XP or W2K - Best Choice from W98? 7

[MiklK]

For some reason I have begun to think it's just Time For A Change in OS. ...(Could it be the spontenaeity of the Win98 crashes? Microsoft's XP advertising? Santa skipping my house this year? heehee)...
But in trying to decide between W2K or XP, I've been hearing a groundswell of unhappiness about the ritual of registration with XP, and prickly annoyance at some of its other features. And - partly as a result of people wanting something-not-XP - there is a FIERCE bidding war on eBay, etc., for MS Windows 2000 software. Doesn't seem like people were fightin over THEM a couple years ago! ;<)

Anyway, I would love some advice/opinion to help me think about choice.
How did you make your choice?
Should I ask this on the W2K too?

My system is AMD K6 2 at 350 with 196 RAM and HardDrive about 6 - &quot;technically&quot;, mechanically, i could adequately run either OS. Or so they say...

Thx (a LOT) to anyone for helping
mikl
bigpygme@earthlink.net

 

[Hungster]

mymikl,

why don't you get another hard drive and give it a test before you wipe everything out

that's why the main reason i custom build my PC, using the motherboard and hardware i know i can get drivers for farily quick, ie Asus MB

Hung

 

[MiklK]

before i wipe everything out??
how?
i mean, aside from the fact that am stumbling merrily around like a blind drunk in a dark room with no cane, and could at any moment totally wipe out my entire system, both soft and hard ---
aside from THAT, how? what could go wrong?
<smile>
mikl

 

[MiklK]

thx as always citrix -
Impressions/Questions:
So i don't need to know who manufactured the mobo, if i go like-to-like and stay with a AMD K6?...
But I want to know if i can go faster than 550...i need more mobo info to know that, don't I?
Or, to know whether I can go to Athlon or something?

Or is it so simple that you already just KNOW i can't go either that much faster or complicated, as to go with a III type?

my RAM is at 192 and i can and will go to 256. (I dont know who's the mfgr of the extra RAM I added but there's been no trouble...)

graphics card? why? (I wonder what i have now?? geesh)
mikl

 

[karmafree]

Hey,

I too want too upgrade from Win98 but
my hardware specification is really
low. Can someone tell me what OS to go
for or whether to stick with Win98
based on my spec:

Intel 233MHz MMX processor
128MB EDO RAM
Matrox Millenium II 8MB PCI video card
6.4GB HD

This is the maximum hardware specification
my Socket 7 motherboard can be upgraded to,
apart from the video card.

Thanks you,
karmafree.

 

[Hungster]

Karmafree,

see if you can bump the ram up to 256MB of RAM
some MB has SDRAM slot will take 256MB of RAM
and do yourself a favour
get a newer harddrive will improve the speed of Win2k

if you want to use XP Pro, turn all the crap in the performance tap off, you will like either or

Hung

 

[MiklK]

dear hungster -
appreciate your contributions ... i don't know what 'turn off all the stuff in the performance tap' means ... what is the performance tap, what is in there?

mikl

 

[dilettante]

Hi karmafree[/i],

I have run Windows 2000 Pro successfully using a configuration much like yours. I was even worse off in that I was using on-board video that shared 4MB of the 128MB of main memory!

Sure, it will be a little slow. It depends on your expectations.

I tested Windows Me betas on that same box, and I didn't notice Me being a BIT faster than Win2K.

Here are my suggestions:

1.) If you are running Win98, look around for those cheap Win98 to Win98SE upgrades. They only cost around $20 or something (if you can still find one).

2.) If you really want to &quot;modernize&quot; or need more stability or need to get started toward the NT world (of which XP is just the most recent incarnation)... look for a deal on Windows 2000 Pro. I say this because you will be able to move Win2K to a new computer when you get/build one - where XP's &quot;copy protection&quot; (Windows Product Activation) feature will prevent you from moving it. Of course moving Win2K is &quot;illegal&quot; too. I'm just telling you what's what - not telling you to do it.

