Yes, Windows 286 (IIRC). They had a copy at work, and many were much intrigued by what it was actually supposed to be useful for. It consumed all the resources that were available, so it wasn't really able to do anything else.

There was a game that ran under Window's 1, (once again, IIRC). I forget the name, but it was a political global strategy game.

[logical muse]

Anyone have any experience of pre-3.1 Windows, which I'm told barely functioned?
I still have the Windows 1.0 SDK (Software Development Kit) !!!!

Well, I just checked my bookshelf. I have the documentation for 1.0 SDK from 1984, but the floppies aren't there. I wouldn't know where they are now...

Yep, I started programming for Windows back in 1984. Geeze I must be an old bastard!

eta: but still incredibly handsome

[Ian Osborne]

There was a game that ran under Window's 1, (once again, IIRC). I forget the name, but it was a political global strategy game.

Intercontinental Solitaire?

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

I had crashes with Windows 2000, too. My Windows XP Pro system has never had a BSoD.

Put at least 750 megs of RAM in the system, preferably 1 gig or more. It costs more to ask someone how much memory to buy than it does to buy it.


~~ Paul

[GrnMtSkeptic]

Yes, Windows 286 (IIRC). They had a copy at work, and many were much intrigued by what it was actually supposed to be useful for. It consumed all the resources that were available, so it wasn't really able to do anything else.

Yeah. There was another guy at work who was all gaga over some other "task switcher" called something like MultiQuad (not really that close to the name, but the best I can remember. I think it had an M and a Q in the name....). It was also no more than a curiousity.

ETA: Quarterdeck's DESQView! I was wrong about the M, and only half right on the Q... :D

[jimlintott]

Worst - MS Windows ME
Best - X Windows
Best window manager - KDE

If I have to stick to MS products then XP is the best I've used. Pretty stable although still really bizzarre, wierd and ugly.

[Diamond]

It depends what you're used to. I use KDE on SuSE linux all the time, so Windows does feel peculiar now, even though that's what I learned up on.

I do remember Windows 286 but it was just a fancy front end for DOS. There were almost no apps written for it.

Now that Microsoft have finally changed the way they write code, I think that Windows Vista could be a pleasant surprise.

[GrnMtSkeptic]

I do remember Windows 286 but it was just a fancy front end for DOS. There were almost no apps written for it.

I recall a file "disposal" not unlike the other trash/recycle bins we have today, except this one had whirring blades sort of like a real garbage disposal. Fun to watch the first few times, but hardly worth the time to start up Win286 just for that.... Can't really remember anything else I ever did with Win286...

[malbui]

I have some almost fond memories of Win 3.1 as I spent a lot of time wrestling with both it and the DOS sitting underneath to try to get things to work. Obviously it was a buggy pile of rubbish but I learned a lot from it. Since then, my favourite has been W2K, which I've found to be stable, reliable and not too much of a resource hog: XP is pretty but I've ended up turning lots of things off so I can get some work done.

[Soapy Sam]

Pretty unanimous that the Myalgic Encephalitis version (post viral fatigue syndrome)was the runt of the litter.

I would say XP Pro Service Pack 1 gave me fewest problems - and still does on the home PC. Trying to fix the numerous faults created by SP2 was jusy too much trouble.

Pre Win 3.1 - Yes, I played with Windows 3.0, briefly, before retreating to DOS and XTREE GOLD. That was a sweet file manager.

[varwoche]

Anyone have any experience of pre-3.1 Windows, which I'm told barely functioned? Ah yes, I still have scars from Windows 286.

[homer]

I used to run that windows 3.1 . It was like running a BASIC program , very slow . We used Dosshell instead .
I don't find Windows XP any better than Win98 , indeed I had to reinstall part of this system when my computer failed to boot . This something I never had to do with win 98 . Also I seem to get the blue screen of death more often . Frankly it's all been downhill since IBM asked for a D(isc)O(perating)S(ystem) from you know who .
Interestingly enough I had a very early 6502 based computer which had a BASIC interpreter written by an outfit called microsoft , I wonder what became of them?
This BASIC had a few bugs in it I recall , but was better than the later Sinclair machines .

