XP or 98se?

[Reelman]

The quick easy answer is 98SE. If you hate ME ( I don't blame you, it is awful) you will dislike many of the "features" of XP. W2K gives a nice blend of 98 and XP. It is pretty stable, it has a fairly familiar look and feel, and most hardware and software work with it. Hope this helps.

[avdven]

Off topic question.... how does themaster_2001 keep posting, even though it says he/she's banned?

AJ

[secretagent]

win98se is worth downgrading too. so far, i have not really been impressed by win xp.

as for the *nix geeks, i agree, linux and unix are cool and powerful and everything, but if you don't want to have the power and responsibility (misconfiguring firewalls, mail servers, etc can have drastic results) and also the steep 'learning curve' as terr had mentioned, then don't. also be patient if you choose to tread this path as there are some problems that will take days or weeks to solve by research alone.

regards,
mark.

[darkes]

My personal choice would be for Win98SE - it is very stable if you have current drivers for your hardware, reasonably secure for net access, assuming you have the current Windows updates, a decent personal firewall, and an AV scanner.
It also has excellent games support (better than Win2k, and far, far, superior to any flavour of *nix).
If you upgrade your memory in the future, Windows98 will use it - the base OS only uses the first 128Mb as far as I know (but given that it will work quite happily with 32Mb this isn't a problem). The rest of the memory is used either by applications, or as a large disk cache, which speeds things up considerably if you are running several applications at once.
This is significant if you want to use your PC to play games, as a game is an 'application', and will quite happily use 256Mb or so if it makes it run faster.
I think the comments about Win98 slowing down if you add more memory are a bit misleading, as this is only true if you use it as a server - and why on earth would you want to do that

[s0nIc]

Windows 2000 Advanced Server!!! i swear i could find no words that could express the awsomeness of Win2K Adv Serv. its the Net Admin's and Sys Admin's server of choice.

but then ANY O/S is good as long as you can maintain it.. which includes.. providing adequate hardware specs (XP requires more MEM and faster CPU than 98SE).. securing it by isntalling good firewalls and AV Scanners.. i would also suggest use Norton Utilities 2002 coz it has all that you need (except for the firewall). and ofcourse you have to update your patches every 2 weeks and download dem Virus Definitions every 2 weeks and defrag and do a full sys scan every 2 weeks..

i have 98 (i upraded it to SE) and the kidd in WinXP couldnt even barely scratch my security.

[s0nIc]

btw... by default Win2K Adv Serv is freakin stable and freakin secure!! it 0wnz all OS!!!
it kicked Solaris's, BSD's, and Linux's arse in security and stability! (im serz, i read it in TheRegister.co.uk!)

[fiend]

Stick w/ win2000. Its cheaper and chews up less memory than XP. It doesn't have compatability mode, but I haven't had any compatibility problems with it.

[mrleachy]

as said, if you need to stick with windoze you should get XP
had it for almost half a year and havnt had a single crash yet except for 2 NT style blue screens coz i ran out of space

if you need stability (who doesnt ) id go for XP (pro), i run it on a p3-667 w/ 256 meg ram and it runs faster than win '95 or '98 would on the same system, this includes running a network as well.

if you have an older computer (which sounds possible) i'd go for 98 or 98 SE, i run that on a cyrix 333 (i know its yuck!) with 64 meg ram and it goes OK.

hope this was of some help to you

[pwaring]

Personally, I'd stick with Win98SE until XP becomes supported by more programs (many companies have had to release "XP versions" of their software because their usual software doesn't work properly). I've used XP recently and it looks good but I haven't seen any real improvements in the time I tried it out. Some aspects, such as searching for files, are much improved, but I don't like the way in which it hides too much stuff from you and has lots of pretty pictures everywhere as if you are incapable of using a computer.

At the end of the day, it's down to you and your wallet (as always, money has to come into it!). If you can afford XP and don't mind a few teething problems, then it's probably better than Win98, but then you might be able to get a legit copy of Win98 from a friend who's bought the full version of XP or at a car boot sale (watch what you buy at stalls though).

Of course, SuSE Linux 7.2 is only £50 for the full pro. version, which includes 7 CDs/1 DVD and is excellent value for money. Version 8.0 is also out now, it's a little bit more expensive but still miles cheaper than the full version of Windows XP Pro.

[bofhandpfy]

I agree with Mrleachy

It does sound like you have an older PC, with an element of mixing, and matching going on.

You will find XP a tad tooo slow on an older machine with less memory.

I have a p II with 98 meg of RAM, I consider it a sacrificial machine, It runs 98SE quite happily, and gets heavy usage even now. (I use it to get my mail, and surf in hosile territory). I even use 98 on my current machine (multiple boot) and I find the results are favorable.

I once attempted to stick Win 2k on my older machine, and the results were awful.


In short ... If you have a slower older machine use 98SE, but if you have a faster processor, get some more RAM and go with XP.