Win 98 vs. Win XP

[Josh_B]

[chuckles to self] 95/98? ... stable?



That's because 95/98 didn't care if you were running an antivirus program at all.



Well I just guess I have to. I have to to run all my modern apps and games. I have to so I can get all the features XP brings me that 98 doesn't. Can I complain about the massive installation footprint? Sure. But with storage costing as low as $0.50/gig, who cares?



That's because 95/98 IS DOS! 2K/XP is not -it only emulates DOS. If you need to run pure DOS software (meaning: games), then you're one of the lucky few that will never need to upgrade your hardware. ever.

Expecting legacy DOS-based software to run on the lastest OS is asking a but too much.



What are you talking about? I've loaded XP from floppy before. Didn't like it but it worked just as easily as you can load Win2K from floppy. 1U servers? What, they will have a floppy drive and not a CD-ROM? I don't think so.



Being old and lasting so long doesn't necessarily mean that it must be very good. It simply means that it is old and long-lasting. Also, your historical facts are a bit off. Saying that the kernel is the same from 98 on down to 1.0 is a bit of a stretch. The fact of the matter is that DOS was a compromise from the very beginning. It wasn't what they wanted to use as their foundational platform but it happened to be what they could legally use. So while DOS was being developed and improved through the years, Microsoft decided to start working at the same time on a "New Technology" that would eventually replace their DOS-based OS, hence, the term "NT". At about the point of 98, there was a divided userbase Microsoft was marketing for: The home user running 98 and the commercial user running NT. NT4 and 98 looked pretty much the same from a GUI standpoint but their underlying architecture was totally different. 98 had multi-monitor, PnP, and USB support but NT4 had support for software RAID, SMP, larger RAM addressing, Hardware Abstraction Layer, ect. It became obvious that there needed to be a merger of the two platforms. The ease of use and ammenities of 98, with the stability and power capabilites of NT. Win2K was the result. It was hoped that 2000 would mean the end of DOS-based OS'es for MS but they were wrong as most manufacturers were slow to adopt it and the bastard-child ME was born to fill the gap. In the time after 2000, many complained about the slow boot times of 2000 and XP greatly improved that issue (along with many other improvements)... [ok now i'm starting to ramble]



I know of quite a few 16-bit software platforms that still run like a champ in XP -and without any tweaking. If you're having problems, then stay on 98 but don't try and say that 98 is better than XP because it won't support your legacy apps.

Why would you care about boot times - you should never have to reboot in the first place. [groan] Oh yeah, this is Windows we're talking about.... nevermind. [/groan]

 

[GreNME]

My OS prof would swear up and down that QNX is the greatest OS on the face of the earth.
I should check it out.

As long as embedded OSes are your thing, it's the most stable one out there.

 

[Chozo4]

heh, seems the [H]ard|forum is back up. Was getting database errors earlier ... *grumbles*

At anyrate, I was appending this to my post but thats when the databse went down. Might as well put it in another I suppose.

---------------

Yes... I'm one of those who voted Windows 98 *ducks to avoid flying rotten fruit and random objects*. My only reason is purely for compatibility with older applications and games. I just prefer to stick to an O/S I can do whatever I wanted with and not be hindered by any issues regarding compatibility. I find it pointless to dual boot and switch between O/S's purely to use a couple apps and games I frequently use/play and then switch back.

For those who may think I use it because my comp is older than dirt... 2.2ghz Intel Mobile, 512mb DDR SDRAM to say the least which is still pretty up to date. Granted it came reinstalled with XP pro I got fed up with in after a week and switched to 98se on it. I'm more satisfied with it than XP. It may be a bit less stable but it's not as bad for me as anyone else claims it would be/were for them. I've gone over 2 weeks of uptime without shutting it down and through daily use of Webserving, Coding, Gaming, Burning, etc. That's pretty good in my eyes. No, this isn't a fresh install of Windows 98se either.

Before I get flamed for even saying my opinion on why I use 98se which I did from someone else... To each their own. Poeple use what they want and what they are satisfied with and there is nothing wrong with that. Despite XP or whatnot being the most up to date, windows 98se can do pretty much the same things without the extra bloat and overhead. So it doesn't have the fancy schema's and themes... can use windowblinds for that if ever desired. Can as well add a small extention or two to get features that would be in xp if you REALLY needed them.

