howard schwartz wrote: > [...] Well I went and made an impulse buy and got an IBM 660Mhz PC > with a 13 Gig disk, 128megs of ram, and windows 2000 `Professional' > running on it, with an NTFS file system. Apparently, just under the > amount of ram and processor speed to make a monster like win 2000 (or > XP) run at decent speeds.
I'd get some more RAM since it's cheap these days. More of that never hurts! > [...] > In this regard which windows might offer the best combination of > welcome new features and backward compatibility? Many old programs, > even windows 9x programs, do not speak nicely to the NTFS file > system, and also can not talk to the `hardware abstraction layer' of > the newer NT based windows, to access hardware directly. There are > weak dos emulations, some third party tries at better ones (e.g., > DOSBOX). I'm valiantly trying to stay on Win98 until I truly get the family off Windows. Games are the issue keeping me off Linux completely. So far, I'm finding Win98 is letting me do exactly what you're describing. It's not exactly lightweight, and I have to constantly go disable "helpful" software toys that new hardware wants installed. But overall, I can do the main things I need; 1. Let the kids play their latest-greatest 3D games 2. Run MS-Office 2000 apps 3. Network and hardware using latest-greatest capabilities The only thing I ever wanted to run that couldn't was VMware workstation. > Offhand I suspect win98 supports the most old hardware and software, > whereas the newer NT based windows offer more stability, security, > faster devices like USB ports, etc. IIRC, Win98 is limiting me to USB1, but I haven't really had a problem. Things are "fast enough" transferring files from digital camera etc. I expect Win95 could do much of this as well, but Win98SE seems to have a good blend of "old and new." Win98 is working well, but I have thrown some RAM at the problem. My desktops are all at 512MB now, mostly because that's what I found on sale. > What do we all think about this issue? What's on hand makes a difference! :) - Bob
