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Best/worst Windows version ever?

bigred

Penultimate Amazing
bigred
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IMO best was Win 2000. NEVER crashed on me, never gave me any real problems I can recall, yet very versatile and more features than I ever really needed. Honorable mention to Win 98 and Win 3.11.

Worst? That's so easy: Win ME. "ME" must have stood for "Massive Error" - as in what releasing it was. What a POS!
 
First, some history -

There were, at one point, a few distinct branches in the Windows evolutionary tree. There was the 9x branch (95, 98, Me), which was not really connected to the NT branch (NT, 2000, XP, Vista). Generally speaking, the 9x branch was fraught with deep architectural problems and it was ultimately discontinued for this reason. So I agree that Me is the worst version ever released, given that it was only a very slight update of 98 released in 2000 (the year, that is).

I think it's a little difficult to compare the stability of the NT branch to the 9x branch, because in a sense it's apples and oranges. It's possible (even common) for a very basic user application to hang an entire 9x system, and this problem just does not exist on NT.

But that being said, I think the NT kernel has improved overall with each release, so I think XP performs better and is more stable than 2000. What may very well be less stable is the specific set of device drivers for the hardware that you currently own if you run XP. Kernel bugs are far from impossible, but the majority of blue screens will be caused by drivers (and I suppose malware).

How's that for an answer!
 
ha HA!

Its a trick question there is no 'best' version of windows!

The worse one by far is millenium edition *shudder*

Edit: XP Pro is ok aslong as you disable all the stupid ram and cpu hogging visual effects
 
I haven't tried 2000 or the allegedly very good Server 2003, but XP Pro is pretty good for me as far as stability is concerned. Besides, when messing with asm programming I'm pretty sure I can freeze pretty much every OS. There are only a few things I'd like to see improved in Vista but I'm not holding my breath. And yes, Me was the worst.
 
Agree with the above comments.

The 95/98/ME line was REALLY just a fancy file-loader for DOS 7 (*crosses self*), in the same manner as Windows for Wallies, erm, Workgroups was. Hence the root of all limitations and problems with them.

If I remember my Microsoft lore correctly...

*cue flashback music...*

The wizzo "Start button" interface on Windows 95 was actually developed many months before for NT4 (which was ready to roll long before W95). The interface was then grafted onto the DOS 7 base, thus making "Windows 95", the product (it is DOS 7 you get if you boot them in "DOS mode"). All the drivers issues happened at the DOS level...

Windows NT4 was held up from release until Windows 95 had gathered enough market momentum, even though it was nearly 2 years ready - MS did not want to kill off W95 with competition from their own (better) product!

Ultimately, W98 became the last functionally useful variant of the DOS-based product. And even it was perilously close to the abyss of unweildiness most of the time. And so Windows ME was the next step beyond that... :)

*cue flash-forward music*
 
Ian Osborne said:
Anyone have any experience of pre-3.1 Windows, which I'm told barely functioned?
Click to expand...

I had 3.0 installed on a 386 without coprocessor and with 32MB of memory (upgraded from 4MB). It wasn't really something you would take seriously, at that time Windows was just another program in my DOS menu, mainly a gimmick which could do the pretty amazing thing of having more than one program open at the same time. Then, when one wanted to do some serious work or play a game, would exit back to DOS.
 
Ian Osborne said:
Anyone have any experience of pre-3.1 Windows, which I'm told barely functioned?
Click to expand...

Yep - I even trained people on using it! It was really a very simple graphical program manager at the time GEM (before it was brain-killed by Apple) was far superior. Back in those days the best "windowing" system was by far DESQview
 
My Win2000 Pro crashed all the time. Now I have XP sp2 and it feels noticably faster and is much more stable. When it does fall over it's easier to recover.
 
Ian Osborne said:
Anyone have any experience of pre-3.1 Windows, which I'm told barely functioned?
Click to expand...

Yes, Windows 286 (IIRC). They had a copy at work, and many were much intrigued by what it was actually supposed to be useful for. It consumed all the resources that were available, so it wasn't really able to do anything else.

There was a game that ran under Window's 1, (once again, IIRC). I forget the name, but it was a political global strategy game.
 
Ian Osborne said:
Anyone have any experience of pre-3.1 Windows, which I'm told barely functioned?
Click to expand...
I still have the Windows 1.0 SDK (Software Development Kit) !!!!

Well, I just checked my bookshelf. I have the documentation for 1.0 SDK from 1984, but the floppies aren't there. I wouldn't know where they are now...

Yep, I started programming for Windows back in 1984. Geeze I must be an old bastard!

eta: but still incredibly handsome
 
I had crashes with Windows 2000, too. My Windows XP Pro system has never had a BSoD.

Put at least 750 megs of RAM in the system, preferably 1 gig or more. It costs more to ask someone how much memory to buy than it does to buy it.


~~ Paul
 
a_unique_person said:
Yes, Windows 286 (IIRC). They had a copy at work, and many were much intrigued by what it was actually supposed to be useful for. It consumed all the resources that were available, so it wasn't really able to do anything else.
Click to expand...

Yeah. There was another guy at work who was all gaga over some other "task switcher" called something like MultiQuad (not really that close to the name, but the best I can remember. I think it had an M and a Q in the name....). It was also no more than a curiousity.

ETA: Quarterdeck's DESQView! I was wrong about the M, and only half right on the Q... :D
 
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Worst - MS Windows ME
Best - X Windows
Best window manager - KDE

If I have to stick to MS products then XP is the best I've used. Pretty stable although still really bizzarre, wierd and ugly.
 
It depends what you're used to. I use KDE on SuSE linux all the time, so Windows does feel peculiar now, even though that's what I learned up on.

I do remember Windows 286 but it was just a fancy front end for DOS. There were almost no apps written for it.

Now that Microsoft have finally changed the way they write code, I think that Windows Vista could be a pleasant surprise.
 
Diamond said:
I do remember Windows 286 but it was just a fancy front end for DOS. There were almost no apps written for it.
Click to expand...

I recall a file "disposal" not unlike the other trash/recycle bins we have today, except this one had whirring blades sort of like a real garbage disposal. Fun to watch the first few times, but hardly worth the time to start up Win286 just for that.... Can't really remember anything else I ever did with Win286...
 
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