Microsoft Windows

James Martin
Posts: 1011
Joined: Sun 15 Feb, 2004 19.26

Which windows does it for you? Which one does the job better than the others? Which one do you hate more than anything? Discuss!

Well for me it's got to be Windows XP which has a nice friendly interface and has crashed far less than either my old Windows 95 or ME systems have done.

Also a fan of Windows 2000, and I believe that it still has its advantages over Windows XP, particularly if you have an older machine - it does the job just as well as XP in my opinion only missing a few bits and bobs which are NICE, but not totally essential.

Windows 95 was my other favourite as it was light, efficent and on the whole, damn easy to use. There was also lots less nonsense (like all the Active Desktop shit!) and, if I were to give my old P100 1GB 16MB RAM PC a total wipe followed by a clean install I bet it would still work very efficiently.

Off-topic can anyone think of a use for it if I did that?

But what's your favourite Windows and why?
Dr Lobster*
Posts: 2104
Joined: Sat 30 Aug, 2003 20.14

My favourite Windows were probably Windows 3.11, Windows NT 4, and Windows XP.

I like the XP 'noddy' interface and new style start menu. I wish Microsoft had opened up the skinning specification though, because these dodgy utilities that hack the dlls around really seem to cause strange things to happen in my experience.

I work in an environment where there are Windows 95, 98, 2000, XP desktop workstations and by far the most stable and reliable are Windows XP and 2000. The easiest to deploy ironically are Windows 95/98 boxes - at least 200 have Windows XP and in 2 or 3 years, I've never seen the whole operating system crash. Not once. Sure apps crash, but I've never seen anything that has brought down the whole operating system. The only blue screen I've ever seen on a Windows XP box was where the internal hard disk had failed. Badly written drivers really give Windows a bad name in my opinion, because these are the very few bits of code which can bring down the OS.
Dr Lobster*
Posts: 2104
Joined: Sat 30 Aug, 2003 20.14

Flava wrote:I were to give my old P100 1GB 16MB RAM PC a total wipe followed by a clean install I bet it would still work very efficiently.

Off-topic can anyone think of a use for it if I did that?
Not sure how much dabbling you do, but it might be a useful to experiment and install / configure it as a linux web server or firewall or something like that.
Cheese Head
Banned
Posts: 918
Joined: Fri 15 Aug, 2003 13.39
Location: Rockhampton, Australia

Hate ME, Windows 95 is just amazing. IDK why, but it is.
» James »
I don't know my future after this weekend, and I don't want to
nwtv2003
Posts: 700
Joined: Tue 20 Jan, 2004 22.20
Location: Granadaland

Well my favourite is Windows 98, as it is very easy to use and you can do a lot of things with it, I guess it is my favourite as I used it for over five years when I finally upgraded. I don't mind Win98, it was the processor that was slow, 98 was fine and great. I currently have XP, I only like this as it looks very nice, it's more easier on the eyes, it's nicer to look at and it's great to brag about the fact you have XP and I have a far faster system too which makes it great, plus like 98 it's easier to use.

My least favourite is Windows 3.1, as this was the first main Windows system which I used when I started high school in 1998, at the time it felt great, but after a while it became crap, it was slow and there were limits to what you could do with it, as it wasn't connected to the Internet or anything like that, we only used Word and Excel on them, they were still using them by 2001, by this time everyone had got a new computer which was far better and then no-one looked foward to using them as you couldn't do anything with them.

Though I have never used it I heard Windows ME/2000 isn't bad either.
cwathen
Posts: 1309
Joined: Fri 15 Aug, 2003 17.28

Though I have never used it I heard Windows ME/2000 isn't bad either.
Windows ME is awful. I would never install it on my own machines and I will only put it on someone else's if they specifically ask for it. Windows 2000 on the other hand is damn good, and is what I'm planning on upgrading to at some point.

Windows 98SE is my favourite. Despite everyone's horror stories about it being unstable, I find it very stable, I run my main desktop system 24/7 and 98SE usually stays up for at least 4 or 5 days before needing a reboot. OK I realise that 2000/XP will go on for weeks or months, but if you can't handle rebooting a system once every few days then Windows 9x clearly isn't the right choice for you anyway - and considering 98 was aimed at home users who would usually only have their machine on for a few hours at a time, it's stablility is imo more than fine for it's intended purpose.
Chris
Posts: 845
Joined: Fri 15 Aug, 2003 19.03
Location: Surrey

I am also another Windows 98 liker. Well partly. Although stability wasn't absolutely fabulous (my Windows 98 system would be brought down every day or so for some reason or another), it was compatible with the majority of my hardware and my TV card worked without a crash.

However I have since moved onto 2000 and have found that to be very stable (managed to keep it running 24/7 for at least 2 weeks before a forced reboot when I launched my TV card software) and secure (ie. the screensaver password in Windows 98 is easily bypassable by anyone wanting to break into the computer by rebooting it and hitting escape when it asks you to log in but with Windows 2000 you have to have a valid usernname and password to log in). However my TV card is a nightmare to run under Windows 2000 and with the manufacturer's drivers the computer crashes with a blue screen. The open source drivers are better but performance is hit and miss - the system sometimes hangs when launching the TV viewing software. Blue screen or system hang? Great choice!?!!

Windows XP is similar to Windows 2000 but upgrading to it would have to ditch my antivirus and firewall software as they do not work under XP unless you do some registry hacking and patching - something I do not have the time to do. The reaction to the TV card isn't as violent as that of 2000 but the TV card still does not work!

The XP interface is starting to grow on me as they are using it at college, On a more general point I absolutely hate the way it forces you to store your files in "My Documents", "My Pictures" etc (not at college though). And why does patronising by having to stick "my" in front of everything? :evil:
James Martin
Posts: 1011
Joined: Sun 15 Feb, 2004 19.26

I don't seem to mind it - I've got 15GB of MP3s in My Music!
DJGM
Posts: 528
Joined: Fri 15 Aug, 2003 15.39
Location: Manchester
Contact:

Flava wrote: I don't seem to mind it - I've got 15GB of MP3s in My Music!
15GB?!? Maybe you ought to considering investing in one of these if you have that many MP3's . . .

(Assuming you haven't already got one!)
Neil Jones
Posts: 661
Joined: Thu 11 Sep, 2003 20.03
Location: West Midlands

Flava wrote:I don't seem to mind it - I've got 15GB of MP3s in My Music!
Excuse me while I call the British Equivialent of the RIAA... ;)
MarkN
Posts: 323
Joined: Fri 15 Aug, 2003 19.39
Location: South Wales

Neil Jones wrote:
Flava wrote:I don't seem to mind it - I've got 15GB of MP3s in My Music!
Excuse me while I call the British Equivialent of the RIAA... ;)
You'll be wanting to call the British Phonographic Industry Anti-Piracy Hotline then... which according to their website is:

<img src="http://www.bpi.co.uk/piracy/images/copyrightanim.gif" alt="0845 603 4567">

:-D
Post Reply