What Operating System?

satchmo

I know this is an old topic, but I'm just about to get a new machine and I'm trying to decide which OS to get. Because of games-playing, I've narrowed it to either win 95 or 98.
I could just use the Win 95 OSR2 CD I got with my last machine - 95's never given me much of a problem, and as far as I can see 98 is just 95 with knobs on (knobs that don't really work).
Are there any techincal reason as to why I should get 98 instead of just keeping 95? I remember hearing stuff about 128 megs of RAM being the highest amount 95 can use, and other things like that that might mean it'd be better to get 98.

Of course there's always Windows ME, but I've got a bad feeling about that.

Does anyone have any solid knowledge of the differences?

gandalf

Well I've moved from Win98 to Win2000 and apart from a few problems with mw CD-Writer its running everything fine. As long as you don't run old dos games your fine. Win98 is a very unstable OS and tended to crash on me a fair bit.

I'd give W2K a thumbs up.

Gandalf.

elexes

well at moment im running win me for the last o id say 3 weeks without probs but id reccomend that you get a program like ram booster to free up the stuff cause this thing takes up loads of resorces . also id reccomend that if your computer is over a p200 with 32 megs of ram get win 98 se instead of 95 as 95 im finding in work has loads of bugs where new hardware is put in .

WhiteWashMan

well, ive tried win2000 and ME, but i stick with 98 coz its easy

Blitzkrieger

95 can only use 128MB of RAM???? I had 160 in mine for ages b4 I switched to 98 and it used it all.

Hecate

2k all the way

once you get the right drivers for it you'll be fine.

quozl

Hahaha take it Keith.
a million different opinions. Here's my 2 pence.
Windows 2000. Its cool. Its stable. And its the best OS microsoft have ever managed to produce. And its fine for games. And getting better every day. Drivers are easily available now. ANyway. You still have you old win 95 cd if you decide you hate it. (which i doubt you would)
quozl

SantaHoe

One word... Win2k.

Gerry

Win2k.

Yossarian

Win2k.
Use it constantly.
If your concerned about support for older softwarein win2k you could always dual boot
between win2k and win95.
Its and option.

Stephen.

Cake Fiend

Haven't used W2K enough for an opinion, but I could write a book about Win95 error messages

Never looked back from Win 98 se

Dustaz

Why should i upgrade to win2k? Is it that much more stable than 98?
Also, since im pretty much a windows idiot, is it a painful upgrade?
thanks

Bard

Originally posted by Dustaz:
Why should i upgrade to win2k? Is it that much more stable than 98?
Also, since im pretty much a windows idiot, is it a painful upgrade?
thanks

It doesn't crash. Your games may not all run (mine didn't), and it needs a more powerful base machine to run on, but hey- at least it doesn't crash.

Basically if you're system is ok now with 98 what's the point in upgrading anyway? Don't fix what ain't broken and all that.

I upgraded to 2K, thought it was an excellent O/S but went back to 98 (and then to ME) because most of my games wouldn't work (especially Q3A... nuff said!). I'll probably be going back to 98 again because my TV card and a couple of games still won't work in ME.

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Bard
_____
-me-

JohnBoy

I've been running 2000 since a few days before launch.

in fact exactly 7 months today. that's a personal best for me, normally I would end up reformatting after about 4 or 5 months with 9x. I generally leave my pc running for the whole week, and only reboot on mondays or because software installations or mucking around with hardware forces me to.

I've had little trouble getting drivers (except for my dell turtle beach montego) then again i've a fairly unexotic spec machine.

Things to look out for are OEM specific branded hardware eg dell, compaq.
ATI are not the best nor are HP....

But if the hardware is relatively basic eg watch scanners, and usb devices you should be OK.

Installation is a cinch, just don't choose NTFS in the install process, just in case.

John

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Gateway PIII 500
192 MB
20 GB
Voodoo3 3000
Matrox Mystique (multi monitors, nyom)
Dell Turtle beach montego
Dell mechanical keyboard (so nice)
Gateway VX900 19 inch
Gateway Vivitron 17 inch