Windows 98 is still supported by microsoft so it really doesn't matter how outdated it is yet (unsupported as of 2006?). It gets the job done and still does it well.

... meh, if it does what I need in as small of a program as possible, I'm there. I'm all for lower size/memory footprint/resource usage within reason. No, I won't switch to windows XP since it's bloat to me and has all those extra features I won't need or ever use.

[/end random babbling and rambling]

 

[Tyklfe]

For this sole reason I keep an old win98, and an ancient dos 6.22 486 machine around. Whenever I want to play one of the legacy games I pull one of those machines out of the closet and play them. There is nothing like pushing a turbo button to make the game play at the right speed to bring back memories.

Haha - so true, so true.

 

[starhawk]

i also go for windows 95/98

/ducks random objects but gets hit by burnt out at power supply
who threw that?!?! grrrr....

just wanted to inject some humor. sorry for bad joke.

what i think id really like to see is something inbetween winXP and win95/98/2k

it should:

- support all programs that win95/98 supports
- support all programs that win2k/xp supports
- compatibility w/ modern hardware, etc.
- be stable for prettymuch all apps
- not stick its nose where it doesnt need to
- support as many features as possible w/o going hal9000
- allow for full configuration of said features to allow users to only use what they need

basically a patch that allows winXP to be backwards compatible to 1990 and still be sane.

i know its crazy but i think it would be good... any c++ programmers out there? youd make a fortune... ok, ok, id buy it in a heartbeat tho.

 

[compslckr]

if you are still running software that is not supported by windows xp it is really time to upgrade. new software isnt that expensive when you put it in perspective, and some of the new features may actual be benificial to you and/or your company.


XP has been out long enough so that there is an application to replace just about every old application that may still have some use in todays world.

 

[Synful Serenity]

XP has been out long enough so that there is an application to replace just about every old application that may still have some use in todays world

Not games though! No ones going to come out and make a new version of a 10+ year old 16-color EGA game that runs in XP....Even when they do for a rare classic game, they update it with current graphics, and it essentially becomes a new game....In this case, extra features and graphics are what we don't want, we want to be able to play the original game.....There's nothing like playing the original game you played years ago....Of course, for this I have a DOS box.

 

[starhawk]

I like to play strategy games. Here's a list of my choice progs and whether or not 98 or XP gives me headaches with them:

- Myst- 98, XP
- Riven: The Sequel to Myst- 98, XP
- Myst III: Exile- XP
- Uru- XP (Incompatible with Intel Extreme Graphics 2)
- Rhem- XP
- Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?- 98 (XP?)
- Museum Madness- DOS 5.0+, 98, probably not XP (have yet to test)
- Lightbringer (originally Cydonia)- 95/98 only
- Beyond Time- 95/98 only
- The Crystal Key- XP
- The Crystal Key 2: The Far Realm- XP (Needs More Than 64mb Video RAM for Good Gameplay)
- Tyrian- DOS 7.0+, 95/98 (XP?)
- Crazyoid (from GlobalStar's 100 Great Games)- 95/98, XP
- SK-111 "Starkiller" (from GlobalStar's 100 Great Games)- 95/98 only
- Adventure Blaster (text adventure game from GlobalStar's 100 Great Games)
- Space Bucks- 95 only (will not even open prog in 98 or later)

Those are my programs and whether or not they give me problems. I may not be into first-person shooters but I have my fun /ducks flying rotten fruit and old computer parts

 

[Steel Chicken]

the main difference between 98/95 and 2k/xp, the 9x series allow direct access to the hardware. this is a gulf that cannot be breached between the two camps. it is why old games work better on the 9X, and not so well on the new OS's, they want to have low level control of the system, which is a Bad Idea™ in modern times.

If people want to play old games, multi boot, its that simple.
In regards to security, reliability, stability, the newer OS's are far superior.

 

[ColinR]

Every one of those games are either shit or have been superceded by sequels. Tyrian was good, but Mame provides about 100 better vertical shoot em ups.

Basically, get a PC, put XP on it, then get DOSbox (a PC emulator) to play all those bad old games. (Any compilation of 100 games will be 95% bad.)

98 machines were great, but life moves on. Do the world a favour, stuff it full of ram, put XP on it, and sell it to your grandparents, and buy a couple of decent games with the proceeds.

