Question about OS, WIN98SE Vs XP, stability, install, litestep etc

[aolsuxs]

I've had Win98SE since I got my dell 4 or so years ago and when I built my computer a year or so ago I used the same OS to save costs and thus never upgraded to Win XP, I never really had a problem with that as all my software seems to work perfectly and I also run Litestep so the asthetics aspects of the operating system has no impact on me. Anyways just a few questions:


1.) As I said earlier I've had the sytem for about a year now and I am noticing increasing lock ups and decrease in system performance, and I've been thinking of reinstalling windows98, is that a viable option? Is it possible to do this with out losing all my information.

2.) Would there be any gain from updating to Win XP? Stability/Speed?

3.) I use and plan on using litestep for my desktop, will XP impact this in any way?

Thanks

 

[winr]

I have 98 SE and XP PRO.
I dump and reload 98SE every 6 months or so whenever my machine starts acting up and I use 98lite.
XP PRO seems to work better with 256 megs of ram or better.
XP PRO for me is super stable
If you have a burner save all your email, pictures etc to a CDR before dumping your os (sorry, that sounds so obvious).
I just looked up litestep and users are saying good things about it and 98 and XP.

 

[tcsenter]

I can't speak for WinXP, I've been clinging to Win98SE like you. I have the full version of Win98SE, though, so its easy to just burn all my files/data to CD-R > format C: > setup.exe

I said I would wait for WinXP SP1 to come available as a Service Release before upgrading. But I guess I'll wait for SP2 because Win98SE still serves my needs just fine. Don't fix what ain't broke.

Only thing that is an extreme annoyance, there are like 30+ individual patches/updates for Win98SE. I like the cumulative nature of the NT/W2K/XP Service Pack concept, wish it was available for Win9x.

Second complaint, minor annoyance, is Win9x sucky memory management. I have 512MB of RAM and Win9x manages it no better than it does 256MB. I just remembered a few days ago to try the Conservative Swap File Usage trick and that seemed to help a bit.

 

[ST4RCUTTER]

IMHO the stability of an OS has more to do with the user and the equipment used, but overall I think it's a good generalization to say the NT based operating systems are inherently more stable than Windows 98/SE. When an application fails in 98 it can crash the OS to an extent that only a system reset will regain use of the system. NT based OS's protect the kernel from this problem and you will find that aside from Nix based operating systems, NT is a much more stable way to go.