Forum Moderators: open
- Going to the oposite: which version is the best (or the "least bad")?
My votes are for ME as the worst and some NT (probably 2k) as the best.
ME has beaten all stability records: you only need to open Access, Media Player and Winamp at the same time to get a blue screen ;)
I've never get the blue with neither 2k nor XP; but XP seems to freeze more often, takes more resources and, for my taste, is very ugly ;P
Also, 95 + all patches and xtras does an acceptable job...
So, what do webmasters think? It's more curiosity than anything.
Herenvardö
PS: Please, give at least a brief argumentation when you suggest a version as the worst or the best. Thx
Onya
Woz
Worst: Windows ME
Best: Windows 2k
That is, if you're judging best and worst by stability. My FAVORITE Windows (and the one I'm using now) is Windows XP. I agree about the default appearance being ugly, but after a little patch and some visual style downloads, mine sure is pretty! And plus I get that nifty little pin menu, grouped like taskbar buttons, built in image viewers, more customization options, and a few other things I adore. But most of all, it's pretty.
I guess win 95 wins and ME loses.
Worst: Windows 1.0 ;)
Not enough experience of XP or ME to comment. But as for 98 - aargh!
Just like linux....
Win 98 is the absolute pits. My wife has it on her school issued (she's a teacher) laptop and it doesn't shut down. Why would a school install 98 on a brand new machine? Boneheads!
and a question,
when should I upgrade? I've heard XP Professional is good?!
This will probably be the last windows os I use before switching to Linux once it gets ready for prime time.
Of course, these aren't versions of anything. They're different products with a single brand name.
This isn't correct, 95, 98-1, 98-2, and ME were all built on the same core, as are w2k and xp. In fact, windows me was a lightly reworked 98 se, and was only released once ms realized that they couldn't make the 2000 deadline for winxp, which ran very late, just as longhorn will run even later. That's why ME sucked so much, it wasn't a real release, just a way to have a product out there until xp was ready. XP is a consumer friendly w2k, with a lot more hardware drivers thrown in. Plus the 'pretty' colors, the slide viewer, and a slightly upgraded filesystem.
As for XP (home version) there's a problem that I don't think I've ever seen anyone post about on any NG. It's the fact that when you work on any one folder and alter any file within, the only way you're able to delete such folder afterwards is by rebooting. Something awfully annoying for anyone who's constantly re-organizing large numbers of files.
I work with it constantly networked. Roll out a bit of software and rebuild the network. NT4 is close because of it's constantly need for software updates and it's lack of speed.
Best: The one sitting on my self that isn't installed yet :)
Seriously though. I like XP. It's stable. Any software will work with only minor tweaks. Easy customised. Fast. Automatically updates. Although it has some privacy issues and if it does crash it is usually fatal.
atob.c
Wouldn't dream of using anything other than that for when I have to use a Win platform.
Windows ME - Ugh, what were they thinking of? They didn't exactly need the money.
TJ
Worst ...its a tie between ME ( for general junkiness ) and XP ( I want a system that knows that I am the boss and not Redmond )....
Best ....2K and 98se...2k has the edge but 98se works fine if ..you give it enough ram and if you dont leave all sorts of "conflicts" permanantly on your machine ....
I've been running 98se now for 5 yrs on one machine ...celeron 400 ...168mb ram ...4.3 gig hd ( only 100 megs freespace left ) heavy resource intensive grphics progs in place ..photoshop , bryce , flash etc etc ...I get one deathscreen every 6 months or so and unlike XP I can get it to do what I want easy ...
As I said in another thread ..XP in all its flavours is like knowing how to strip your car right down to every last nut and bolt and oilseal and sensor ....and then you get this new car ...the hood is welded shut so you can't even see whats there ( well OK you can but it gets damned antsy when you do and some badly pathwayed "drivers" just dont go away whatever you do ) ...the changes you can make are sometimes gone at the next reboot ...and every so often it phones home ..dumps you a whole new pile o' crap in the hive ...and BTW won't play with any software it doesn't personally rub noses with ....
And we won't even mention its vulnerabilities ( how do you rate your connection speed today? )...
Corse the ultimate worst has to be longhorn running on palladiums ....
When they've got that locked down and in the shops ...anyone who ever said anything about M$ that wasn't complementary will not be allowed to log into their own machine ....unless they have apologised in writing....not to mention the "I won't play with software who's Dad isn't a friend of my Dad" "improvement" .....what you gonna do if longhorn/palladium doen't like your new haircut ....
Off topic ...( as if the above wasn't : ) ) ...
just wish I had the time to learn to speak penguin ...
just wish I had the time to learn to speak penguin
Glad that I finally realised I didn't have the time to not learn penguin.
;-)
TJ
98SE is a different story. Much more stable. But still not the best.
For its time, Windows 3.1 was a pretty fair OS, once broken in, it rarely crashed unless I pushed it too far, and then it was more operator error than OS flaw.
XP: Wins, but not by much. It gives me grief on certain levels, but has the distinct advantage of rare blue-screening. Usually, it just "soft" crashes an individual app if something goes wrong, and I can live with that.
Favorite MS-OS: DOS 3.2 Ok, so we're heading back to the mid-80s (stone-age), but I ran a dial-up BBS on that, fully stable, without re-booting once for 6 months. And that's considering I had a tacked on grey-market OS hack that actually let it multi task, so I could run a word processor without shutting down the BBS (yes, this was possible, even back then. Can't for the life of me remember the name of that multi-tasking package, (there were a couple floating around the BBS communities at the time.) That was a hot machine for its day, a 10Mhz AT with 1.2meg of RAM, and a 40Meg hard drive. (circa '88). That box finally went to the recyclers in '99, it took me forever to get around to getting all the text files out of it and onto another machine (which is now in storage, with a pile of files I'll eventually move up to this machine, though lord knows why, its not like I need any of them).
98 was better than 95. Me was a pain.
Haven't really used much after 2,000. I don't see much difference between ME and 2,000 either.
"My votes are for ME as the worst"
98 was worse
Herenvardö
Windows 3.1 is the worst I have used because its the First windows os I have used.
regards,
Mark
worst: Never seen an ME box run without major problems, but I've never run it myself. Have seen many a 98 box run smoothly for a long time.
Of all Windows OS I tried, 98 is still my favorite. I think it's the best compromise between user friendlyness and speed. Especially for routine work when users are not constantly trying new software. If you avoid using IE, Outlook Express and have a decent firewall, you should be able to run a relatively stable system for 6 months or so without having to rebuilt it.
2k will NOT be upgraded. I understand Microsoft's concern with pirates, but I'm with Leosghost: Redmond's not gonna rule on my computer.