[jnelso99]

Anyone have any experience of pre-3.1 Windows, which I'm told barely functioned?

If you look around, I think you can find pre-3.1 Windows versions online at some abandonware sites.

[Nucular]

Yep, XP=good, but I preferred ME to 95 (though maybe it was hardware faults as well as buggy Windows that used to crash all the time, who can say?)

I still miss Workbench.

[Darat]

I miss RISC OS and OS/2 Warp!

[CFLarsen]

I miss RISC OS and OS/2 Warp!

You are a really, really sick person....

[CFLarsen]

Ah, you kids....

Win 1.0 was a hoot.

[Jorghnassen]

Windows 3.11 holds a special place in my heart.

/it clogs arteries

[a_unique_person]

I used to run that windows 3.1 . It was like running a BASIC program , very slow . We used Dosshell instead .
I don't find Windows XP any better than Win98 , indeed I had to reinstall part of this system when my computer failed to boot . This something I never had to do with win 98 . Also I seem to get the blue screen of death more often . Frankly it's all been downhill since IBM asked for a D(isc)O(perating)S(ystem) from you know who .
Interestingly enough I had a very early 6502 based computer which had a BASIC interpreter written by an outfit called microsoft , I wonder what became of them?
This BASIC had a few bugs in it I recall , but was better than the later Sinclair machines .

I have an old copy of Dr Dobbs. It was called Micro Soft.

[Fungrim]

Worst == ME
Best == Win2k

I had problems with XP on my home workstation for a while and downgraded to 2k. No problems at all. Although I'm working on XP on my current job, performs OK so far.

(But at home... Still Linux).

[Red Siegfried]

Let me get this straight. There are actually people claiming that Windows ME is worse than Windows 95 or Windows 3.1 or 3.0 or older? Put down the crackpipe and come back to reality. Or is it just that we have 16 year olds here who have never used those versions?

Sure Windows ME wasn't great, but not because it didn't work (in my experience, it worked fine) but because it did almost nothing new compared to the previous incarnation (Windows 98). Windows 98 SE was the height of the Win9X family and Windows ME was just a completely unnecessary solution to a problem no one had.

But worse than Windows 95 or Windows 3.1? Puhleeze. I sense elitism.

So far, I'd have to say that Windows XP Pro is the most stable Windows version I've ever used on a home computer or workstation, and Windows 2003 pretty much rocks in terms of stability and security. Sure, it has holes, but I have never had an XP or 2003 machine get pwned in any way. That might be because I actually work in network security too :)

(crossing my fingers that this thread won't get hijacked by the Mac or Linux fanatics)

[geni]

But worse than Windows 95 or Windows 3.1? Puhleeze. I sense elitism.


I was never able to figure out quite what it was but while 95 and 3.11 could fall back to DOS without any issues Me couldn't.

[Fungrim]

But worse than Windows 95 or Windows 3.1? Puhleeze.
Well, that's trivially correct of course. But ME is subjectively worse, at least for me, as it represents such a setback and completely dead end. Of course it is a better system than, say, 3.1 just as me being better programmer than 8 years ago doeas stop application Y written 3 years ago being the worst thing I've written.

[McFunley]

Besides, when messing with asm programming I'm pretty sure I can freeze pretty much every OS.

Yes, if you write a kernel mode device driver. If you're just writing a user-mode program (which is all a restricted user would be able to launch), there's nothing special about assembly that would allow you to muck with the system.

Also I agree with the last poster, Me was the worst because of the date it was released. If Me and 3.1 were somehow released side-by-side, then yes, 3.1 is worse. Timeliness is of course a factor in how good or bad an OS seems to us.

[Red Siegfried]

I was never able to figure out quite what it was but while 95 and 3.11 could fall back to DOS without any issues Me couldn't.

