What is your favourite Microsoft OS so far.

[MSB]

I personally liked 98SE. It had a:

• Lovely new theme pack
• It was smooth and stable (if I remember correctly it never ever crashed)
• You didn't have to put up with any Microsoft anti-piracy rubbish
• All games would run on it
• It was the easiest to use out of all Microsoft OS'

So what was your favorite?

[Big King Sanctaphrax]

It was smooth and stable

98 more stable than XP?! You're having a laugh, surely.

All of the 9x series were chronically unstable. I think that 2000 was the first version of Windows I used that I cannot remember crashing at least semi-regularly.

[MSB]

98 more stable than XP?! You're having a laugh, surely.

All of the 9x series were chronically unstable. I think that 2000 was the first version of Windows I used that I cannot remember crashing at least semi-regularly.

Well XP Pro (which I am running now) is always crashing and freezing. IE keeps telling me that there are script errors that need debuging on almost every web page, RTW CTD more than it ever did under 98, there are fatal exceptions every time I shut down, sometimes it freezes when I try to log on, sometimes network connections stop responding and the taskbar is always crashing. None of those things ever happened under 98SE. Windows XP was the worst £120 I ever spent.

[Lemur]

I kinda think they hit the sweet spot with Windows 2000. Not as bloated as XP, not as user-hostile as NT. I was never more comfortable than when fixing my old Windows 2K boxen.

XP's okay, but they did a lot of UI jiggery that still feels counter-intuitive to the lemur. Vista scares the daylights out of me. Windows Genuine Advantage is the mark of the beast -- you heard it here first.

[Xiahou]

I like XP best.... XP pro to be specific. Once you turn off all that XP-theme garbage you're left with what is essentially Windows2000 with the gaming compatability of 98se.

98se would be my runner up though. I'll be interested in seeing if anyone votes Me...

[drone]

XP Pro, although 2000 was very good as well. Many of the problems people see with XP are probably malware-related, I've kept my systems clean and never had instability issues.

[tibilicus]

Haha windows Mistake Edition. BSOD eat your heart out!

[Xiahou]

Yeah, it's an old joke- but it seems appropriate here.

[MSB]

Haha windows Mistake Edition. BSOD eat your heart out!

I had Me for two months before it completly destroyed my computer. That is why I ended up with XP. Why did I ever upgrade from 98SE!

[doc_bean]

What are the differenes between XP pro and XP home ?

[whyidie]

IIRC, the differences are mostly in the networking abilities. I think with Home you are limited to simple file sharing.

[doc_bean]

Does the difference between home and pro matter to the average user ?

[Fragony]

If I could I would still use win98, xp tries to do too much and does it poorly. Win98 is a disarter as well but slightly less.

[Husar]

I know you all may hate me after saying this, but i think Windows stability has to do a lot with luck and how one uses the computer. I for example reinstall until all drivers and stuff(the basics) work without any big flaws.
Also repairing I try to avoid, I prefer complete reinstalls.
Software that improves system performance or cleans up this or that I didn't use for years and since that time I am a lot more happy with my system(I now think many of these programs are BS).
Drivers can also cause crashes, keep that in mind, badly programmed software is not the fault of the OS.

All in all, I prefer Win XP Pro over all the others because the crash of a program does not mean windows crashes as well which was often the case in 98 or ME.
Generally I think it is a lot more stable than the 9x series, concerning 98SE, some hate it and some love it.
The hate it or love it thing also lead me to my first assumption because it applies to many versions of windows that some people have it running stable and some have only problems.(and since a lot of people are messing with computers having almost no knowledge about what they do...)

[Fragony]

Get a mac No going back for me!

[Lemur]

Get a mac No going back for me!

Hey, these days having a Mac doesn't mean you ain't running Windows. Admit it, you're bi. (Bi-computational, that is.)

[Fragony]

Hey, these days having a Mac doesn't mean you ain't running Windows.

That is true of course, but you look a lot cooler doing it. Mac is teh tool of tommorows man, and if you don't know that you must be one of those that our kids will one day find some meaning in by looking at their wallpaintings.

[whyidie]

Does the difference between home and pro matter to the average user ?

I would say no, it doesn't. For most people simple file sharing is complex and robust enough.

[Lemur]

Wow, so far I'm the only Orgah with big love for Win2k. Fine, I'll admit it, WinXP Pro is pretty good. Heck, I use it every day. But can't we get a "hey-yah" for the old school? Windows 2k was where all the goodness started. Everybody who loves XP now owes a big malt-pouring round of respect for the original gangsta windows, also known as Win2k.

