Worst Version of Windows?

[Unknown-One]

Wow, lots of hate for Windows ME

I agree that it was buggy out of the box, but have any of you guys installed it recently and fully patched it? It can actually be a nice update from Windows 98 if you need to run DOS programs and games...although if you have no need for such things Windows 2000 or XP would be a better option, more support for recent programs and games and such.

 

[I3roknI3ottle]

my mom had a computer built by best buy when I was in like 6th or 7th grade, im now a freshmen in college.

800MHz Duron
Asus Mobo
Asus TNT Vanta
128MB SDRAM
30GB hardrive
Windows ME

I loved using the computer, but OMG was that OS a POS. My mom went to best buy some time after to complain about problems and they were saying it was ME and that she should purchase m$ newest OS when it comes out XP or suggested 2000, and she was pissed because it seemed like she had just bought it and they were telling her to already upgrade.

 

[iRoNeTiK]

ME crap

 

[nigerian_businessman]

ME of course.

Moving from 98se to ME made me feel something like Jennifer Aniston must have felt after going from Brad Pitt to Vince Vaughn.

 

[OC_LeGeND]

i`m with Windows me it sucked major ass i`v actully went back to windows 98 cuzz of this back before xp came out

 

[ktwebb]

There is no reasonable debate, or knowledgeable, about this subject. ME was easily Microsofts biggest mistake.

Everyone's entitled to their opinion. If their answer to this question is anything other than Millineum then their opininon is simply not valid.

 

[Super Mario]

ME of course.

Moving from 98se to ME made me feel something like Jennifer Aniston must have felt after going from Brad Pitt to Vince Vaughn.

It made really no difference for most people. Windows ME was slightly worse than Windows 98, but for the most part, they sucked equally.

 

[Russell]

It made really no difference for most people. Windows ME was slightly worse than Windows 98, but for the most part, they sucked equally.

No way man. You're the exception here. "Most people" don't agree with you. bac kwhen I was a tech, every single person I ever encountered who were running ME hated it and wanted to move to XP or back to 98. I know I'm not the only person with such an experience. The forumers here also speak volumes regarding how much ME blows.

98 did suck compared to what we have now, but it wasn't so bad for the time.

 

[Super Mario]

No way man. You're the exception here. "Most people" don't agree with you. bac kwhen I was a tech, every single person I ever encountered who were running ME hated it and wanted to move to XP or back to 98. I know I'm not the only person with such an experience. The forumers here also speak volumes regarding how much ME blows.

98 did suck compared to what we have now, but it wasn't so bad for the time.

It still doesn't change the fcat that Windows 98 was a piece of sh*t opertaing system. Windows 2000 and Windows XP are beyond light years ahead of POS Windows 98, even for their time!!!

 

[wildcard442]

Windows ME for sure. It didn't add anything great over 98 and it was a POS with strange bugs.

Windows95 (first version) may not have been that great, but it was a huge leap over windows 3.1 and is not even close to being the worst OS. Direct X wasn't useable on NT platforms, only 9X platforms. 2000 had support for direct x.

95 was a big leap. 98 and ME were merely upgrades to it. XP was the next leap.

 

[Riddlinkidstoner]

this thread makes me laugh

 

[ThaDrewster]

this thread makes me laugh

your face makes me laugh....





haha jk (im bored)

 

[nigerian_businessman]

It still doesn't change the fcat that Windows 98 was a piece of sh*t opertaing system. Windows 2000 and Windows XP are beyond light years ahead of POS Windows 98, even for their time!!!

Windows 2000 and XP were far better than 98 or 98se, but 98se was by far the best Windows 9x version. Windows 98se was a pretty good operating system. I didn't have many problems with stability, viruses, or incompatibilities. 2000 was a huge step forward and after using it there's no way I would have gone back, but for its intended use, 98se wasn't that bad.

 

[Super Mario]

Windows 2000 and XP were far better than 98 or 98se, but 98se was by far the best Windows 9x version. Windows 98se was a pretty good operating system. I didn't have many problems with stability, viruses, or incompatibilities. 2000 was a huge step forward and after using it there's no way I would have gone back, but for its intended use, 98se wasn't that bad.

Sure, for running legacy simplistic applications like 16-bit DOS and Windows 3.1 apps, and low end non-resource intensive 32-bit applications 98SE was ok. But for any semi-resource intensive 32-bit computing or higher, or multi tasking, WIndows 98 was a lousy piece of sh*t.

It had no place for high end gaming or computing in any of the 1GHz + CPU days!!

To call it a pretty good OS is flat out incorrect consideirng the fact we had far superiopr opertaing systems available like OS/2 WARP, Linux falvors, Unix variants, and Windows NT flavored Windows.

And don't give me any of that nonsense that Windows NT wasn't capable of gaming back then because of the limits of the OS. It was only because Microsoft choose for it to be that way, not because Microsoft couldn't have made NT great for gaming and home consumer use as well as great for business use. Microsoft flat out should have designed NT for the home consumer makret 10 years ago.

That lousy non-real 32-bit OS in POS Win95/98/ME should have never been made. It should have been all NT as far back as 1996. And Microsoft could have made NT have great DOS emulation, just like IBM was able to get OS/2 WARP to have great DOS emulation., even though it had no real DOS code as its base OS.

 

[nigerian_businessman]

Sure, for running legacy simplistic applications like 16-bit DOS and Windows 3.1 apps, and low end non-resource intensive 32-bit applications 98SE was ok. But for any semi-resource intensive 32-bit computing or higher, or multi tasking, WIndows 98 was a lousy piece of sh*t.

It had no place for high end gaming or computing in any of the 1GHz + CPU days!!

To call it a pretty good OS is flat out incorrect consideirng the fact we had far superiopr opertaing systems available like OS/2 WARP, Linux falvors, Unix variants, and Windows NT flavored Windows.