Yeah, I guess MS in its infinite wisdom figured that if people wanted to run DOS apps with Windows ME they could always just fire up a boot disk anyway. And in a way, I can almost understand a point of view like this since Windows 9Xs DOS mode rarely worked reliably for anything that required DOS drivers or EMS or XMS.

But to say ME is worse because of that feature, is like saying you can't see the trees because of all the forest in the way.

[Red Siegfried]

Anyone have any experience of pre-3.1 Windows, which I'm told barely functioned?


Even with Windows 3.11 I used Dashboard. It kind of gave that version a lot of the GUI features that came along later in 95. But Windows 3.0 was the first version I used and I thought it was okay. It just didn't work well for me at the time because of my slow comp and the fact that I couldn't play lots of games on it ... :)

[geni]

Yeah, I guess MS in its infinite wisdom figured that if people wanted to run DOS apps with Windows ME they could always just fire up a boot disk anyway. And in a way, I can almost understand a point of view like this since Windows 9Xs DOS mode rarely worked reliably for anything that required DOS drivers or EMS or XMS.

But to say ME is worse because of that feature, is like saying you can't see the trees because of all the forest in the way.

It means that all the other windows systems had something that while rather old at least tended to work to fall back on. With ME it was ME or nothing.

[TobiasTheViking]

me .. i like the birth of jesus OS ...

1) it's stable ...
2) comes with some decent goodies ... gold, frankincense and myrrh ...
3) a great help system ... just ask the angel above ... not some stupid paperclip !!!
4) you don't need to rely on Jobs, Gates, Torvald ... you just get three wise men ...
5) the **** is provided by the cattle ... not any application that you might wanna run on it..
6) upgrades come only every couple of thousand years ...
7) it's a virgin OS, which alot of geek can associate with ...

[Zep]

I miss RISC OS and OS/2 Warp!I can sell you an unopened box of OS/2 Warp if you like! We have a dozen in our computer museum...

[Zep]

***** WEIRD REQUEST! *****

If anyone coming to TAM has a complete Microsoft Windows ME kit in its original box and can bear to part with it, please let me know! We are looking for a functioning(!) version to have in our computer museum (we are trying to get one example of each OS). Would you believe - WinME been the most UNinstalled product here ever, and the kits must now occupy many hectares of landfill...and we can't find one!

[gnome]

My favorites:

Windows 95B edition: Before the unholy abomination that was Internet Explorer 4.0 had been melded to it like a face-sucker in Aliens. This was one of those rare times in personal computing that the typical hardware platform was powerful enough to run the popular version of Windows without too much pausing or chugging.

Aside from that... Window 98 SE (on a good enough machine)... and then Windows XP.

2000 was OK, just didn't wind up using it a whole lot.

[CFLarsen]

***** WEIRD REQUEST! *****

If anyone coming to TAM has a complete Microsoft Windows ME kit in its original box and can bear to part with it, please let me know! We are looking for a functioning(!) version to have in our computer museum (we are trying to get one example of each OS). Would you believe - WinME been the most UNinstalled product here ever, and the kits must now occupy many hectares of landfill...and we can't find one!

(shhhhh.....it's because the aliens have beamed all existing copies to Planet X....)

[CFLarsen]

Let me get this straight. There are actually people claiming that Windows ME is worse than Windows 95 or Windows 3.1 or 3.0 or older? Put down the crackpipe and come back to reality. Or is it just that we have 16 year olds here who have never used those versions?

Sure Windows ME wasn't great, but not because it didn't work (in my experience, it worked fine) but because it did almost nothing new compared to the previous incarnation (Windows 98). Windows 98 SE was the height of the Win9X family and Windows ME was just a completely unnecessary solution to a problem no one had.

But worse than Windows 95 or Windows 3.1? Puhleeze. I sense elitism.

It is also evidence of how unreliable memory is.

[Darat]

I can say I never personally had many issues with WindowsME however a lot of my colleagues and friends did and I had a lot of problems (mainly nasty compatibility problems) with some software for a little while.

