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what OS to install on Pentium 1 166MHz?

S

stingbandel

Diamond Member
Can someone recommend me what OS to install on Pentium 1 166MHz?

Either Win 95, 98, or NT4?

I will add the USB 2.0 PCI Card on it so I need to make sure the OS will support USB 2.0

thanks



Darno
 
98SE should work well. NT4 is such a pain to set up (device support is lacking as well) that I would avoid it.
 
USB2 support is on the chip maker, not the OS. Some support 98, some don't. Before you decide on a card, double check for 98 drivers.
 
Win98SE would work best for general purposes.

If you need extra stability and have at least 64mb of ram, you could install win2k. I had this setup on an old dell desktop p166/64mb and it ran pretty nifty (only did web browsing and had my weather station software/http server on it). Swap file would kick in a lot if running more than a few browser sessions but win2k is just so much more solid than win98 I went ahead with it.
 
I have 2K installed on a dual P-133 at work. To be fair, it does have 256MB of Ram, and GUI isn't real snappy. It is useable though. Right now an FTP server, but I'm thinking of installing Linux and running openldap. Basically that will make it a machine just for our 300 person address book instead of dragging down the already hammered email server.
 
I agree, if the system doesn't have a lot of RAM (less than 128MB), then consider Win98se. In the specific case of needing better USB support, this is one of the very few cases in which I might actually recommended installing WinME instead. My own experiences with Win98se and USB 2.0 (Via KT400/8235 chipset), have been far from pleasant. I haven't been able to get it to work yet, and it has a tendency to hard-hang the system when attempting to get it to work.
 
You could run Win2k with 128MB or more of RAM. Won't exactly be very snappy, but there's not a whole lot you can do with that system anyway.

You could always try a linux Distro. 🙂
 
win 98 se, or i hate to say it winme.. make sure you have the lates ie and direct x.. I have a p233 running on win98 and its ok for a p233 but it was faster with win95 , but win 95 has no usb 2 abilities.. if you are just trying to use usb 1.1 then win98 is fine.. good luck.. and try em all ..
 
hey one more thing to.. i had a p133 in a old computer and this sounds gross but i was driving home on trash day and found a old stripped down computer case and inside was a mobo with a p233.. horray i took it home and the processor worked fine in my p133 system...
 
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