And don't give me any of that nonsense that Windows NT wasn't capable of gaming back then because of the limits of the OS. It was only because Microsoft choose for it to be that way, not because Microsoft couldn't have made NT great for gaming and home consumer use as well as great for business use. Microsoft flat out should have designed NT for the home consumer makret 10 years ago.

That lousy non-real 32-bit OS in POS Win95/98/ME should have never been made. It should have been all NT as far back as 1996. And Microsoft could have made NT have great DOS emulation, just like IBM was able to get OS/2 WARP to have great DOS emulation., even though it had no real DOS code as its base OS.

Okay, I've got a bit of a response to this.

OS/2 Warp was not a far superior OS. It was a more stable OS with support for 16-bit Windows apps. Windows 98se, and in fact every version of Windows since 3.11 used a 32-bit layer that OS/2 could not run. And I used OS/2 Warp. It really wasn't that great. It was a cumbersome beast of an OS that was difficult to install, difficult to use, and for all the trouble didn't have anywhere close to the application support that Windows did at the time.

As far as Linux goes, if you think people were complaining about how difficult it is to use now, then you can only imagine how it was back then. I used Linux too, Slackware to be exact. I went into Waldenbooks and bought the 50lb brick of a book with a CD in the back and spent a year and a half just absorbing. And I'm STILL not that great with it. Again, Linux was and to this day remains a more stable OS with support for some Windows apps through Wine, but it can be difficult to install and use (although not nearly as much anymore), and for all the trouble it doesn't have a lot of major equivalent apps that it should. Using Linux as a digital audio workstation, photo manipulation, or gaming box is a joke right now. I'm sure theres a few other areas where Linux pales in comparison when it comes to applications, although I can only speak from personal experience in these three areas.

And to go one step further, I'll go so far as to say in 1999, Windows 2000 wasn't good at gaming. Windows 2000 had lousy driver support for a lot of gaming peripherals and hardware. And I can say this because I remember, because I had access to a copy at work shortly after it came out, and I used it at home from early 2000 on. Now I'm not going to argue on whether or not MS should have designed NT for consumer use 10 years earlier than it did. We can talk about all the things that should have, could have, and would have been done until we're blue in the face but that isn't going to change what actually did happen.

What actually did happen was that Microsoft chose to focus NT on their business customers first, most likely because their business customers valued stability over flashy graphics, gaming, and all the other useless shit that they stuffed into XP when they finally did start focusing on the end consumer. And to say this was the wrong choice isn't your place, because I doubt you even understand the reasoning behind it. MS wanted to make sure they had the important shit right before releasing an OS that was not tailored to consumers out to the general market just to have Joe Sixpack turn his nose up at it because it didn't have all kinds of fancy wizards and themes and shit like Windows Movie Maker. And despite all the complaints from all the anti-MS zealots, for the most part, it shows in Windows XP, because they managed to tack on all the end consumer stuff without completely hosing the OS.

Maybe the 9x codebase should have been scrapped, but 95 fixed a lot of problems for a lot of people, and for most consumers it WAS good enough in comparison to the alternatives. Windows NT 3.x was a step forward for stability but in terms of usability it was a dinosaur. Same for OS/2. Linux was great if you knew what you're doing, and developers are making that a much easier thing to attain, but at the time Linux was an operating system that required either a 50lb book or a superior grasp of the command line to operate. And it was (and still is) incredibly easy to bork your whole system through a simple syntax error. Not exactly a consumer level OS is it?

Windows 98se DID have a place in high end gaming rigs after the 1ghz mark, because AMD only broke that record in March of 2000, and Windows 2000 was still a joke for gaming at that point, lacking even basic driver support for most consumer level 3d accelerators, gamepads, and joysticks.

And what else was there for gaming before that? NT 3.51? You think Joe Sixpack wanted to go back to that shitty Windows 3.0 interface? I know I didn't. Linux? Even if Linux could have run games, it was difficult to use, with few places to turn to for help when something went wrong, and it had even worse driver support, barely supporting even 2d video cards in anything more than VESA mode. Then there's OS/2 Warp, with its plethora of applications. Was anything ever written for OS/2 Warp beyond highly specific banking software and AS/400 terminals?

Windows 98se simply wasn't that bad. It did what it was made to do for the most part and certainly better than a lot of other alternatives, considering you couldn't even run a decent game on OS/2 or Linux, or Mac OS, or unix variants.

 

[Domingo]

I think I'm the only person in the world, but I had minimal issues with Windows Me. Back then I only did a clean install and I managed to keep that up and running with no issues 'til the XP betas came out. I've heard horror stories about it, but I luckily avoided 'em. For me it worked just like 98SE without having to DL all of the patches and updates.

I think my worst nightmare was the original Win95. I've never had so many crashes, lock-ups, instability issues, etc. as I did for that one. I remember getting the SR2 version from a friend, which helped but was still pretty rough. 98 was a GODSEND for me.

 

[Xilikon]

Okay, I've got a bit of a response to this.

OS/2 Warp was not a far superior OS. It was a more stable OS with support for 16-bit Windows apps. Windows 98se, and in fact every version of Windows since 3.11 used a 32-bit layer that OS/2 could not run. And I used OS/2 Warp. It really wasn't that great. It was a cumbersome beast of an OS that was difficult to install, difficult to use, and for all the trouble didn't have anywhere close to the application support that Windows did at the time.

As far as Linux goes, if you think people were complaining about how difficult it is to use now, then you can only imagine how it was back then. I used Linux too, Slackware to be exact. I went into Waldenbooks and bought the 50lb brick of a book with a CD in the back and spent a year and a half just absorbing. And I'm STILL not that great with it. Again, Linux was and to this day remains a more stable OS with support for some Windows apps through Wine, but it can be difficult to install and use (although not nearly as much anymore), and for all the trouble it doesn't have a lot of major equivalent apps that it should. Using Linux as a digital audio workstation, photo manipulation, or gaming box is a joke right now. I'm sure theres a few other areas where Linux pales in comparison when it comes to applications, although I can only speak from personal experience in these three areas.