[Darat]

I can sell you an unopened box of OS/2 Warp if you like! We have a dozen in our computer museum...

And IBM probably have a few more million somewhere!

I still have most of my floppies for it (I think), along with the what a dozen or so floppies for a Windows 95 installation. (I can no longer use those discs - because they are an upgrade path installation so they need a working 3.x Windows installation or setup disc which I can't find oh and none of my PCs have a 3.5 floppy drive.)

[The_Fire]

Anything prior to win2000.....the things just kept crashing......
And FYI: I've been around since DOS 5.0/Win 3.1....

[CFLarsen]

Anything prior to win2000.....the things just kept crashing......
And FYI: I've been around since DOS 5.0/Win 3.1....
Newbie. :p

[Darat]

Remember the introduction of MSDOs 4?!!?!!? Now that was a pile of smelly stuff and one of MS's worse releases ever.

[moopet]

XP is fine for most users provided they don't care that computing won't get any better in their lifetime. It's stable - almost all problems are caused, as with any OS, by 3rd party drivers and software. If the architecture was sound, though, that wouldn't be a problem, and the OS would be one that could be used in a century :)

Worst version is either 95 or ME. 95 was undoubtedly worse than ME but, well, ME should have known better after half a decade, really.

Anyone have any experience of pre-3.1 Windows, which I'm told barely functioned?
Sure
When I arrived at my sixth-form college, they were in the process of upgrading Windows to version 3, then later 3.11, but I don't remember much about the previous OS. We just used DOS anyway. And I had GEM desktop on my PC at home, though I never saw the point in this whole GUI thing. It obviously had no future, etc.

when messing with asm programming I'm pretty sure I can freeze pretty much every OS
Unless you're re-writing the kernel this should be impossible on any modern computer hardware running a well-designed OS.
Yes, it's possible to crash Windows and Linux. But it shouldn't be.

[Diamond]

Remember the introduction of MSDOs 4?!!?!!? Now that was a pile of smelly stuff and one of MS's worse releases ever.

Yes, I remember that they couldn't get a lot of PC Manufacturers to bundle it in because it used up so much memory that customer's programs wouldn't run. For ages DOS 3.3 ruled!

[Darat]

Yes, I remember that they couldn't get a lot of PC Manufacturers to bundle it in because it used up so much memory that customer's programs wouldn't run. For ages DOS 3.3 ruled!

Or you used DR-DOS.

[Nucular]

Are there any simulators/emulators of these ancient old OSs, that wouldn't require an actual installation into a windows partition or something? I'd quite like to try the old programs I remember from school on Win3.11, and ancient versions of Word, and stuff. Just for old time's sake.

I learnt the word "abandonware" from this thread, but looking over some abandonware sites, I'm a bit wary of installing programs called things like "CPUkill" to "slow your computer down to 286 speed", and so forth. And sound patches, and pre-DirectX graphics extensions, and so forth. I'm scared of all that stuff.

Isn't there a nice easy way to do it, like my ZX Spectrum emulator?

[Wudang]

IIRC MS-DOS 4 was blamed on IBM shoving stuff in, TSRs or something? IBM's DOS 6 was excellent.

Aaahhh OS/2's extended file attributes. Wonderful stuff that MS still hasn't caught up on.

My favourite DOS extender (QDOS????) was to allow an XT to run multiple 3270 sessions via something called MYTE. This fitted on a 5.25 floppy. You started it by typing "myte 4" for 4 sessions and it figured everything else out. IBM released it as Personal Communications and added value, like forcing you to enter the MAC address of you LAN card and all the other stuff that it used to just figure out itself.

[The_Fire]

QDOS RULE(D)!

