windows 98se or windows XP?

montypythizzle

Diamond Member
Nov 12, 2006
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The laptop is a 400mhz 160mb BEAST although I think the hd is split into a rescue partition and I could lose all of the win98 drivers.
and i dont know how well the machine would do with xp
btw the xp is a barebones one.
well prettyall i use this laptop for is for occasional long periods in living room or in bathroom of course :p

so should i stay with this almost new win98 or go ahead and wipe the beyotch clean and start with some XP

but er darn forgot to mention the HD is only like 4GB which would get me like nowhere anyways right? :p
 

skyking

Lifer
Nov 21, 2001
22,543
5,589
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HD is only like 4GB
That is a deal killer for xp, and it will limit you in 2K also. If at all possible, get some more ram whatever you do. The 400Mhz processor will run xp fine if you had more ram and hard drive.
 

montypythizzle

Diamond Member
Nov 12, 2006
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the ram is maxed 32 internal and 128 xtra hmm any ideas what hd will be reasonable for this on newegg or any others ive opened one of his brothers and hd was easily accesible
so i can change out hd easily

as i said this computer is great for the occasional toilet usage
 

technogab

Junior Member
Dec 1, 2006
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I wouldn't put any money into it. Even if you could get a cheap drive off of ebay, it still may not be worth it. Like others said, try Win2k anything is better than the 9X series. When it finally dies, then upgrade to a new lappy
 

krylon

Diamond Member
Nov 17, 2001
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i wouldnt run any windows on that garbage. linux is the only solution
 

networkman

Lifer
Apr 23, 2000
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My recommendation is to stick with whatever OS you're legally able to run. ;)

That said, I wouldn't advise investing any money in that laptop, so use Linux if you don't have a legal MS OS.
 

Rottie

Diamond Member
Feb 10, 2002
4,795
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I wanted to run Linux for my k6-2 333mhz lappy but I don't see any new linux os will be able to run on this lappy :(
 

Shawn

Lifer
Apr 20, 2003
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Surprisingly I got WinXP to run fine on a P2 266MHz by disabling all nonessential services. I did max the ram out at 256MB though. Anything less than 256MB of ram is too low to run XP smoothly. The laptop only had a 2GB hard drive so between XP and MS Office I basically filled up the hard drive. Still the computer was strictly for internet and word processing so it was fine. I had no intention of installing anything else.

For anything less than 256MB of ram windows 2000 would be ideal.
 

Evander

Golden Member
Jun 18, 2001
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With XP you can use nlite to strip out the crap you don't want. Supposedly, there is a stripped down version called "TinyXP" that only eats up 30 somethin' MB of RAM, floating around in the warez world

In any case I recommend:
-startup control panel - helps you not load of junk you don't need on startup
-in the windows settings change change to "classic" for the old school windows look
-get tweakui and further make performance tweaks
 

nweaver

Diamond Member
Jan 21, 2001
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Originally posted by: Rottie
I wanted to run Linux for my k6-2 333mhz lappy but I don't see any new linux os will be able to run on this lappy :(

Most linux ditro's work fine on older hardware. Xubuntu would be a decent choice for this.
 

montypythizzle

Diamond Member
Nov 12, 2006
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Originally posted by: Evander
With XP you can use nlite to strip out the crap you don't want. Supposedly, there is a stripped down version called "TinyXP" that only eats up 30 somethin' MB of RAM, floating around in the warez world

In any case I recommend:
-startup control panel - helps you not load of junk you don't need on startup
-in the windows settings change change to "classic" for the old school windows look
-get tweakui and further make performance tweaks

its something from the certain world your talking about....
 

Nolonemo

Member
Dec 8, 2005
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Myself, I would just stay with 98. It doesn't sound like your using it for anything really demanding, so who cares? I wouldn't put money into a bigger HD, either, since its likely that you'll run up against a BIOS limitation on size and then have to run a layer of stuff between the bios and the OS to be able to access the whole drive.
 

John

Moderator Emeritus<br>Elite Member
Oct 9, 1999
33,944
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Win XP with all of the performance options disabled is nearly as quick as Win 2K in my experience. IMHO between 98SE and XP there is no contest, especially since the OP's laptop can handle it. :)
 

Muse

Lifer
Jul 11, 2001
39,344
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Originally posted by: Rottie
that's right use Windows 2000
Yes, Windows 2000 would use less resources than XP, and it's perfectly usable IMO. I saw a post a week ago and a person asserted that W2000>XP.

 

montypythizzle

Diamond Member
Nov 12, 2006
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i ended up using my barebones xp and gawd it works wonders faster or as fast as win98.. just to add word...

WORD...