And to go one step further, I'll go so far as to say in 1999, Windows 2000 wasn't good at gaming. Windows 2000 had lousy driver support for a lot of gaming peripherals and hardware. And I can say this because I remember, because I had access to a copy at work shortly after it came out, and I used it at home from early 2000 on. Now I'm not going to argue on whether or not MS should have designed NT for consumer use 10 years earlier than it did. We can talk about all the things that should have, could have, and would have been done until we're blue in the face but that isn't going to change what actually did happen.

What actually did happen was that Microsoft chose to focus NT on their business customers first, most likely because their business customers valued stability over flashy graphics, gaming, and all the other useless shit that they stuffed into XP when they finally did start focusing on the end consumer. And to say this was the wrong choice isn't your place, because I doubt you even understand the reasoning behind it. MS wanted to make sure they had the important shit right before releasing an OS that was not tailored to consumers out to the general market just to have Joe Sixpack turn his nose up at it because it didn't have all kinds of fancy wizards and themes and shit like Windows Movie Maker. And despite all the complaints from all the anti-MS zealots, for the most part, it shows in Windows XP, because they managed to tack on all the end consumer stuff without completely hosing the OS.

Maybe the 9x codebase should have been scrapped, but 95 fixed a lot of problems for a lot of people, and for most consumers it WAS good enough in comparison to the alternatives. Windows NT 3.x was a step forward for stability but in terms of usability it was a dinosaur. Same for OS/2. Linux was great if you knew what you're doing, and developers are making that a much easier thing to attain, but at the time Linux was an operating system that required either a 50lb book or a superior grasp of the command line to operate. And it was (and still is) incredibly easy to bork your whole system through a simple syntax error. Not exactly a consumer level OS is it?

Windows 98se DID have a place in high end gaming rigs after the 1ghz mark, because AMD only broke that record in March of 2000, and Windows 2000 was still a joke for gaming at that point, lacking even basic driver support for most consumer level 3d accelerators, gamepads, and joysticks.

And what else was there for gaming before that? NT 3.51? You think Joe Sixpack wanted to go back to that shitty Windows 3.0 interface? I know I didn't. Linux? Even if Linux could have run games, it was difficult to use, with few places to turn to for help when something went wrong, and it had even worse driver support, barely supporting even 2d video cards in anything more than VESA mode. Then there's OS/2 Warp, with its plethora of applications. Was anything ever written for OS/2 Warp beyond highly specific banking software and AS/400 terminals?

Windows 98se simply wasn't that bad. It did what it was made to do for the most part and certainly better than a lot of other alternatives, considering you couldn't even run a decent game on OS/2 or Linux, or Mac OS, or unix variants.

QFT... We need to comment while keeping what's available in a certain period of time in mind. It's like telling that in 1900, boats sucks to get to Europe and airplanes should have been around, which isn't entirely true

Super Mario, if you have so much to puke against M$ stuff, get off from here and go in the Linux forum because we won't bother you in this place.

 

[ThreeDee]

98se was a solid OS for me ..but I kept it pretty clean and updated .. and stayed away from stuff that I deamed "fluffy" at the time

I did tech support for a while for quest dsl and msn dial up ..and I got a lot of wierd stuff come in with Me users... a lot of it was password problems specifc to Me users ..

I think Me was a great OS from a computer techs stand point ....job security!

I'm using Vista 5744 right now and think it's going to be a good OS ..I'm going to switch back to XP-64 tho until Vista actually comes out .

I use Fed core 4 as my main work box (typing from it now) and use Linux for various other applications (servers, firewall ...)

Win2K was/is a great OS ...used to use it on all my gaming computers in the little computer Lab I directly oversee here at work... they all have Vista 5744 on them now tho

 

[Super Mario]

Okay, I've got a bit of a response to this.

OS/2 Warp was not a far superior OS. It was a more stable OS with support for 16-bit Windows apps. Windows 98se, and in fact every version of Windows since 3.11 used a 32-bit layer that OS/2 could not run. And I used OS/2 Warp. It really wasn't that great. It was a cumbersome beast of an OS that was difficult to install, difficult to use, and for all the trouble didn't have anywhere close to the application support that Windows did at the time.

As far as Linux goes, if you think people were complaining about how difficult it is to use now, then you can only imagine how it was back then. I used Linux too, Slackware to be exact. I went into Waldenbooks and bought the 50lb brick of a book with a CD in the back and spent a year and a half just absorbing. And I'm STILL not that great with it. Again, Linux was and to this day remains a more stable OS with support for some Windows apps through Wine, but it can be difficult to install and use (although not nearly as much anymore), and for all the trouble it doesn't have a lot of major equivalent apps that it should. Using Linux as a digital audio workstation, photo manipulation, or gaming box is a joke right now. I'm sure theres a few other areas where Linux pales in comparison when it comes to applications, although I can only speak from personal experience in these three areas.

And to go one step further, I'll go so far as to say in 1999, Windows 2000 wasn't good at gaming. Windows 2000 had lousy driver support for a lot of gaming peripherals and hardware. And I can say this because I remember, because I had access to a copy at work shortly after it came out, and I used it at home from early 2000 on. Now I'm not going to argue on whether or not MS should have designed NT for consumer use 10 years earlier than it did. We can talk about all the things that should have, could have, and would have been done until we're blue in the face but that isn't going to change what actually did happen.