Now if you all will excuse me for a second.....
*rounds up CFLarsen*
Stand still, this will only hurt for the first two hours....
*WHAM!*

[Psi Baba]

I don't know about comparing ME to 3.11 (I had enough experience with 3.11, but they are two different animals with different types of demands placed on them) but in my experience the 95-98-ME series grew progressively worse, not better. I think one thing you have to look at though, is whether the OS was an upgrade or OEM. I know people who "upgraded" to 98 and then rolled back to 95 because of unresolvable problems. In my own workplace, I found 98 to be fraught with problems, whether upgraded or OEM, but much more so if it was an upgrade. ME just seemed to be very slow and uncooperative, and that was as an OEM on a brand new computer! I held out with 95B on my own machine until it was time for a whole new machine (forget upgrading). W2000 is one of the hardiest versions I've used. Even my boss never managed to crash 2000 (real-life equivalent of Dilbert's boss), so that's quite a testament right there. I will say for XP that it seems that "plug-and-play" has finally come into reality. 2000 was pretty good at that too, but before that, getting any new hardware meant you might well be spending a day and half trying to convince Windows that it really was there and you really did mean to put it there.

[Darat]

Are people talking about original Win2K or Win2K with SP4 ;) ?

[gnome]

Are there any simulators/emulators of these ancient old OSs, that wouldn't require an actual installation into a windows partition or something? I'd quite like to try the old programs I remember from school on Win3.11, and ancient versions of Word, and stuff. Just for old time's sake.

I learnt the word "abandonware" from this thread, but looking over some abandonware sites, I'm a bit wary of installing programs called things like "CPUkill" to "slow your computer down to 286 speed", and so forth. And sound patches, and pre-DirectX graphics extensions, and so forth. I'm scared of all that stuff.

Isn't there a nice easy way to do it, like my ZX Spectrum emulator?

For Dos there's "DOSBOX" which has a speed control that works better than most applets I've found such as moslo

[Red Siegfried]

Agreed. DOSbox with the DFend front end works great for "emulating" DOS, right down to working well with modern sound cards and CDROMS. Not perfect, but good.

[McFunley]

Are there any simulators/emulators of these ancient old OSs, that wouldn't require an actual installation into a windows partition or something? I'd quite like to try the old programs I remember from school on Win3.11, and ancient versions of Word, and stuff. Just for old time's sake.

I learnt the word "abandonware" from this thread, but looking over some abandonware sites, I'm a bit wary of installing programs called things like "CPUkill" to "slow your computer down to 286 speed", and so forth. And sound patches, and pre-DirectX graphics extensions, and so forth. I'm scared of all that stuff.

Isn't there a nice easy way to do it, like my ZX Spectrum emulator?

Microsoft VirtualPC, and VMWare products can do this quite nicely. Neither are free as far as I know, though.

[Nucular]

Cheers gnome, Red & McFunley!

I'll check into these programs and see if I can 'do' any of them :)

Yep - old versions of Word and "Where's my work gone? What the Hell have you done with my work!" here we come!

[Bfef]

Win 2000 Pro or Server is cool, it does everything that XP does without the frills that slow XP down.

OK, I know it doesn't have the security centre etc but savvy PC users don't need it anyway.

In fact, a virus that crippled XP infected my 2K box but it kept going no problem.

Windows CE
Windows ME
Windows NT

Errrm, CEMENT.........???????????????

Worst Windows Ever, ME no doubt. Win 3.0 was great, had a real mode that let me install it on an Amstrad word processor and let me simulate multitasking.

Win 95b OSR2 + USBSUPP is the ultimate 16/32 bit Windows, does everything Win98 can do without the overhead (again).

[bruto]

I guess it depends on what you're running it on and what you're using it for.

I started out with Dos 3.2, which is similar to 3.3, except that it had a smaller footprint and didn't support 1.44 meg drives. It was ideal for small memories and it booted in 12 seconds on my 286. I'd be running it still if I could.

I liked Win 3.11. It crashed but it was easily mastered, easy to clean up and repair. Because it was overlaid on Dos you could have more than one version on the same computer, set for different configurations. It would even run from a zip disk. I also had a configuration changing utility that would reboot with different autoexec.bat and config.sys files for different apps. I stuck with it until it new programs I needed were unavailable for it. I also had NDOS as my command interpreter. I really miss that.