[whyidie]

Wow, so far I'm the only Orgah with big love for Win2k. Fine, I'll admit it, WinXP Pro is pretty good. Heck, I use it every day. But can't we get a "hey-yah" for the old school? Windows 2k was where all the goodness started. Everybody who loves XP now owes a big malt-pouring round of respect for the original gangsta windows, also known as Win2k.

I suspect this is because Win2k was not widely used outside of the business sector, no ?

[Husar]

Wow, so far I'm the only Orgah with big love for Win2k. Fine, I'll admit it, WinXP Pro is pretty good. Heck, I use it every day. But can't we get a "hey-yah" for the old school? Windows 2k was where all the goodness started. Everybody who loves XP now owes a big malt-pouring round of respect for the original gangsta windows, also known as Win2k.

I never bothered with it, especially after finding Win2k patches for many games on the net. The gaming support was rather low at first and later I got my XP Pro so I simply skipped 2k.
I got some limited experience with 2k though but this was mostly server stuff with passwords everywhere and more complicated and didn't really make me desire it any more.

[Blodrast]

Nope, Lemur, you are not alone - I prefer win2k as well. Been using the current one on my home box for over 4 years. I'm not saying it couldn't do with a reinstall, but I've just been too lazy to reinstall all the stuff. It does have its minor things that bother me a bit, but I can't really complain about stability. It pretty much never crashes.

However, as for the poll... where's my Linux option ?!!

[caravel]

I personally liked 98SE. It had a:

• Lovely new theme pack
• It was smooth and stable (if I remember correctly it never ever crashed)
• You didn't have to put up with any Microsoft anti-piracy rubbish
• All games would run on it
• It was the easiest to use out of all Microsoft OS'

So what was your favorite?

Well, the themes were pretty awful, I never installed them, and it definitely wasn't stable. In fact it was probably the biggest crasher, apart from Windows ME that is. Of the 9x OS's, Win95 was the most stable IMHO, and this was purely down to it not containing M$'s buggy and overweight "Internet Explorer" shell. Integrating the web browser into the shell was possibly one of the worst moves M$ have ever made, but did they learn? No of course not. You're right about the anti-piracy rubbish. That is one of the best things about it. As to games, I've never had any problems. MTW ran a hell of alot faster on 98SE than it does now on XP. On XP it positively chugs, depite my minimal configuration, various optimisations and many disabled services and "effects". It was easy to use, but also lacked usability. XP/2k is better for networking, running apps, and almost everything else. 98 is simply better on older machines running older games.

Despite all of this I voted for 98SE as my favourite OS also, because I stuck with it, alot longer than any previous OS, and didn't install XP on my own PC until about 2003 or 2004. I had it's configuration down to a fine art and it rarely crashed unless I did something particularly silly. It's far from perfect, but you just have to know how to treat it and set it up. I ran 98lite (program that removes IE and can replace the 98 user shell with the one from Win95) for a while but found that certain programs would crash when presented with the Windows 95 user shell, which is also very featurless and unfriendly.

[Caius]

I like Windows 3.1 .
But my preferred is the Win 98SE.
For gamers such as me, Windows 98SE is more faster.
Check all new games who says 128 Mb ram(256 Mb if you are using XP)
I hate that, so im using Win 98.More Faster and More Simple.

[BDC]

XP. Only version I haven't had to completely butcher every few weeks to get it to run.

[caravel]

XP. Only version I haven't had to completely butcher every few weeks to get it to run.

I know what you mean. 2K is pretty much just as stable In my opinion, but XP actually supercedes it in every respect, so there's not much point running 2K over XP except for servers.

9x tends to require frequent reinstalls, if you don't know how to treat it. Generally a new install needs to be right the first time, with drivers installed in the correct order and a BIOS properly configured (as many onboard devices as possible disabled and the APIC disabled (baldy implimented in 9x)). The install command line should be standard in most cases, but on some (older) systems needs to be: setup /p i disable the plug and play (ACPI) bios, otherwise it will be highly unstable. using the /p i switch forces the old APM BIOS which can be more stable on older systems (not always). With this and other tweaks I've had 98SE running for two years pretty stable without needing a reinstall.

[Caius]

Anyone has Win ME?
I dont liked it, less than XP

[caravel]

Anyone has Win ME?
I dont liked it, less than XP

ME is 9x with DOS hidden away so you can't see it and a Win2k type user shell. Worst OS M$ ever released.

[Caius]

Worst OS M$ ever released.

Agreed!

[Xiahou]

WindowsMe was a freaking nightmare. I actually worked in PC repair(college job) when they were selling Me and it never ceased to amaze me how easy it was for that OS to get totally FUBARed. I think between WinMe and Bigfoot hard drives I had about 50% of thier bussiness accounted for.