What actually did happen was that Microsoft chose to focus NT on their business customers first, most likely because their business customers valued stability over flashy graphics, gaming, and all the other useless shit that they stuffed into XP when they finally did start focusing on the end consumer. And to say this was the wrong choice isn't your place, because I doubt you even understand the reasoning behind it. MS wanted to make sure they had the important shit right before releasing an OS that was not tailored to consumers out to the general market just to have Joe Sixpack turn his nose up at it because it didn't have all kinds of fancy wizards and themes and shit like Windows Movie Maker. And despite all the complaints from all the anti-MS zealots, for the most part, it shows in Windows XP, because they managed to tack on all the end consumer stuff without completely hosing the OS.

Maybe the 9x codebase should have been scrapped, but 95 fixed a lot of problems for a lot of people, and for most consumers it WAS good enough in comparison to the alternatives. Windows NT 3.x was a step forward for stability but in terms of usability it was a dinosaur. Same for OS/2. Linux was great if you knew what you're doing, and developers are making that a much easier thing to attain, but at the time Linux was an operating system that required either a 50lb book or a superior grasp of the command line to operate. And it was (and still is) incredibly easy to bork your whole system through a simple syntax error. Not exactly a consumer level OS is it?

Windows 98se DID have a place in high end gaming rigs after the 1ghz mark, because AMD only broke that record in March of 2000, and Windows 2000 was still a joke for gaming at that point, lacking even basic driver support for most consumer level 3d accelerators, gamepads, and joysticks.

And what else was there for gaming before that? NT 3.51? You think Joe Sixpack wanted to go back to that shitty Windows 3.0 interface? I know I didn't. Linux? Even if Linux could have run games, it was difficult to use, with few places to turn to for help when something went wrong, and it had even worse driver support, barely supporting even 2d video cards in anything more than VESA mode. Then there's OS/2 Warp, with its plethora of applications. Was anything ever written for OS/2 Warp beyond highly specific banking software and AS/400 terminals?

Windows 98se simply wasn't that bad. It did what it was made to do for the most part and certainly better than a lot of other alternatives, considering you couldn't even run a decent game on OS/2 or Linux, or Mac OS, or unix variants.

You are misisng part of the point. Well yes, you couldn't game on OS/2 WARP, Linux, or Windows NT. However, that simply because developers didn't write games for them. It has nothing to do with them not being to handle games Most software is OS specific, and if you don't write your software for a particular OS, it does not matter how good of an OS it is, it simply will not run those applications.

That is what the problem was with OS/2 WARP. It was a superior OS, but it became a moot point because no developers wrote software for it. They should have and had lots of consumer level software been written for OS/2 WARP back then, it would have blown POS Windows 9X based operating systems out of the water in terms of performance. Imagine how much better performance would be today in the PC industry if all software were written for OS/2 WARP or Windows NT and Windows 9X never was made. It would have been a whole lot better.

So thus, compared to what we could and absolutely should have had, Windows 9X based opertaing systems including Windows 98SE were a piece of junk.

When I say POS Windows 98/ME never had a place for high end gaming, I meant when Windows XP came out. IN NO WAY shape or form should POS Windows 98/ME have been supported by high end resource demanding games as far back as early 2002. Although very few resource intensive games existed back then as most games only required a 400MHz CPU and 96MB maximum to run back then.

But I just cringe in disgust that many games that required 512MB of RAM and a 1.5GHz or faster CPU still were made to be compatible with POS WIndows 98/ME. Now that is just outrageously ridiculous. There is flat out ZERO and I mean ZERO reason for games with those kind of system requirements to be made compatible with such a piece of sh*t opertaing syste that is a cxompletely differnet OS heritage to the norm of Windows 2000/XP today.

 

[Stormscape]

Super Mario, some people can't afford to upgrade their Windows. I know someone who's been using Windows ME for 4 years because he has no other alternative. 4 years of nightmarish computing. He doesn't have the money to waste $200 on a operating system for his pitiful 900MHz computer.

 

[nigerian_businessman]

You are misisng part of the point. Well yes, you couldn't game on OS/2 WARP, Linux, or Windows NT. However, that simply because developers didn't write games for them. It has nothing to do with them not being to handle games Most software is OS specific, and if you don't write your software for a particular OS, it does not matter how good of an OS it is, it simply will not run those applications.

I think it's you who's missing the point. Developers didn't write games for them because consumers didn't want to run OS/2 WARP. Consumers didn't want to run OS/2 WARP because it couldn't run 32-bit Windows applications, because it had weak driver support from hardware manufacturers, because it was difficult to install and use in comparison to Windows 95, and primarily because Microsoft took the extra steps to support developers, end users, hardware manufacturers, and their marketing team that IBM failed to take.

That is what the problem was with OS/2 WARP. It was a superior OS, but it became a moot point because no developers wrote software for it. They should have and had lots of consumer level software been written for OS/2 WARP back then, it would have blown POS Windows 9X based operating systems out of the water in terms of performance. Imagine how much better performance would be today in the PC industry if all software were written for OS/2 WARP or Windows NT and Windows 9X never was made. It would have been a whole lot better.

The problem with OS/2 WARP is that IBM didn't give it the kind of support it needed to become a contender. Had IBM pushed the issue with all their resources, I don't doubt that OS/2 could have developed into a wonderful consumer level OS. However, IBM didn't care about end users, they only really cared about business users. Also, IBM didn't reach out and embrace the developers or hardware manufacturers, instead choosing to shut them out (being typical IBM for the times) so they could push their own hardware and software alternatives. Microsoft gave away their SDK for FREE. IBM chose to charge people for the privilige of writing software for OS/2.

Another problem with OS/2 was that it was not the glorious operating system you think it was. Its interface was similar to Win95, but also uglier, not nearly as polished from a usability standpoint, and since it was a business OS first and a consumer OS second, it sacrificed form over function by giving a whole bunch of great administration tools with no real wizards to speak of and a poorly written help system.

