XP or 98?

Jimi · Thu 01/01/2004 19:58:39

I'm removing xp from my hard drive tomorrow, but I'm not sure whether to use xp, or 98.

Some things I have don't work on xp, but at the same time, xp has some features that i like.

What do you think i should use?

Bluke4x4 · Thu 01/01/2004 20:04:01

Hey! Jimi's back! What programs can't you use on xp?

edmundito · Thu 01/01/2004 20:05:21

Quote from: Jimi on Thu 01/01/2004 19:58:39
Some things I have don't work on xp

It depends on what these things are. Are they DOS programs? Also, how much memory do you have?

I would recommend Windows 2000

Jimi · Thu 01/01/2004 20:13:23

Xp and 98 are the only two I own.

the things that don't work are games. They actually say that they work with XP, and my pc meets all the specifications, but they work one or two times, then stop working.

PS:

my pc: pentium 4, 2.67 GHz, 512 MB RAM, and 80GB hard drive.

Domino · Thu 01/01/2004 20:44:33

I prefer Windows 98 over Windows XP. I have win 98 at home and use win XP at work.

I'm not the biggest fan of windows XP, even though i have only used it since August 2003. XP, in my opinion seems buggy and incomplete. Whenever i try doing something at work on my computer, i always get an error message, and that stupid send error to microsoft garbage.

But my Windows 98 at home seems fine, even though i do get the occasional crash now and then.

Don't games running under XP need alot more memory than games running under 98?

I like the look and all of XP, but i would stick with 98.

Shawn

Jimi · Thu 01/01/2004 20:54:58

yeh, I get that damn send error report thing all the time!

Privateer Puddin' · Thu 01/01/2004 21:14:43

disable it then - i haven't but then why would i? i've seen it twice since xp came out

Chicky · Thu 01/01/2004 22:10:33

whoo Jimi

personally i perfer win 98, its a lot eaiser to do thing but it doesnt have that virtual memory usage thing when you press ctrl+alt+del.

- a chicken

Eero · Fri 02/01/2004 09:58:37

XP is better I guess. Haven't had a crash for a while now, except only once when I tried to open a document from a corrupted floppy (I've got no LAN at home). And even then I only had to close Word.

BOYD1981 · Fri 02/01/2004 10:51:01

i'd say go with win98, but i've been told that apparently it may not work well or recognise all of an 80gb drive so you may have to partition...
if you do decide to go with win98 let me know how it works with your hard drive...

TheYak · Fri 02/01/2004 10:54:16

Whoever told you that one's a tad touched. I'm using a 120 G HD w/ 98 right now. They may've meant that you won't get the full 80 Gigs because of misleading marketing. Scientific Gig vs. Standard Gig and FAT32 Vs. NTFS & all that.

Femme Stab Mode >:D · Fri 02/01/2004 11:48:13

Shimieson, you're back!

Never ever go away again!

Oh, and 98 gets my vote because it's faster and runs on more computers. XP doesn't run some of the older programs, so death to it.

LGM · Fri 02/01/2004 16:08:20

Bah.. XP can run anything now. All you need to do is make a little effort with the Compatability mode or VDSM or DOS Box or something.

I mean, that's all I hear!!!

"My 1967 copy of Zork won't work! omg omg omg!!"

I mean, honestly.. If your THAT big of a nostalgist, get a fucking 386 enhanced with 3.11/DOS and maybe even a soundcard. Or better yet, you'd already have one.

And as far as all those errors go, you guys must be trying to do something either a. Illegal b. Stupid or c. REALLY stupid.

And you CAN turn those error reports off.. I suggest getting Tweak XP and optimizing your system with it and turning off everything you hate and turning on secret stuff that makes Windows XP a whole lot better.

I've been using it since it's release, and I love it. And the only problems I've had with it were the programs, not the OS.

*pant* *pant*

Anyways, I'm through.. Stick with XP Jimi, I'm sure there are patches or some workaround to get those programs to work. Don't go back to a more buggy OS. But if you really don't want XP, do "acquire" 2000 somehow.. But you didn't hear that from me..

