ECN Forum Forums Technical Discussion Re: Computers and the Internet So What The Heck is the "Best OS"?

I am currently running Win98 SE.
I have yet to find sufficient evidence to 'upgrade'.

I think it's a matter of what needs to be accomplished as well as personal preference.

Generally, discussions of OS can lead to...

Horses for courses comes to mind.

Windows has probably been responsible for introducing the masses to computers in recent years, but I don't think my dislike of it is any secret here!

A friend of mine has ME on his systems, and one thing I find annoying about it is that it no longer offers the option to reboot into plain DOS mode. You have to boot from a floppy, or set up a separate hard disk petition and use an alternate boot utility.

Good point, Thinkgood!
The old Axiom (or would it be Idiom):
"Don't Discuss Religion Or Politics"

Should be edited to include Operating Systems too!

Pinemarten;

If Win 98 SE2.xxx works fine for your needs, and does not crash constantly, then stay with that version until you come to a point that the Software you use normally will not support the Win 9X platform
(AKA will not run in any enviroment less than Windows XP or Windows 2000 without hanging up and/or crashing).

After reading this part after posting, let me edit it to say:
"If the Software Application You Need To Use Daily, Which Has Been Upgraded Or Is A Newer Version, will not run properly in Windows 98, or anything older than XP / 2000"
That should be a bit more clearer...

I am still using Windows 95!
(actual version is Win 95 OSR 2.52.sumpthin',sumpthin' )

Paul;

You are right about MS' Windows (Winders in the Southeast, Windahs in the Northeast), bringing the light of machines to the general public, and for that I am very happy!
The wide open market introduces benefits for everyone - be them nerd or non-nerd!

Had the same issue with a Friend and an M.E. driven machine!
During an "Over-The-Phone" tech rescue for a video situation, tried to get her to boot to a DOS prompt, but would go directly to Windows.
Safe Mode was achievable, and was where the video tweeking took place anyhow.
Just wanted to verify the machine would boot to a DOS prompt first (
personal reasons! ),
but got stuck trying to get to a C prompt instead of fixing the video problem first, THEN worrying about the DOS boot!

(me have one track mind at times :eek

Scott35

edited to clear the mud...hopefully!

[This message has been edited by Scott35 (edited 09-27-2003).]

I had Win 98 for many years. (I had it since it came out in Beta) I never had a problem that wouldn't get straightened out with a re-install until lately. I think there can be a problem when many programs (IE 6 for example) are newer than the OS and something goes wrong.

Long story short, I recently upgraded to Windows 2000 on my work machine. I have ME on the Laptop and XP Home Edition on a New Machine. Out of the 3 I have less problems with the 2000 OS so I'll be sticking with that as long as I can.

Bill

I have just about every OS that microsoft has put out since DOS 6.22 and I still like 98SE the best.

I am currently running win2k sp4 on one desktop and linux on the other, linux is faster, cheaper, more stable... But those folks at microsoft have all the software I need, and can't seem to find a version of autocad to run on linux.... Maybe I will switch over to all linux, after I stop world hunger, solve the whole nagging world peace issue, the list goes on.....

I still have a full boxed release of DOS 3.2 with all the manuals, and I still use DOS 3.3 on one system regularly.

If Operating Systems Were Airlines

My company has 100,000 or so workstations and just made a commitment last year to upgrade from Win95. Because our upgrade cycles are so long, we are moving to Win XP professional, the latest and greatest. I have long been happy with ME at home but will likely move to XP soon to keep work compatability. I was just tasked with reworking an application that runs happily on DOS 5 and 286 computers. We can't replace them and current fast boxes have timing issues with the compiler so its time to redo. I believe you only upgrade when there is a good reason to do so. If you can't run the software you need, you do something.

I see no need to upgrade for the sake of it. If the current configuration does everything you require of it, then why change?

The only "outside" software project I have going at the moment is for the local taxi company. It's a small outfit -- only about a dozen drivers and never more than four cars on the road at a time.

Cost was a big consideration, so I set them up with a 486 system (acquired free of charge) containing a massive 4MB of RAM and a 170MB hard disk. Small by today's standards, but perfectly adequate to run the custom software I wrote for them (compiled under Turbo Pascal 5). It's running under DOS 4.01, and I also added a basic word processor and spreadsheet package.

The whole lot takes up barely 10MB of disk space, and it runs quite fast enough for their purposes.

Upgrading might just let the system insert a new job booking in 10mS instead of 100mS, but in this application, what would it matter?