3.) If you have cash lying around, upgrade to Win XP Pro. Your machine will run it - though you'll be VERY tight on every resource imaginable. It'll be slow, but not much slower than Win2K or Win98. Remember, when this stuff was on the drawing boards 64MB was a good amount of RAM. XP only got memory hungry late in development. 128MB is really the minimal cofiguration to get anything done on XP though. You won't be able to move this to another machine after you go through WPA.

4.) Hey, if you have the cash, get a new computer with XP Pro on it.


So in conclusion... either upgrade to 98SE (if you aren't there) or look for a really good deal on Win2K Pro. Otherwise look for a new motherboard, CPU, memory, and hard drive - which totaled up with WinXP means get a new computer.

 

[MiklK]

dilettante - yyouu didn't direect it to me (mikl/bigpygme) but i'm glad to read it and your ideas about resources and about transfer are helful (as always)... Questions?

Is 98SE enough better than 98 to be worth it? Even if i have every imaginable/available MS download/update?
(course i have to re-down them from time to time for obvious [results-of-instability] reasons - a disk would be much more convenient, but is the content different?)

buying a new puter .... and who hasn't thought of THAT? <smile> I certainly have
But i'm exploring bumping to 256 RAM (for $20) and upping the CPU
I really can't go to 133 if 100 was provided by IBM as appropriate for this Aptiva ... can I?

Wouldn't that kind of question be better placed in a different thread?
In fact, as a novice who wants to learn, what thread or area would you as more appropriate than here
...to ask about moving up from AMD K6 2?
...on an Acer mobo? with ALi chipset M1542/1543?
...And, to learn people's experience with what the board can really manage to support?
(IBM is not very helpful, after HOURSSS and frankly full of ... oops, pardon me, they are somewhat vague, so rapidly do they CYA with word-blizzards absent real info. So they wind up saying the best cpu for the mobo is, SURPRISE, the one that's in there now <grin>)

98SE better?
And where does that cpu upgared thread go - u have an opinion?

muchos than you's
mikl

 

[Hungster]

hey Mikl,

by all mean, move to win2k
just make sure you have 256MB of RAM
and a much more hard disk for win2k or winxp to use for disk swapping,

if you run win xp, go to the system properties, under advanced tab, there is a button for performance
either uncheck all the feature or just use the best performance options on the list

win xp got a bit more feature than win2k, but some feature are really stupid,
i like win2k and xp myself, but i have terrible luck on using hidden shares under winxp

win2k is faster under gaming than winxp
same box i tested on with a p4 1.7Ghz, 1 gig ram, Seagate 15k rpm drive on a dual channel 39160 card, 64MB of GeForce 3 DDR video, so two OS are reliable.
WinXp saves all your profile as you switch between users

Hung

 

[5150]

I would go to Win2K....that's what I use from 98 SE an I have no problems. I thought about upgrading to XP but everything works fine right now and like they always say...if it's not broken don't fix it. I also don't like the way XP manages your system. Change hardware configurations more than 3 times and it makes you re-activate it. YUK! Not to mention the transmissions it sends back and forth when you log onto the internet. It also has that music protection deal where you can only copy music so many times and then you can't (from what I have heard).

Keep in mind that there are already working on an XP second edition as well. By the way...WIN2K is getting harder to find for people are scooping them up and the price is not that much lower than XP.

Just My 1/2 Cent,
Cale

 

[MiklK]

in teerms of cost, actually, watching eBay and noticing discounters like Best Buy, XP is substantially cheaper than any 'clean' unit of W2K I've seen, by around $40 to $50. It's left me tempted to just jump into XP now - yet clearly MS is funneling customers in that direction, thereby getting popular 'endorsement' of their newest product. And i'm put-off by that and by all the other 'junk' in XP that you made brief allusion to.

A NEW XP?? Is it 2 years off, though?
How far after 98 was 98SE, ... and ME was not long after that, was it? So 98 SE must've been pretty quick! i dunno, you remember?
So the XP revision may not be long - any rumour/word they're taking some of the hyper-controlling junk out of it?

yeeaaahhhh.....
thx
mikl