You're talking to me as if I don't know what OS/2 was capable of. I was an OS/2 Warp early adopter. I used it as my every day OS for a long time. I remember all the networking headaches. Getting online with OS/2 took days, with Windows 95, minutes. And OS/2 was not immune to crashes or other annoying problems like you would have everyone believe. For me, Windows 95 actually crashed LESS than OS/2. The difference was that when Windows 95 went down it was typically some memory related failure, which tended to be more catastropic. With OS/2 it was Win-OS/2 sessions not closing properly, or problems switching to and from full screen mode. Applications would get stuck in the exit list making them unkillable. Applications opening would clog the Single Input Queue, and either lock up entirely or bog down the system. The keyboard would stop working when returning to the shell from a DOS game. The list goes on and on, and while a lot of the problems were smaller in scale, their frequency made the OS difficult to use.

So thus, compared to what we could and absolutely should have had, Windows 9X based opertaing systems including Windows 98SE were a piece of junk.

Again, coulda woulda shoulda talk doesnt change a thing. The fact is, nobody else had faith in OS/2 because even IBM didn't have faith in it, and IBM's ability to market the OS was an astonishing failure.

When I say POS Windows 98/ME never had a place for high end gaming, I meant when Windows XP came out. IN NO WAY shape or form should POS Windows 98/ME have been supported by high end resource demanding games as far back as early 2002. Although very few resource intensive games existed back then as most games only required a 400MHz CPU and 96MB maximum to run back then.

So you think developers should just shut out a massive segment of their potential market to cater to the select few who upgrade frequently and have the latest high end hardware? Get real. That's a sure fire way to make sure that PC gaming fades into obscurity. Windows 98 was capable of running the games, adding support didn't take away from XP or 2000's ability to run them at all, so why not? Because you think 9x was a bad OS? Who really cares what you think when there's a whole bunch of other people with money who will pay for that support? Is any of this sinking in yet?

But I just cringe in disgust that many games that required 512MB of RAM and a 1.5GHz or faster CPU still were made to be compatible with POS WIndows 98/ME. Now that is just outrageously ridiculous. There is flat out ZERO and I mean ZERO reason for games with those kind of system requirements to be made compatible with such a piece of sh*t opertaing syste that is a cxompletely differnet OS heritage to the norm of Windows 2000/XP today.

I cringe in disgust at your complete lack of ability to come up with any arguments that extend beyond "OMG WINDOWS 9X WAS CRAP OS/2 ROOLZ!!!!111". And I challenge you to show me one game with a minimum system requirement of 1.5ghz and 512mb of ram that had official support for Windows 98 or ME. Even Oblivion, one of the most demanding games on the market that was only recently released, lists a minimum system requirement of 512mb of ram and a 2.0ghz processor. And guess what? It doesn't support Windows 98. It has been only within the past year or so that games have begun requiring specs like those you have listed, and none of them to my knowledge supported Windows 9x since driver support for the video hardware is non-existant.

In fact, the only semi-current game that I can think of that supports Windows 98 is HL2 and Source engined games. And that's only a result of the great scalability of the Source engine, which will run quite well on DX7 level hardware. And I'm sure that on a 1.2ghz processor with 256mb of ram and a DX7 level video card, Source actually runs BETTER on Windows 98 than on Windows 2000 due to the memory footprint of the OS. So there goes that whole argument.

 

[Super Mario]

Super Mario, some people can't afford to upgrade their Windows. I know someone who's been using Windows ME for 4 years because he has no other alternative. 4 years of nightmarish computing. He doesn't have the money to waste $200 on a operating system for his pitiful 900MHz computer.

Yes, but if they can afford to have relatively high end hardware to play rletaively high end games on, then they can afford to upgrade to at least a decent OS from Microsoft. Microsoft has a good OS family.

So therefore, there is flat out zero reason to make any semi high end or higher end games compatible with POS Windows 98/ME. I mean flat out zero reason!!

 

[nigerian_businessman]

Yes, but if they can afford to have relatively high end hardware to play rletaively high end games on, then they can afford to upgrade to at least a decent OS from Microsoft. Microsoft has a good OS family.

So therefore, there is flat out zero reason to make any semi high end or higher end games compatible with POS Windows 98/ME. I mean flat out zero reason!!

So Valve should just not support a market segment that can make them money?

The Source engine can scale quite well down to its minimum system requirements, which are a Dx7 level gfx card, -256mb- of ram, and a 1.2ghz processor. Now the processor and the gfx card are great for any Windows NT based OS... but 256mb of ram? Sure, Windows 2000 will run with it, you can even do a lot of stuff with it, but running a demanding game like CS:S? I'd rather run it in 98se, with everything but the bare essentials of the OS turned off. The average memory footprint of a Windows 2000 install is between 60 and 80mb. Windows 98 will run comfortably on a system with 32mb of ram, half of Windows 2000's minimum requirements. And Win2000 really likes at least 128mb of ram to actually get anything done. Windows 98 on the other hand has a basic memory footprint of something like 12-16mb.

 

[Super Mario]

So Valve should just not support a market segment that can make them money?

The Source engine can scale quite well down to its minimum system requirements, which are a Dx7 level gfx card, -256mb- of ram, and a 1.2ghz processor. Now the processor and the gfx card are great for any Windows NT based OS... but 256mb of ram? Sure, Windows 2000 will run with it, you can even do a lot of stuff with it, but running a demanding game like CS:S? I'd rather run it in 98se, with everything but the bare essentials of the OS turned off. The average memory footprint of a Windows 2000 install is between 60 and 80mb. Windows 98 will run comfortably on a system with 32mb of ram, half of Windows 2000's minimum requirements. And Win2000 really likes at least 128mb of ram to actually get anything done. Windows 98 on the other hand has a basic memory footprint of something like 12-16mb.

That is a false statement. WIndows 2000 blows POS WIndows 98/ME out of the water regardless of the memory footprint because Windows 2000 is a good OS and POS WIndows 98/ME are not and don't have the same capability of being able to run high end games well. A high end game like Source and HL2 had no place supporting that POS OS. WIndows 2000 would run it a lot better because it is a quality OS that can run modern games very well.