For DOSbox:
http://dosbox.sourceforge.net/news.php?show_news=1

 

[MeatWad]

Windows XP SP2 here, although my older games won't work at all.

These are the Games that wont work for me, or work not very well

1: Quake Classic
2: Doom 1
2: Doom 2
3: Ultimate Doom
4: Descent 2
5: Simcity 2000, not too well
6: Simcity 3000, plays well, sometimes
etc...

 

[starhawk]

I know what a $#!* game is. I have one. I left it off the list, it's so bad. The game is called The Day The World Broke. First time I ever heard of it was when I saw it on clearance at Zany Brainy (a now-defunct division of that famous toy co in NY whose name I cannot recall)

It's a very good game... challenging puzzles, plenty of humor, good plot and story dynamics... only one problem with it: the game randomly freezes.

Yep. That's why it was on clearance. I got it for a lousy song cuz that's all it's worth... anybody out there like debugging assembly code? I would pay up to $50 (5x what the game's worth) to have it fixed.

And it's true that most of those games in the cd are crap. But there are always some that are good... and, BTW, I have only the demo version of Tyrian... anyone who wants to sell me the full version, I will pay $20.

 

[oldpablo]

Windows XP SP2 here, although my older games won't work at all.

These are the Games that wont work for me, or work not very well

1: Quake Classic
2: Doom 1
2: Doom 2
3: Ultimate Doom
4: Descent 2
5: Simcity 2000, not too well
6: Simcity 3000, plays well, sometimes
etc...

I don't have the others, but Quake Classic, D1, D2, and UD work for me. Quite well in fact, I can even play multiplayer.

 

[MeatWad]

Cool, and how did you get it work in XP? I tryed the XP Compatability wizard thingy and that dosen't help.

 

[oldpablo]

For D1, D2, and UD they have kind of a "windows version" where you launch it from a menu system. For Quake I've tried out GLQuake. I havent touched either of them for a long time, I'll go home and poke at 'em and PM you or something.

 

[MeatWad]

Cool, thanks

 

[Steel Chicken]

Windows XP SP2 here, although my older games won't work at all.

These are the Games that wont work for me, or work not very well

1: Quake Classic
2: Doom 1
2: Doom 2
3: Ultimate Doom
4: Descent 2
5: Simcity 2000, not too well
6: Simcity 3000, plays well, sometimes
etc...

those work for me all fine in 2K, xcept quake classic and descent 2 which i dont have

 

[Chozo4]

Ahh... Games... I too enjoy getting back to the classics. Lesse..

The older games I have and play at times that have compatibility troubles in XP Pro since SP1 (Haven't had XP since before SP2 was even thought of).

To note... I HAVE tryed DOSbox for the DOS based ones and didn't get any results. I have also tryed all compatibility wizard options as well. Also tryed editing the emulated config.nt and autoexec.nt to added dos-side CD-Rom support and sound card initialization. Only got DukeNukem 3D to actually function through such methods desite it being slow.

**These barely work on XP...

-Mechwarrior 2: 31st Century Combat for windows (loads menu but crashes in game)
-Mechwarrior 2: Mercenaries Titanium Edition (Freezes up and looks distorted)
-Shattered Steel (loads menu but will NEVER detect a CD in the drive thus unplayable)
-Diablo 1 (Will not run)

**Works in XP with a few problems...

-Mechwarrior 2: Ghost Bears Legacy (only works when you boot XP into VGA mode)
-MechWarrior 3 (often locks up / Zone.com has trouble seeing it on some installs)
-Duke Nukem 3D (slow / incredibly choppy but somewhat playable)
-Quake 1 DOS/Win version (works fine except trying to host a LAN game will cause the server to disconnect from the port being used)
-Strife (Can get running but slow and crappy)



All these work flawlessly otherwise now that my system uses only Windows98se. ^.^

After-Thought: Don't get me wrong, I still play some newer games as well of course. A few are Mechwarrior 4: Mercenaries + Mechcommander 2 + Unreal Tournament 2004.

 

[Deadlierchair]

DOS based machines are nice if you want to play old games, but XP, like everyone has said, really is the way to go.

I use 2000 Pro a bit, and I really like it as well. I prefer to use XP because it's more of a consumer oriented product IMO.