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Best Microsoft OS for home / game user?

W

weshuang

Senior member
I have been using win98se for quite a while now. Practically speaking, I am confined to Microsoft OS's because I have to stay compatible with work. However, from home, I tend to futz around with the system, upgrade occasionally, and play alot of games. Should I stick win win98se? Upgrade to ME? Wait for XP? Upgrade to 2000?

Whaddaya think?
 
I use windows ME and have no problems with it. Though I have heard and seen horror stories of people who have troubles with it. But, I have experienced none of them first hand myself.

I wouldn't hold my breath for Windows XP. Until they can seriously define the new "activation" of Windows XP as a Anti piracy Solution. I won't be upgrading. I don't want to have to report to them if I install a few new components this year or next. That and the articles I have read on it means they act like big brother over your computer.

Anyways.. Win ME and Win2k are both good..Have only used Win2k a few times... Use WinME everyday and like it.
 
I have both W2000 and W98 installed on separate machines. W2000 is far more stable. The only games that the 98 machine can run that the 2000 can't are "very" old. Go Win2k.
DynaOne
 
I would say to install W2k as a dual boot option, then try your software and make sure it all plays nicely with the OS. If all is well, I would go with W2k
 
If you have any games that are a couple of years old, I would stick with 98se. I was playing rogue spear and it would occasionally lock up after I was killed or finished a mission. Other than that, Most games now are written for nt kernel as well as 9x kernel. But many smaller game companies may not have the man power to do the coding for both. So if you play a lot of smaller companies' games then I would stay with win98se.
 
What is dual booting? Does it take a massive computer?

I have a Celeron oc'd to 450, with 128mb of ram. Can I handle win2k?
 
Dual booting is when you set up your computer with 2 or more partitions and each partition having a different operating system installed. When the computer boots, you have your choice of which OS to boot into. I've run a W2k/W98 dual boot system on a pentium 200 so I think yours can handle it.
 
Dual booting is definately the way to go. Win2k is by far the most stable MS OS however if you want to achieve the best gaming performance I would reccomend installing Win98 as well.
 
Seems like there's no real consensus?

Looks like my computer's completely melting down. I have to do a clean install, so if I'm going to go 2k, I would do it now. Interesting that no one said to wait for xp.

Setting aside games, is 2k compatible with all of my existing software, such as Quicken 2000, Office 2000, etc.?

BTW, I went to that NT compatible site, and couldn't easily figure out what games were compatible. The games I play are largely the popular ones, like AOE2, Starcraft, Baldur's Gate 2, Diablo 2.

Anyone else want to chime in?
 
My buddy plays BG 2 on my PC all the time, I've played Diablo 2 countless hours in 2k.

If you're going to go from scratch, set up 2 partitions, one for 98 and one for 2k. JUST IN CASE you find something you really love and need 98 for. It really won't hurt to have it.

You can even save HDD space by installing the programs to the same directory. For instance, when I install office 2000 I install it in 98 under C:\ and when I start up windows 2000 I install it again to C:\ even though 2k is running off the F drive. That way both registries are happy and you only take up one spot on the disk.

For NT Compatible, check out this page.. This

Scroll down to Diablo 2. There's a few.. look over in the column and you'll see Win2000, WinXP, and NT 4. Look at the 2000 one and you'll see that it's green, which is good, and the person says it's pretty much running with no problems.
 
Interesting. I am actually running 2 separate drives, a 4gig and 6gig. So, I would reformat both drives bootable, and install from the w98se disk on one, and the w2k disk on the other? How do I let the system know what os to boot up in?

Other than using up hd space, are there any downsides to dual-booting?
 
Personally, I'd make 1 gig for win98, the other 3 for 2000, and then leave your 6 gig for all your games/programs.

If you go with NTFS for your windows 2000 file system, the disadvantage will be that you can't see the partition within windows 98. No big deal to me.
 
Sounds logical, Shudder.

How tight would 1 gig / 3 gig be for those OS's? Maybe I should bite the bullet and buy a larger HD while I'm at it.

This is getting ridiculous. Hardware upgrading is a disease.
 
I have my windows 2000 partition 3 gigs, and for all normal programs it's fine. All my games, mp3's, movies, pictures, .wav files, samples, etc are on other drives. If you think about it, most normal programs really aren't that big. But, if you want to, make windows 1-2 gig, 2k the rest, and sell the 4 gig on egay for 50 bucks and buy a 20-30 one for storage 🙂
 
Go to pcformat.co.uk and snoop around their downloads.
There you should fing systemcommander Lite, a freeware program that can make life oh, so easy...
I would use this, which mean you can have 4 different OS, a bit of an overkill maybe. I use both Win2000 and 98SE, I have Me too (all legal and well) but don't like it even though it worked pretty ok.
 
Weshuang:
You have only 128MB RAM, which isn't going to be good in Win2K. The system I use at work is a Pentium III 800MHz with 128MB RAM running Win2K, and it's crawling with just a few apps open (Visual C++, MSDN Library, Explorer, 1-2 IE windows).

If you want to use Win2K, I'd suggest you get at least 256MB RAM in order for Win2K to run smoothly.

Oh, and just to mention, you'll notice a drop in performance on games in Win2K varying from slight (a few fps) to severe (heavy drop in fps).


🙂atwl
 
if you are a gamer winME is gonna be better just because as a gamer you will need the driver compatability of WinMe... With this said, Win2k has Directx unlike previous releases of the NT based OS. I have run some benchmarks on both operating systems for gaming and WinMe for the most part performed better.

If you have win98se just stick with it...not too different than Me, if not better..
WinMe targets the home user (gamer- multimedia support), while Win2k is more for people concerned with stability, secuirity, and performance... You sound like a home user so stick with the 9x version of windows and disregard the advice of upgrading to Win2k...
 
You guys can use Partition magic (current version = 6.0) for dual booting...

IT IS REALLY EASY no matter how stupid you are..

=)
 
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