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[Jason_Xero]

Someday we will all be 100% linux.  Someday.  Someday.

Even mac users?  Now you're dreamin...  

[Darwin]

Mac OSX allows you to change the source of files and stuff.  Actually, I do believe it uses code from BSD.

[Jason_Xero]

My point is, mac users are simpletons.

[Lidge Farkley]

Allrighty...

Admittedly, when I first got windows98, it was craptactical, and I only used DOS unless 98 was needed.

Then I got windows98se.  I have had about 40 crashes in the last 4 years, and each has been from a crash due to an unpatched 3rd party program, a user-induced crash (visiting a popup-spawning site, like ezboard, for example), or because of a hardware failure (cd-rom, in my case, or ram failure, for example.)

As far as stability, as long as I keep my system defragmented and scandisked monthly or bi-monthly (sometimes I can go for a few months if I don't use it too much for anything elaborate) with out a single crash.  I have litterally never had a windows98se related crash that wasn't caused by a 3rd party program or hardware failure in my entire 4 years of running windows98se.  I stick to it primarily for that simple reason.

Of the OS's I have used windows98se has been the most stable and most simple of all.  I really thought OSX for mac's was a really neato-OS, but I didn't need all the extra crap it had, much like I don't need a lot of the extra crap XP seems to have (though as I said earlier, the updated framework compatability would be nice [if I ever ran a server].)

I have used wME, wXP, w2k, OSX, and for a few minutes (this I wouldn't count for much) Yellow Dog Linux, as well as Red Hat 6.0 for a few minutes.

I really thought that graphically those were all superior to windows98se, but they were all (as I said before) full of stuff I either didn't need or simply found to be a neusance.

Stability I have seen on many systems for all OS's.  In the modern OS world (post 98 1st edition) I have seen all systems running the variety I mentioned above crash, hang, and have stability issues.  The thing is, all most all of those cases were in fact user-induced errors, or hardware failure related problems.  As far as I can tell, stability relies on the users ability to keep their computer up to date and well cared for both in the hardware and the software. [clarification: I am not a novice user, but being new to installing a new OS I would need to go through the painful process of installing and deciphering what I needed and didn't need for the system to function the way I wanted, as I did with 95,98,98se, and redhat6.  I would not look forward to that for some what I would consider to be minor improovements.]

If I were going to make a choice based on my server-based usage (of which I have none currently) and I couldn't afford one of those mega-cool sun systems (er whatever I would want to use as a file server) I would go with Windows2000 or with a Linux Distro.  Again I find their slimmed dowwn ease-of-use is much more clear cut than the clutterware of OSX and XP.  Of course, one could argue that if you know what you're doing when you install the OS, you can remove a lot of the clutter.  Unfortunately most novice computer users don't understand what is going on exactly when they do install their OS, and it becomes clutterware anyway.

The use of the "2 GB barrier broken" phrase is not warranted I feel.  I have filled up a 17 GB drive with programs, MP3's and other random bits of stuff with my windows98SE running, and by golly I had no apparent probelms with my file structure one bit.  As far as I can tell, fdisk didn't really care what size I made the FAT32 partitions, and windows scolded me, though let me install and manage the entirety of the drives any way.  So, though indeed I agree that NTFS is a better organised file structure, I still don't really see that ass a reason to shell out $200+ for a new OS. ;-)

by darwin
Someday we will all be 100% linux. Someday. Someday.

by jason X
Even mac users? Now you're dreamin...

FYI, there is at least one Linux Distribution for the MAC, and it's called Yellow Dog Linux.  It looks the same as OSX to me... but that may be because it was configured to look like that. :-)

Any way you slice this whole thing though, I always have come back to windows98se.  Of all the OS's I have used (other than DOS, which was the only product I admired microsoft for... which is also made of much 'borrowed code') I always end up back at Windows98SE.  Of all my computer experiences, I haven't been shown an honest reason for me to upgrade my OS at all.  W98se is still the best windows based operating system for my money, my uses, my stability and system resources.

Those are my reasons, and I'm sticking to them.  You may have reasons why you run your OS, but these are mine.


(of course... after I build my next PowerHouse of a computer... I won't need to worry about running 98se any more... but I probably still will... why not eh?)

[Pecker]

Someday we will all be 100% linux.  Someday.  Someday.

The hell we will  

[Particle]

What's that file? the difference in space between 98SE and XP? If so, that's either wrong or you took 98SE at absolute maximum capacity and XP at minimum; and even then the diffrence wouldn't be that small. Under typical install, XP takes almost a gig, and 98SE takes about 250 - 300MB.

And as for usage, XP takes anywhere from 75-90MB, idling. 98SE takes 25-30. Some of us don't have supercomputers with hundreds of megs of RAM to burn. I haven't noticed any stability problems with 98SE. In fact, I've had the most grief with XP.