I used that until 2000, when I got a Dell PIII/500 running 98SE. In the 6 years I've run it I've never had to reinstall or reformat. It still works well, though it does crash occasionally, and I suspect that soon new programs will be unable to run on it as happened with the previous version.

I also have a laptop with WinXP home. I've had 2 blue screens with XP in the 4 years since I got it. I finally got around to installing SP2 and now it can't see my network printer, but it's otherwise pretty good. I also had a laptop with Win95b which worked all right until the computer itself conked out.

I guess I've been lucky, with very few really serious problems with any OS. Some of that may be to the credit of the computers themselves.

In terms of overall reliability, I guess XP gets the vote.

[Corpse Cruncher]

I had 98SE, on my first introduction to computers, which gave me headaches. A friend upgraded it to ME and for me it worked wonders as I had no problems. I now have just the standard XP, that comes pre-installed on computers these days, it doesn't seem as nice as ME or as friendly. From my experience of it it XP seems very fickle, more so than 98SE.

A few people have said install Mac or Linux, but I don't know if my system is compatible or even how to do it. Aside from that, more software seems to be geared toward Windows than to the other alternatives.

[bigred]

Let me get this straight. There are actually people claiming that Windows ME is worse than Windows 95 or Windows 3.1 or 3.0 or older? Put down the crackpipe and come back to reality. Or is it just that we have 16 year olds here who have never used those versions?)Methinks you need to look in the mirror, pot. Yes, ME was worse than even 3.0. Although both were buggy, at least 3.0 offered a lot that previous versions didn't. ME offered nothing other than a way for Gates to keep making millions thanks to all the brain-dead lemmings who buy the newest version of Windows for no reason whatsoever.

Sure Windows ME wasn't great, but not because it didn't work (in my experience, it worked fine))Your experience was either drug-induced or extremely unique. :cool:


But worse than Windows 95 or Windows 3.1? Puhleeze. I sense elitism.)You sense reality. Run to the light. ;)

[Hellbound]

Nucular,

I'd go with DOSbox over the VirtualPC platforms. First, Dosbox is free (big plus). VPC runs about $99 last I checked, for the software with an OS license. Also, VPC has serious problems with games. Anything requiring graphics in VPC slows down considerably...I get better performance in old games from DOSbox. Finally, VPC has problems running DOS level apps at all. I had to load Win95 on VPC to run DOS based apps, as the only DOS that would work within the VPC structure was their own proprietary version.

If you want to try VPC, I think I still have the license key and install files. I could probably mail it to ya. I no longer use it (or even have it installed).

Now, admitedly, I do have the 5.1 version of VPC. I think they're at 7 now (or so). Microsoft owns it now (bought if from Connectix right after version 5) if you want to see about trying the newer versions.

[Hellbound]

As to the 95/98/ME debate, I have a few things to add.

95B, I'll agree, was a pretty good system out of the batch. Very little argument from me there.

With 98 and, in a more serious case Me, it seemed almost like a lottery draw. I had severe issues with 98, including 98SE. ME, however, worked fine on my system (over a month continuous uptime was not remarkable). My wife's system, however, was the opposite...worked fine on 98SE but died within a week on ME.

My own suspicion with these two lies in the hardware interfaces and MS-provided drivers and support files. It seemed that 98SE, and ME to an even higher extent, were VERY dependent upon the type of hardware your system ran. Some hardware worked great (such as mine), some would cause almost irrecoverable errors continuously. My personal belief is that they kept trying to add hardware support as fast as possible, and dropped of quite a bit of quality control. There were a lot of new hardware and a lot of new standards either coming out or gaining in popularity at that time (CD-R's, DVD's, USB drives, Firewire, Gigabit networking, wireless, much larger hard drives, newer memory types such as the DDR RAM and RAMbus, etc), and it seems to me that they just started throwing in various files for support of this new hardware as fast as they could.