Now if you want to suggest Vista or Windows 2000 for today's games, than Windows 2000 will run games better because of the much lighter memory footprint of Windows 2000 and Windows 2000 is a good highly capable OS.

 

[Super Mario]

For me, Windows 95 actually crashed LESS than OS/2.

You are most likely less than 1% of users which of whom had experience with both who actually think that Windows 95 which was a horrible OS crashed less than a great OS like OS/2 WARP.

There were not many drivers for OS/2 WARP, but once again, that is only because developers choose to not write drivers for it. It still does not change the fact that if they did write drivers for it, then OS/2 WARP would have been far superior to anything piece of sh*t WIndows 9X based OS.

OS/2 WARP could run forever without the system slowing down. WIndows 95 could barley stay on for more than one hour without crippling system performance. POS Widnows 98/ME were only slightly better than the even worse POS Widnows 95.

The best OS would have been OS/2 WARP with the Windows 9X GUI. I never complained about the GUI for 9X. It is the awful, horribly bad kernel that maes me think it is a POS OS. There is no reason that same GUI couldn't have been applied to a far superior OS like OS/2 WARP or Linux.

 

[nigerian_businessman]

So what. WIndows 200 blows POS WIndows 98/ME out of the water, A high end game like SOurce and HL2 had no place supporting that POS OS. WIndows 2000 would run it a lot better.

Do you have any proof to back up that argument? It would be interesting to see some benchmarks of CS:Source running on the minimum system requirements, with a comparison between a basic Win2k install vs a basic Win98 install. I can guarantee, beyond a doubt, that it runs faster and smoother on Windows 98. There isn't a doubt in my mind because it's simply a case of the game having more resources available to it. Windows 2000 would hog more resources and make the game run slower.

Of course, you don't have any proof. Just like you don't have any proof for any of the other crap you've been rambling on about. You just have your own opinion, which you're entitled to, even if it is wrong and nowhere near being based on facts.

 

[As I Lay Dying]

Yes, but if they can afford to have relatively high end hardware to play rletaively high end games on, then they can afford to upgrade to at least a decent OS from Microsoft. Microsoft has a good OS family.

So therefore, there is flat out zero reason to make any semi high end or higher end games compatible with POS Windows 98/ME. I mean flat out zero reason!!

actually yes there is a reason, if some one builds their own computer and they have a budget, and already have a microsoft operating system, why spend 200$ or 100$ on an OS when they could spend that money on a faster video card, more ram, faster cpu, better sound card. I am just pointing out that out.........

 

[Super Mario]

Do you have any proof to back up that argument? It would be interesting to see some benchmarks of CS:Source running on the minimum system requirements, with a comparison between a basic Win2k install vs a basic Win98 install. I can guarantee, beyond a doubt, that it runs faster and smoother on Windows 98. There isn't a doubt in my mind because it's simply a case of the game having more resources available to it. Windows 2000 would hog more resources and make the game run slower.

Of course, you don't have any proof. Just like you don't have any proof for any of the other crap you've been rambling on about. You just have your own opinion, which you're entitled to, even if it is wrong and nowhere near being based on facts.

Maybe on a low end system that barely meets the minimum requirements, but a game like that will run crappy on low end hardware with little memory regardless of the OS.

But on any system that has a decent amount of RAM and a relatively fast CPU, HL2 and Source will run so much better on WIndows 2000 than on POS Windows 98/ME. You will cripple HL2 performance by using it on such a POS OS on a high end system. You must use a decent OS in addition to decent hardware in order to run HL2 and Source well.

 

[Xilikon]

That is a false statement. WIndows 2000 blows POS WIndows 98/ME out of the water regardless of the memory footprint because Windows 2000 is a good OS and POS WIndows 98/ME are not and don't have the same capability of being able to run high end games well. A high end game like Source and HL2 had no place supporting that POS OS. WIndows 2000 would run it a lot better because it is a quality OS that can run modern games very well.

Now if you want to suggest Vista or Windows 2000 for today's games, than Windows 2000 will run games better because of the much lighter memory footprint of Windows 2000 and Windows 2000 is a good highly capable OS.

Did W9X/ME bite in your groin to get ballistic against them and fighting against the majority ???

 

[weasel2htm]

Definatly Windows Me, I know someone who switched to OS X because of Windows Me.

 

[Super Mario]

actually yes there is a reason, if some one builds their own computer and they have a budget, and already have a microsoft operating system, why spend 200$ or 100$ on an OS when they could spend that money on a faster video card, more ram, faster cpu, better sound card. I am just pointing out that out.........

That's still not a reason. That would be like saying I already have a car, I don't need a new truck to tow my new 30 foot camper effectively and safely.

There is flat out no reason to support such a POS OS on high end hardware, If you wnat high perofrmance hardware, you should have to use a decent OS like Windows 2000/XP, or be stuck using older software. Enough said.

There is flat out no reason why any high end games or software that require a fast system and more than 256MB of RAM should be made compatible with POS Windows 98/ME. Don't make the whole PC industry suffer by having those POS operting systems stick around all because there are some ignorant Windows 98SE obsessers and lovers who blindly refuse to change to something far better and expect tpo eb able to use such a POS OS for the latest games on the latest hardware forever.

 

[nigerian_businessman]

You are most likely less than 1% of users which of whom had experience with both who actually think that Windows 95 which was a horrible OS crashed less than a great OS like OS/2 WARP.

Yep, thats why OS/2 was left to fade into obscurity while nearly everyone switched to Windows 95.

There were not many drivers for OS/2 WARP, but once again, that is only because developers choose to not write drivers for it. It still does not change the fact that if they did write drivers for it, then OS/2 WARP would have been far superior to anything piece of sh*t WIndows 9X based OS.