I quoted your own numbers.  What I was showing you was my computer's storage capacity and usage from two different dates.  The point I was trying to get across is that 700MB is unimportant to a lot of people nowadays.  If you have even say a 20GB HDD, a 300MB OS vs a 1.1GB OS is going to make little real difference.  That's what--one game nowadays, if that?  You can go to walmart and buy a cheapie $500 computer that will run Windows XP.

If you've had 40 crashes in 4 years under 9x, you might want to contact Guinness.  NT based OS's are just more stable.  That's why they dumped the other with ME.  Many people even thought ME was worse than 98.  I will admit that I did have good luck with Windows 98SE, but nothing near the level I had with Windows 2000 and later Windows XP (I still think 2000 is more stable than XP).

[Darwin]

I have a PII 350  w/ 128mb SDram running XP pro.  It is 1000000x more stable than windoze 98 ever was for me.

[Silvanoshei]

This is coming down to personal experience. You say 98SE isn't stable, but I haven't had any serious problems in over a year. Anything else, such as GUIs, is rather circumstantial. I'm far more concerned with how things run than what they look like. And although space isn't that big of an issue, runtime RAM is. Some of us just don't have hundreds of RAM to burn. Oh, and this:

Windows 2000 is 100x more stable, and a ton more compatible with the latest software and updates..

I've never seen nor heard of any hardware or software that won't run on 98SE, or that runs better on 2000 or XP. Many programs say that they're "designed for" XP and such, but they're not. Then run fine on pretty much any platform.

[Darwin]

XP just streamlines functions such as attaching digital cameras and MP3 players, which I like.  Its nice that I can access my pictures as fast as I plug it into my computer.

[Silvanoshei]

So can I. What are you talking about?

[Particle]

No special software required, XP mounts most digital cameras as a drive that you can access.  No 3rd party app is needed.  Nothing before XP did that, 2000 included.

I'm not saying that Windows 98SE is malarkey and couldn't balance a pen with both hands, I'm just saying that 2000/XP/NT is more stable than 9x.  NT was more stable than 2000, and 2000 is more stable than XP (from my experience).  The more they seem to modify the original NT kernel, the less stable it is getting.

You could ask somebody else and get the opposite answer, though.

[Darwin]

I havent even used windows update yet.  The only time I have my computer crash is if I plug a usb device in my broken USB port when it feels like messing up.

[Jason_Xero]

Depends on the types of errors you guys are getting too.  Are you talking about hard locks or BSoD?

Personally, after using WinXP on both of my machines, it is far more stable.  I am trying to get Win98SE back on my other computer for when I want to play old dos games with sound.  You would not believe how often it crashes.

[Silvanoshei]

Ah, yes. There is one more thing. 98SE cannot utilize any amount of RAM above 256MB. Sounds funny, but its true. It can detect the RAM, which is what thows people off when they visit the Performance tab; it just can't use it. So, if you have 400MB or more RAM, I advise switching to a more recent version of Windows.

[Lidge Farkley]

I still think 2000 is more stable than XP

I agree.  I would use it if I had a required reason, but I can't think of any.
:-)

I think I will just end up having a bual boot machine for older stuff and dos based stuff, win98se and probably dos.  Who the hell knows eh? If I wanted to go overboard... I have System commander 7... I could probably have a partition of every OS, but I don't really have the need or time for all of that.

But, if windows98SE never came out... I would use windows2000, as it is the most stable I have used other than 98se.

Also... about XP stability, I read in a few different places that when you have a signature "blue screen of death" it doesn't actually blue screen, sometimes it just closes the app that's going to blue screen.  Is that true?  I haven't used XP enough to see that happen, but I have seen it randomly close programs for friends and family before, with no warning.  I would think that to be a far greater inconvenience than a bsod.


Darwin, you should update for security patch reasons man! :-)


Wanted to edit in this remark:  Windows NT sucked the big one when I was in high school.  We had the latest version with the latest service pack, and I sware that every day we were reformatting at least one NT machine in the school, if not the usual 10-15 of them.  We ran an NT workgroup in the Science lab (as well as many other parts of the school) and whenI was in my science class and we were using the computers we got the blue screen at least 15 times per class period (over several macines.)  I can only wonder how the other classes faired.  Anyhow, I know that 10 of the science lab machines had these problems due to bad ghost images, but the other 17 machines were perfectly fine software to hardware wise.  They were just blue screen machines!  (this was in 1998, 1999, my senior year they say)


I'll still say though, that an OS isn't dependant on it's age or it's ingenuity, it's use depends on what exactly the user needs and uses it for.  Craches can always be avoided... but finding the correct hardware and knowing how to care for your file system is the most important factor in maintaining stability.


[side note to particle:  yeah... I should contact guiness, especially since I know that a hardware failure or a user error caused every single one of them... or maybe I am just super lucky.  I did have the orriginal wind98, but I hated it with a vengence.  I wrote a song about it back in 98, but I don't know where the lyrics went... they involved burning it, sending it to bill gates and hanging someone I think.  Ahh well.]