2000 was a very stable system, and I still use it on some of my system. In XP, I've noticed a strong difference between Home and Professional. Home has caused us several problems, but XP Pro has been running beautifully for me. IMO, it is definately worth the price to buy Pro instead of Home. If you can't afford XP Pro, then try to get Win2k Pro instead of XP Home.

[Corpse Cruncher]

This sort of fits here.

What is the difference between XP OEM, XP home and XP professional OS? I have the OEM XP version and a salesman mentioned I should upgrade it to XP Professional. Will an upgrade work over my OEM or do I have to buy the whole complete expensive OS?

I was only enquiring whether to buy a more up to date version of Microsoft Office package as I had the 2000 version. I didn't get my answer. I am still not sure whether to buy a more up to date Microsoft Office suite?

[Hellbound]

XP OEM should still be a version of Home or Professional. OEM just means "Original Equipment Manufacturer", and it's the copy of the OS that came with the computer (from Dell or HP, for example). The only real difference between an OEM version and a retail version are usually some small changes made by the OEM comapny to some of the code. Genenrally, OEM is equivalent to the retail version. It would not be worth the cost to upgrade just to get a retail version instead of OEM. The salesman is either uninformed (and thus, can be ignored), or intentionally trying to up his commission (and, thus, can be ignored). I'm using almost exclusivly OEM versions of XP Pro (mainly because, as a former employee of a OEM, I can buy them MUCH cheaper than retail versions. Our OMN versions, infact, were exactly like retail except for the fancy packaging. We did no custom coding).

Now, there is a difference between Home and Professional. XP Home cannot be a member of a Windows domain, provides much less detail in setting user accounts, and has a few other limitations, mostly dealing with networking and security. If you plan to do much networking, have more than one or two users, or do anything requireing a high degree of security (such as your financial records, for example), I would say the upgrade to XP Professional is worth it.

Finally, as to Office, I'd ask you one question before I could tell you wether or not to update: Does what you have work for you? Unless you're ina business environment were compatibility issues are popping up, if what you have works I wouldn't upgrade just to be on the latest version. Unless there's some functionality or security problem, or some feature you want that's worth the extra bucks, keep 2000. 2000 will still open the XP and 2003 office files, so you aren't really losing much there. 2003 has a few new features, but nothing worth the price tag on a new version of office.

If you do decide to purchase a new Office, try to qualify for the Student and Teacher edition. It has Word, Excel, Powerpoint, and Outlook, and comes with a license for three computer systems. It's also less expensive than the other versions. You do have to show some type of academic status, though.

[Corpse Cruncher]

For the office part, what I have works for me. It would work far more if I was savvy enough and not such a technophobic-nincompoop. I can qualify for the education version as my niece is a student. She uses some another office type package at home.

On the XP frontage, I only intend to link to the upstairs spare computer. This would be used when my niece visits so she can surf or by myself to print off letters. It just saves on having all that clutter downstairs. There maybe a rogue laptop that visits on the odd occasion when it wants something. That is about it, not much of a network.

[Hellbound]

Then you're probably fine. Howeer, I have noticed that XP Pro seems more stable, so I'd still probably upgrade if you can find a good deal on it. But as far as OEM vs. Retail, it's only a matter of how you purchase them.

[bruto]

For the office part, what I have works for me. It would work far more if I was savvy enough and not such a technophobic-nincompoop. I can qualify for the education version as my niece is a student. She uses some another office type package at home.

On the XP frontage, I only intend to link to the upstairs spare computer. This would be used when my niece visits so she can surf or by myself to print off letters. It just saves on having all that clutter downstairs. There maybe a rogue laptop that visits on the odd occasion when it wants something. That is about it, not much of a network.

I've for a long time had a "dumb" network hub for my home network, on which a couple of Win98 computers and an XP home laptop have happily coexisted and shared a DSL connection and a printer (although recently the laptop can't see the printer, owing to some screwup either when I installed SP2 or when I attempted to install a wireless router on the host Win98 computer which worked for 10 minutes and then died, but that's another story I think). Anyway, my point is that for this kind of basic networking, you really shouldn't need to upgrade your OS.