Did you even bother reading the rest of what I said? Developers chose not to write drivers for it because IBM wanted to charge them money to do so.

Think about that for a second. You're a hardware manufacturer, making video cards for example. You go to Microsoft first, of course, since their OS is more popular, to ask them for their software development kit so you can write low level drivers for their operating system. Microsoft gives you the SDK free of charge and gives you contact information for people who can help you if you run in to any problems.

Then you go over to IBM, and ask them for the SDK so you can write drivers for their not-so-popular OS. They ask you for money. They want you to pay them money so you can get your hardware supported on an operating system that is used by a marginal percentage of your entire potential installed base. So you talk to the game developers, who tell you that IBM also wanted to charge them money for the SDK, and they decided to not write games for OS/2. Not because they wanted to give the shaft to OS/2 users, but because IBM wants to charge them more money than they stand to make in profit. Meanwhile, Microsoft has created the DirectX team to reach out to game developers by providing them with free tools to help them make better games.

As a hardware developer, what would you do? Would you spend thousands of dollars to write drivers for OS/2, or would you just look at the whole picture and realize that OS/2 is a money pit, while Windows 9x was a gold mine?

OS/2 WARP could run forever without the system slowing down. WIndows 95 could barley stay on for more than one hour without crippling system performance. POS Widnows 98/ME were only slightly better than the even worse POS Widnows 95.

This is by far the biggest load of shit you've spewed out of your mouth since you began your rant. Seriously, did you forget to take your Risperidol today? I think you're delusional. OS/2 WARP was PLAGUED with slowdowns, ESPECIALLY relating to starting and exiting applications. It was a failure of design. It was eventually fixed, but by that point in time the OS was only used mainly in ATM machines.

The best OS would have been OS/2 WARP with the Windows 9X GUI. I never complained about the GUI for 9X. It is the awful, horribly bad kernel that maes me think it is a POS OS. There is no reason that same GUI couldn't have been applied to a far superior OS like OS/2 WARP or Linux.

No. I think Windows 2000 turned out to be a better OS than OS/2 Warp, and Windows 2000 only became possible by combining the NT 3.x kernel with the usability improvements that were realized throughout the Windows 9x series of operating systems. Windows 9x served a purpose, and while it had it's faults, it served fairly well in comparison to the alternatives.

 

[As I Lay Dying]

I think it very much depends guys, for example drivers, how well the game was written for backwards compatibility. etc etc etc. I don't think a generalization could be made, however I would probably say 2000 as its what xp is based off, hence why drivers and software run fine off both, give or take. If good and recent drivers and a well written game for 98 is taken into account maybe 98 as nigerian_business man pointed out needs less resources.

but I think you guys are missing the point windows 3.1 pwns all other microsoft operating systems, ok if windows 3.1 was a true operating system.

and supermario windows 98se wasn't that bad, I dont think it was as bad as you claim I could run it for hours without slow down, and when I did run it the games released for it ran fine.

 

[nigerian_businessman]

Maybe on a low end system that barely meets the minimum requirements, but a game like that will run crappy on low end hardware with little memory regardless of the OS.

But on any system that has a decent amount of RAM and a relatively fast CPU, HL2 and Source will run so much better on WIndows 2000 than on POS Windows 98/ME. You will cripple HL2 performance by using it on such a POS OS on a high end system. You must use a decent OS in addition to decent hardware in order to run HL2 and Source well.

Wow, no shit. I think I speak for all of us when I say that I never knew that.

 

[LstBrunnenG]

98 had it's faults, but it was no POS. My mom ran a 98 install for six years.

 

[Super Mario]

Yep, thats why OS/2 was left to fade into obscurity while nearly everyone switched to Windows 95.

OS/2 went into obscurity because few people knew about it, not because it wasn't any good. The average home consumer had no idea any OS other than the Windows that came with their PC existed, so they knew of nothing else and that is one of the biggest reasons why Windows dominated the market and devs only wrote software and drivers for it and not many for any other OS. That;s the way it works. The best technology doesn't always win out.

It is NOT because Windows 95 was technically a better OS. Technically better, it was NOT[. Technically, it was far worse. But the far worse technology happened to win out because that's what was sold on almost all PCs and hardly anybody knew about OS/2. IBM also did not do a good job of pushing it to be mainstream.

This is by far the biggest load of shit you've spewed out of your mouth since you began your rant. Seriously, did you forget to take your Risperidol today? I think you're delusional. OS/2 WARP was PLAGUED with slowdowns, ESPECIALLY relating to starting and exiting applications. It was a failure of design. It was eventually fixed, but by that point in time the OS was only used mainly in ATM machines.

Not for me. For me, OS/2 WARP was rock stable for a long time. POS Windows 95/98/ME crashed on me a lot. OS/2 WARP also ran some of the same applications that were available for both it and WIndows 9X far better and more efficiently than POS Windows 9X could ever dream of running them. Why do you think so many banks run on OS/2 WARP. It is because it is extremely stable and has great uptime with no slow downs.

No. I think Windows 2000 turned out to be a better OS than OS/2 Warp, and Windows 2000 only became possible by combining the NT 3.x kernel with the usability improvements that were realized throughout the Windows 9x series of operating systems. Windows 9x served a purpose, and while it had it's faults, it served fairly well in comparison to the alternatives.

I would agree that Windows 2000 is a better OS than OS/2 WARP now. However, we are compating what Windows 2000 is today to what OS/2 WARP was 5 years before Widnows 2000 was released. Had OS/2 WARP actually not been abandoned and was continued to be developed on and adopted by the mainstream and that trend continued to this day, I bet we would have some OS based on OS/2 WARP that is better than any current version of Windows we have today.

