I'd turn that round: there is nothing in the world which would make me use 9x ever, ever again. If I discount the WinME system I had to fix for a cousin - eventually, by binning it - the last time I touched 9x was at least three years ago and the world is a better place for it. 9x systems operated by all but the most expert and careful users always fill up with crap, become unstable and unmanageable, and once they have entered this state the only way out is a reinstall. In contrast, I only just recently retired a Windows 2000 installation that had been in use 10 hours a day for three years on two different motherboards. When I used 9x I had to reinstall at least every year.
My thoughts exactly. 8) I ditched windows 98 for 2000 around 3 years ago and NOTHING would make me go back. I've had this same installation of 2000 for around 18 months now (since I built this pc), and I have no need to constantly tweak, clean or change anything at all. Back when I was on 98 I would reinstal once every couple of months just to keep the system clean and working. And don't even get me started on windows Me (Windows Multiple Error). It was almost like microsoft thought it would be fun to release an OS that included every possible bug they'd ever created and then add some more. I think I used it for around 2 weeks, then I ditched it.
Who said anything about going back? It's just that winXP has nothing real to offer, except I'll be forced to upgrade anyway, because of driver support and apps. My installation is relatively clean, stable, fast and I haven't needed to do a reinstall for 18 months. I'm pretty quick with registry editors too. No problem there. The machine's pretty secure too. Nobody but me behind it and no nasty winXp features like Remote Registry to compromise my security. Just an OS harking back to the time when M$ fortunately didn't see the potential of internet yet. That's a distinct advantage. Without file/printer sharing and without IE, win98 doesn't respond to any port, unlike winXP. Lack of functionality is a good thing here. WinXP is nothing I couldn't make secure, but I don't need it's added leaks and backdoors either.
Don't know why people hate winMe that much. I used it for 1,5 years or so and it was VERY stable, no BSOD, no nothing. And I used it in 10 machines (at work). No problems at all. BTW, win98se was a pain in the ass.
The added stability of the kernel is more than reason enough for most people. Just installed Win98SE on my A64 a month or so ago (to test some software I wrote that didn't work on Win9x) and oh my it ran bad compared to XP. (Well I kind of expected it to be unstable, but not suck performance wise) So on new hardware I will not touch Win9x if I dont have to. (And the sooner Win9x is gone the sooner I can delete my Win9x partition... Looking forward to that!)
Until 2 years ago, I always used 98SE, didn't have much complains ( then ). It ran very fast and no problems with older games. When I changed to XP, it felt slower but it was a more complete os. Not needed to reboot all the time and more stable. Also very easy to set up a network, that wasn't always the case with 98SE. Too bad there are a few 98SE cases in my experience that were impossible to use in a XP network. Then I thought I would never use XP, but a friend installed XP as a dual boot on my system. Now I don't want to go back to 98SE, but a increased speed in XP would be welcome.
Because it is absolute utter crap perhaps? The ME system I had until I fled to XP was a Dell box, which is Intel everything, Nvidia GF3, etc. Only brand-name stuff, known to be stable and good. That computer had an uptime of at most five days and then it had run out of system resources to the point NOTHING could be started anymore. It has 512MB RAM... Even shutting it down often caused it to crash or hang. In comparison, the longest period I had XP running was 80 something days I think. Maybe more. 24/7, frequent gaming, just running anything and everything, and the only reason I restarted it was because I updated something and it HAD to restart to complete the install. In the almost one year since I switched, it's crashed or otherwise shat itself is probably a max of three times, not counting that time I turned on sideband addressing and by mistake forgot to turn it off again in rivatuner, thus causing a lot of hangs in 3D games. Even those times I can't discount power fluctuations or overclocking of the graphics card being the cause, rather than the OS itself. It's a rock in comparison where ME was something spawned from Satan's arsehole.
XP runs circles around 98, . 98 is trash compared to XP. , But hey if your used to somthing then change (even for better) will be hard... NOT! I run a half dozen dif OSs and 98 is the worst.
Win98se is still the OS I know best, and I still think I can make a killer install of it that is solid as a rock. 8) But I honestly can't remember the last time I booted up into it, I find XP does everything I want and is oodles more convenient. I really thought I'd be the last of the die-hard 98heads, but I guess not.
yeah, you just have to re-do that every 6 months. And win98 "solid as a rock" is tissue paper compared to winXP "solid as a rock".
WinXP I don't feel like I have as much control over as I did in 98se....that comparison about the difference being driving in the passenger seat of a car with your daughter driving it and driving it yourself comes to mind. I don't care to argue it right now though, I'm using XP pretty exclusively so it's kind of a moot point for me.
My max uptime with my winMe box was around a month or so. I think there was a patch to solve the memory problem. I'm not saying winMe is better than XP/2k (NO WAY), but (FOR ME) it's ***A LOT*** better than win98se.
The whole stability argument is irrelevant. It's been 18 months since i last needed to reinstall win98. My rig runs stable for atleast 16hrs (I switch my PC off at night). WinXP may be great for people who couldn't get their 98 config right, but this has nothing to do with the lucky ones whose systems ran fine.
I'd agree with that. Even more true of Linux: I'm certain it's a secure foundation, but I've no idea that what I'm doing to lock it down is actually making it more secure and that I'm not missing things. I'd say the analogy is more like 98 is like a bike with training wheels, XP is a conventional bike, and Linux is a motorcycle (or a bike with the steering reversed, depending on your point of view ). I find it hard to believe that anyone using 9x never has "reboot required" application crashes (whether it's games, Office, browser, whatever). Happens phenomenally rarely on NT-derived OS. But I'm also astonished it can be kept clean for 18 months so there you go
Well let's see now: it never crashes doing just office sort of things like word or excel. Never crashes when I'm browsing. Games crash rarely, but I've only seriously played NWN (alot) for the past 5 weeks and that game never crashes. Java based apps do freeze occasionally, but always system recoverable and i don't use java often. Autocad lite 2000 never crashes. Stuff like mediaplayer no problems either. That's about it I think.
Those of you desperate to try Doom3 on non-supported variants of Windows should try this. It should allow the game to install, though whether it'll run is another matter. Win2K 4 eva