Which operating system?

[Turbopit]

Looking for some good reviews on different OS's out there right now. Trying to decide if I should "upgrade" win98 or not. Looking for pro's and con's of 98SE, ME, 2000, etc...




Thanks

 

[IamDavid]

Almost everyone I've seen says that Win2K is a excellent OS. And WinME is a waste of money.. So if your gonna upgrade go with Win2K.. Check for compatibility first though.

 

[BCYL]

You need to tell us how you use your PC before we can give you any recommendations... like do you play games? what programs do you use? How about hardware?

 

[Turbopit]

Sorry


Supermicro SC750-a full tower case
BX6 version 2 motherboard
Intel Celeron 300a @ 504 MHz
4.x gb HD, -Samsung?
2 different sticks of 64MB cheap ram
Memorex 6x DVD with Cyberlink Power DVD 2.0
Sound Blaster Live Value sound card
Diamond Stealth II G460 agp graphics card
17" Relisys monitor
Logitech Mouseman three button mouse
Mustek flatbed scanner
Canon Powershot S20 digital camera - I use Canon's powershot software to download pics from the camera and to manage the pics.

Mostly used for web surfing and Frontpage 2000. I will be hosting my website from it as well. My full site will be moved to my hard drive as soon as my new hard drive gets here. Right now I have a small test site on my hard drive.

Win 98
Photoshop 6.0
Autocad R14
Xitami - web server
TZO
Full MS Office 2000 = Frontpage, Word, Powerpoint, Outlook, etc...

I have a 45 gig IBM GXP on the way along with 2 128 meg sticks of Crucial ram on the way. Thinking about a cpu and or video upgrade.


Thanks

 

[BCYL]

Hmm... I think win2k will fit your needs very nicely... It is rock stable, I have been using it for 1/2 and I have not experience a single crash...

However it is best for you to check that all the software you use will work in win2k... You may have to download upgrades or get new versions in order for them to work... For example PowerDVD 2.0 won't work in win2k... you will have to get PowerDVD 3.0 or newer...

Also you have to do the same for hardware... check if win2k supports it (you can do so at MS's website)... if not you will have to see if there are win2k drivers avaliable from the manufacturer... From your list I dont see a problem except maybe with the scanner or the digital camera...

Good Luck! Once you have made the switch you won't look back to win9x...

 

[Bluga]

Hmm i see alot of posts about how stable Win2K is. However i found that not the case for me. I run Win2K advanced server and it crashes like hell. Just today i had 2 blue screens with memory dump. How could this be? I've just reinstalled a clean copy + SP1. Anyway it is still stable compared to Win98.

 

[crimsun]

Turbopit, my advice is to upgrade to Win2k, as per a vast majority of people who have upgraded are quite pleased with its increased stability, better memory management, and more efficient threading. If hosting a website and dabbing on the 'net is mostly what you have planned for the machine, then a CPU and/or RAM upgrade is unnecessary (especially since you're upgrading to 256 MB, correct?).

Stay far away from 98SE, ME, etc. =P

 

[jsm]

I think the biggest plus in WinME is the fact that it boots so quickly. And if you do digital video work, Windows Movie Maker is pretty crappy - but will suffice in making movies that only Windows boxes can watch. Other than that, WinME requires less memory and CPU power than Win2k. It also is pretty easy to crash, but has some nice system restore features. WinME is better for gaming since everything does not run in a virtual machine, but in rings (study the 9x MCP course for an explanation on this funky concept) and can therefore run faster.

Of course, WinME has worse stability and security in theory than Win2k.

 

[owensdj]

Bluga, real Win2K Servers installed by real administrators don't crash twice a year, much less twice a day like yours. There's probably something wrong with your system, either overclocking, incompatible hardware, or a buggy device driver.

 

[Doh!]

Win2k if your scanner and digital camera and their software are good to go with win2k. You will have enough ram (once they arrive from crucial)to run most apps (your photoshop will scream for more!)

 

[Turbopit]

I'll have to check into my camera. It's a new Canon S20. I don't really care too much about the scanner. I only ever used it to scan pics, don't need to do that any more with a digital camera. The scanner is just to slow to use much.

I'll be getting rid of Autocadd 14 for 2000, so that should be alright, and I assume Photoshop 6 is probably OK?





Thanks everyone. I'll check out Win2K. Hopefully my wife can pick up a copy at the university bookstore at the university she works for.

 

[Doh!]

you'll be fine with photoshop 6 on win2k.

 

[Doh!]

you'll be fine with photoshop 6 on win2k.