Question: what OS to put in this rig?

[huey1124]

Sorry to post this here, but I know not that many people read the actual technical forums so.....

I have an old Dell Optiplex system running PII 350mhz, planning on putting in 512mb of P133 SDRAM. I installed WinXP before, but it seemed to run a little sluggish. What I want to know is, what OS would be best one to install on this? WinXP, Win2000, or Win98SE (gasp)? This is a spare rig I'm not using, and I'm planning on giving it to someone who will have light use on it (mostly internet on cable modem). Also, will there be a noticeable difference by upgrading to a 400mhz CPU? Thanks in advance.

 

[CraigRT]

I'd go Win2K before I downgraded any further.
I ran Win2K on a P200 with 512MB of RAM and it ran alright actually.
I think you'll be OK on 2K pro.

 

[Mucman]

2k Pro will run fine on there... Memory is the biggest issue with 2k and you have plenty of that.

 

[huey1124]

Thanks a lot for your answers.

So the consensus is that WinXP is that much bulkier than Win2000? Will install Win2000 on the machine and see how that goes.

 

[acidvoodoo]

if u turned off all the visual effects etc for XP (there is an option to do that), how does it run? i had xp run ok on a 500mhz k6-2 with 128 ram, and turning off visual fancy crap helped alot

 

[ProviaFan]

Originally posted by: acidvoodoo
if u turned off all the visual effects etc for XP (there is an option to do that), how does it run? i had xp run ok on a 500mhz k6-2 with 128 ram, and turning off visual fancy crap helped alot

In my experience, Win2k is faster than WinXP even if WinXP's visual effects have been turned off. I'd recommend Win2k for the original poster's Dell system, anyway. It should run just fine.

 

[GonzoDaGr8]

With that much ram, 2K should run pretty well...

 

[MainFramed]

i'd go with XP

 

[acidvoodoo]

Originally posted by: jliechty

Originally posted by: acidvoodoo
if u turned off all the visual effects etc for XP (there is an option to do that), how does it run? i had xp run ok on a 500mhz k6-2 with 128 ram, and turning off visual fancy crap helped alot

In my experience, Win2k is faster than WinXP even if WinXP's visual effects have been turned off. I'd recommend Win2k for the original poster's Dell system, anyway. It should run just fine.

well i already assumed he had bought XP. but if he already has 2000 aswell, then yea go with that

 

[starwarsdad]

2K will work fine on that system. I run it on several Dimension XPS00333 P2 333 w/ 256 MB of RAM here at the office.