Peace out

BOYD1981 · Fri 02/01/2004 20:59:24

Quote from: YakSpit on Fri 02/01/2004 10:54:16
Whoever told you that one's a tad touched. I'm using a 120 G HD w/ 98 right now. They may've meant that you won't get the full 80 Gigs because of misleading marketing. Scientific Gig vs. Standard Gig and FAT32 Vs. NTFS & all that.

yes, but i WANT the full 80 gigs because i paid for them.

scotch · Fri 02/01/2004 21:25:01

I've used 95, 98, ME, XP and 2000 on this PC, and I have stuck with 2000 now. It seems to be able to do everything XP can just as well without the extras I don't want wasting my disk space (like newer media player and the plasticy buttons). It does have problems with DOS games same as XP.. you can use the methods LGM suggested to run them, there aren't a load of games that won't play on here that played when I had 98, there are a few that work with sound now that never did, now that I can use VDMS.

I use MS Virtual PC now though, with DOS 6.22 installed on it, that plays almost all dos games I've tried on it (apart from AGS ones for some reason). Your system is easily fast enough to play dos games in VPC.

2000 is much better at handling memory and not crashing, and when it does it's error message is slightly less annoying than the xp one, it doesn't have a send error report to MS button on it.

I'm very happy with it overall, I've had it installed for 6 months now and it runs almost as well as when it was first installed, it's more stable than anything else I have used, and it looks amost the same as 98 which is nice.

I'd go for XP over 98.

Hueij · Fri 02/01/2004 21:30:44

I don't know about XP but can't you have a dual boot W98/XP? I have a 98/2000 dual boot and it works like a charm.

AGA · Fri 02/01/2004 21:32:27

You can dual-boot any 9x OS with any NT-based one, but you can't dual-boot more than one NT-based OS. Well you can with special software, but you can't do it automatically like you can with 9x/NT combinations.

shbaz · Fri 02/01/2004 21:49:42

Windows 98 will only use so much of your memory, if you have one of those machines with 500mb or something keep in mind it won't use all of it. I can't remember the number, I think it only uses ~300 or something. It is also no longer supported by Microsoft.

My recommendation to you if you don't like XP is to use Linux. It's free, much less buggy, and most importantly NOT MICROSOFT. IBM is using it, Disney is using it, why shouldn't you? I've never actually used it, because my new PC is a laptop and I think it might be very hard to get the evil that is XP off of it and convert to Linux. I have not heard bad things about Linux though, and it is supposed to be able to port to a lot of stuff, so think about it.

AGA · Fri 02/01/2004 22:05:43

Because you can't play any decent games on Linux, nor does it have anywhere near the same number of programs available.

TheYak · Fri 02/01/2004 23:55:46

Linux's equivalent applications are also very much in development. OpenOffice is okay for the individual but a very poor solution for more difficult tasks or for businesses. If you're checking out Linux, one easy way to do it is with Knoppix, you burn an iso to a CD, boot off the CD, all without installing anything over your old OS or repartitioning. The distro I like, other than that, is Mandrake 9.2, seems pretty stable with decent support/drivers.

As far as the HD space, BOYD, in any modern HD, you didn't pay for 80 gigs. If you read the fine print, you paid for 80 gigs using the NTFS file system. You're only buying 74 or so with a FAT32 system. Either way, the full-drive support of Win98 isn't a liability of the OS itself but an advantage of the NTFS system utilized by newer OS's.

Jimi, bottom line, as far as I'm concerned, is that things are headed the way of XP. There have been a couple game demos that run XP-only, and 98 support is dropping. I'm still using 98 but realizing I'm gonna hafta go XP sooner or later. 98 drivers are no longer WHQL certified, and various manufacturers are going to start dropping support sooner or later. If you've got a decent PC (Say, over 1Ghz processor, 512 RAM) then you should probably bite the bullet and go for XP. I haven't found any program that I couldn't run on XP that I could run on 98 (with some tweaking). If you're worried about backwards compatibility with dos, you can keep the DOS files from Win98 and use a bootdisk, end of problem.