ANd no, WIndows 2000 did not need 9X to be developed for it to become possible. Windows 2000 could have been done, and would probably have been a lot further ahead a long time ago had MS actually never designed POS Win9X and worked on purely NT opertaing systems for home consumers and businesses as far back as 10 years ago.

Windows 9X only served a purpose because that's what people were fed with when they brought PCs. It was far inferior towhat the alternatives would ahve been had devs actually wrote drivers and softwares for them. No denying that fact.

 

[TypeO]

Windows ME hands down. It was the only OS that made you feel as if every piece of hardware you had was defective.

 

[nigerian_businessman]

OS/2 went into obscurity because few people knew about it, not because it wasn't any good. The average home consumer had no idea any OS other than the Windows that came with their PC existed, so they knew of nothing else and that is one of the biggest reasons why Windows dominated the market and devs only wrote software and drivers for it and not many for any other OS. That;s the way it works. The best technology doesn't always win out.

It went into obscurity by nobody elses fault but IBM. It wasn't because Windows dominated the market, it was because IBM failed to give the support to developers that they needed. It was because IBM failed to bring awareness to OS/2s strengths in the marketplace.

It is NOT because Windows 95 was technically a better OS. Technically better, it was NOT[. Technically, it was far worse. But the far worse technology happened to win out because that's what was sold on almost all PCs and hardly anybody knew about OS/2. IBM also did not do a good job of pushing it to be mainstream.

Technically better, as far as the low level stuff goes, OS/2 was far superior. It had it's faults but you're correct in saying OS/2 was the better of the two. However, Windows 95 was miles ahead of OS/2 from a usability standpoint and was a generally more accessable operating system, despite its technical faults. Even if OS/2 had been marketed strongly, it still would have had to compete with MS on usability, a battle it couldn't win.

Not for me. For me, OS/2 WARP was rock stable for a long time. POS Windows 95/98/ME crashed on me a lot. OS/2 WARP also ran some of the same applications that were available for both it and WIndows 9X far better and more efficiently than POS Windows 9X could ever dream of running them. Why do you think so many banks run on OS/2 WARP. It is because it is extremely stable and has great uptime with no slow downs.

OS/2 as an operating system was fairly stable. It was hard to bring down the whole system. All those little quirks I mentioned were not imagined, however. They were a day to day reality for me and a lot of other people, and one of many reasons we made the switch. OS/2 Warp had a lot of problems running Windows 16 bit apps, at least upon it's inital release. I didn't stick around too long after Windows 95 came out because to me, the OS just couldn't compete. Windows 95 did the things -I- wanted to do, and it did them easier and faster and better than OS/2. And it looked better doing it, too.

And the reason so many banks run OS/2 is because of security. Hardly anybody runs it, hence there are hardly any viruses for it. And most banks run older versions of OS/2, not Warp.

I would agree that Windows 2000 is a better OS than OS/2 WARP now. However, we are compating what Windows 2000 is today to what OS/2 WARP was 5 years before Widnows 2000 was released. Had OS/2 WARP actually not been abandoned and was continued to be developed on and adopted by the mainstream and that trend continued to this day, I bet we would have some OS based on OS/2 WARP that is better than any current version of Windows we have today.

More coulda woulda shoulda. All this stuff is irrelevant. The market decided that MS made the better OS. You can argue that OS/2 was technically superior, just like Betamax was technically superior to VHS, etc. The fact is that other things are of equal or more importance to consumers, and that the best tech doesn't always make the best product.

ANd no, WIndows 2000 did not need 9X to be developed for it to become possible. Windows 2000 could have been done, and would probably have been a lot further ahead a long time ago had MS actually never designed POS Win9X and worked on purely NT opertaing systems for home consumers and businesses as far back as 10 years ago.

10 years ago Windows NT was still unproven technology. Windows 9x, while being the unstable clusterfuck of an operating system that it was, at least was a mature codebase. You're not seeing the big picture and instead focusing on your end-user viewpoint. Microsoft's strategy was to push the usability to the end user, because businesses want to see productivity increases on the desktop. They pushed the stability and back end stuff to the server room, where businesses care less about how it looks and more about how it works. And the fact that Windows NT was made specifically to work with Windows workstations was a big selling point. Businesses simply wouldn't have adopted a brand new all-in-one unproven operating system, and Microsoft simply couldn't put something like that together and actually sell it. They had to sustain their business while developing the new OS. Same way Apple had to continue to work on MacOS's old code base and sell new Macs with OS 9 even though OS X was well into being developed at the time.

Windows 9X only served a purpose because that's what people were fed with when they brought PCs. It was far inferior towhat the alternatives would ahve been had devs actually wrote drivers and softwares for them. No denying that fact.

Far inferior from a tech standpoint. But to the end user, it wasn't far inferior. Had it been all around inferior, another product would have taken over the market. It's that simple.

 

[brucedeluxe169]

Bravo to nigerian businessman and super mario

excellent debate, and i'm actually learning alot from reading your back and forths

 

[GreenMonkey]

OS/2 WARP could run forever without the system slowing down. WIndows 95 could barley stay on for more than one hour without crippling system performance. POS Widnows 98/ME were only slightly better than the even worse POS Widnows 95.

Your arguments are so full of B.S., anecdotal evidence, and unjustified assertations.

I seem to remember playing so many hours in a row of Master of Orion 2, Civilization 2, and Heroes 3 on Win95 that my eyes practically started bleeding.

I remember hours upon hours of Baldur's Gate II, Quake 2, etc on win98.

Guess I was just hallucinating.


Jumping to an NT kernel right after win95 would have been an awful failure. Many games and apps that were written for DOS and win95 DID NOT WORK on the WinNT architecture. It wasn't until XP that the NT-based kernels got usable Win95/98/DOS support (I imagine win2k got updated with some service packs that brought it up to par with XP?).

Win98 came out in 1998. There was no way they could have transitioned to the incompatible WinNT kernel at this point.