Windows question

[jatos]

I used XP for a while and then went down to 2000 pro.

[na_th_an]

I'd say that there's a "best OS" for each computer/use.

desktops:

If you have a 486, go for MSDOS and install Windows 3.1 on top.

If you have a fast 486 or a Pentium, check Windows 95 OSR2 or Windows NT 4

If you have a Pentium MMX, AMD K6 or a Pentium II machine with less than 500 Mhz and/or 128 Mb RAM, Windows 98SE is your OS.

If you have a Pentium III or AMD K6/2 with more than 500 Mhz and at least 192 Mb go for Windows 2000 Pro SP4.

If your computer goes above 800 Mhz and 256 Mb RAM, Windows XP Pro SP2 is your best OS in the Windows range.

If you have a 64 bits processor, Windows XP 64 bits.

servers:

For old machines you better get Debian and a headache

For machines in the range of 733 MHz to 1 GHz I'd suggest the Fedora Core Linux distro. It works like silk and I've found it to be the easier Linux distro to deal with.

If you have a powerful server and still want to go for Windows (Linux or FreeBSD would be better for this), Windows 2003 server is neat!

[Zap]

I think WinXP works as different good or bad on different machines as any other OS. Ive never had any serious problems, no bad crashes, and none where I didnt know what caused it.

But I do agree that you shouldnt run it on low end systems, and not with less than 256 mb ram. At least not if you plan to run heavy programs or take use of the multiple-users-at-once functions (which is really cool in a home where more than one uses the same pc).

I've had to reinstall only once in like... 1.5 years, because I had upgraded the pc from dos6 thru all the windows OS, and it was showing on the registry.

[adosorken]

I have virtually zero problems with XP on my machine. I have a dual boot system, with Windows 98SE (hacked to pieces, I call it "Windows 9X Ultimate" hehehe) on the primary drive and Windows XP on the secondary drive. The only problem I have is that both of my HDDs are FAT32 (because 98SE doesn't do NTFS), and we have a lot of power-outs here lately, so when we lose power and XP is running, boneheaded XP hasn't yet flushed many file buffers (especially if I am REALLY busy), so I tend to lose files when we lose power (this is how I got set back a ways in DeskQueen's development...project file was mutilated, some sources hadn't been updated [even if 'saved' over a half hour prior], one source completely gone). I can never retain a Firefox history because of it either, and I used to lose bookmarks left and right as well. Hopefully we'll get some UPS's here again so that won't happen anymore, but they're expensive down here...

[dilettante]

Kinda funny. During the XP beta program I had no problem running it on a 64MB PII 350. Of course I wasn't trying to run Office on top of this or anything, just testing a bunch of custom C++ and VB5/6 applications.

But by the time it shipped XP was unbearable without at least 128MB. It is still viable for many tasks this way, but I think 256MB gets you big gains. Jumping to 512MB gains you more, but not as much more as going from 128 to 256.

All of that varies with what you're running on the box. But 256K is fine for an XP Pro machine with Office 2000 or 2002 (Office XP) - more is better though.

[TheBigBasicQ]

Hopefully we'll get some UPS's here again so that won't happen anymore, but they're expensive down here...

UPSs for a single PC arent that expensive =P

[Jonathan Simpson]

I'm a pretty big 2K fan, myself... for windows, anyway, it's about as stable as they come. My development workstation upstairs is a PIII 866mhz, with 512MB of ram, and win2K. It runs like a dream, and just in case the boot drive is imaged for quick repairs. It even handles the DOS stuff reasonably well, but for DOS devel work (which for me means VBDOS and Borland Turbo C++) I work on a little Compaq 75mhz laptop, with real DOS and the Novell network client. This way, I have quick access to my network from QB or TC. I find it best to divide the two.