Windows 98 vs XP

[Harkoliar]

a friend of mine had probs with win98, like constant crashing and sound cards not working.. then i installed win xp on his system. now it doesn't crash anymore, and suddenly his soundcard is working too. i think for the newer systems win xp is just great. for the older ones: keep 98. so: how old is your system dag?

i think that win98 is not as user friendly than in winxp... in order to have a good win98, you must configure it yourself with the system tools in the control panel which can be dangerous to a novice and especially to a beginner. i havent used winxp before but when i saw it in my friends computer, it looked cool. i guess it has built in system regarding the the driver stuff that will stabalize the system. my win98 crashes once in a while... (somehow, my system degrades over the months) that is why i have to reinstall the entire win98.. but that is like once a year/ or two.

question: which is newer, winME or winXP ??

[Mouse]

Originally posted by The Hunter of Jahanna: One of thoes things is MS mesenger. With 98 and 2k you get to download and install it. With XP and ME it comes as part of the O.S.. You cant delete it OR disable it.

Not strictly true. There are a variety of approaches which can remove or disable Messenger. Just try searching disable+MS+messenger into google and see what you get. Here is one of the sites you can find.

As for XP, I've had it on a system I bought new last summer and in my experience it's a quantum leap ahead of 98SE in terms of stability and ease of use.

[Larry_OHF]

When I get my tax returns, I am going to purchase the Full-install WinXP (not the upgrade). I will plan to back up all files that I can think of. I currently have 98SE.

I am told that XP is great for gamers and people who love to use Windows Media to watch things. I like watching movie trailers that come on movies.go.com instead of having to wait to go to the cinema to see them.

Currently, my Win98SE has been crashing alot, moreso than ever before. I think it is getting tired of living! (Lol).

One question. Does XP work well with people who constantly upgrade their system, like installing new memory, video cards, sound cards, adding a second HD...etc.? What tells Microsoft that you are running the same XP cd on two PCs? The hardware configuration? So...if I buy some new toys to throw in there, my OS will not work?

[The Hunter of Jahanna]

think that win98 is not as user friendly than in winxp... in order to have a good win98, you must configure it yourself with the system tools in the control panel which can be dangerous to a novice and especially to a beginner. i havent used winxp before but when i saw it in my friends computer, it looked cool. i guess it has built in system regarding the the driver stuff that will stabalize the system. my win98 crashes once in a while... (somehow, my system degrades over the months) that is why i have to reinstall the entire win98.. but that is like once a year/ or two.

I think you might be right, Harkoliar. I never thought about it before, but I tweak the crap out of my machine and my Win98se runs like a champ. I have been running Win98 since 2000 and I have yet to get a blue screen of death or any kind of lock up that wasnt hard ware related.When I check my "properties" box I am usualy running at 96% free system resources. I do get my share of problems, but they have all been cause by insufficent hardware, like trying to run Dungeon Seige with 64 megs of ram on a pent 2 with a TNT video card. Or NWN on a pent 4 with 64 megs of ram and the same TNT vid card. Such puny hardware caused so many problems for me. Damn povery...

[The Hunter of Jahanna]

Microsoft that you are running the same XP cd on two PCs?

AFAIK, Larry , they can tell when you use "Windows update" to patch your O.S.. The O.S. has "anti-piracy software" built into it to authenticate your copy. Kind of like how you need your CD key to play NWN online. The only diffrence is that Microsoft will disable WinXP under the guise of "updateing files and folders". Also, since it isnt DOS based, there is no way to open the DOS shell and recover originals of the changed files. In the nastygram my friend got when he complained about it they told him that his program came with ONE license and could only be used in ONE machine. They offerd to sell him another licence for his room mates machine for close to what he spent on buying XP in the first place.

[Arvon]

I've been running XP (home) for three months now and have very little problems. The biggest problems have been getting all the drivers needed. Most of them are free from the hardware wonks, but I did have to buy the upgrade for my CD burner. (It encluded the driver for XP). You just have to decide if you want to cough the money.

[arion windrider]

i like xp alot..a lil different to get use too... but im happy

[Morgeruat]

this is revruby on morgies comp---

i have xp pro on my comp, it has only crashed once and that was with loading diablo 2 once. then it started and said i din;t have a hard drive! lol, it came back right and purty tho. we got a cd burner for it and it doesn't recognize it as a burner, altho it said it was xp comnpatable. my newest problem is that windowsupdate.com says there is something wrong with my registration. which could be because my comp wasn't supposed to come with an o.s. but the disc was in the drive!

nathan has 2000 pro on his comp and has many more crashes than me. (like i said only one!) i have some game bugs, but i'm fairly certain it's the games not my o.s. for the most part i like x.p. and the bubble format for the gui. but i'm a girl i like anything cute!

[Tobbin]

I don't know. I haven't had any problems with Windows Xp, but then, I don't do a lot of tweaking. If I understand correctly, Microsoft allows up to 10 major changes on your system (hardware related) before they will ask you for another key. I also was able to put XP on two different systems (TOWER & LAPTOP). I did have to go through the helpdesk to get the laptop enabled, but they told me that was ok. I could have one computer that was stationary and another that was portable. Before, I used to have Win 98 and it was a lockup a day and that was why I was looking at XP. I had already tried ME and was not impressed with it. ME did have a better time of finding drivers to work with whatever hardware I put on it, but XP was even better. Each time I installed, I did a full install. I haven't tried the upgrade approach because I had heard horror stories about them. As for the automatic MSN deal, I used the Supervisor status to delete the account that had the MSN account and then recreated another one without it. It did ask me to enable the MSN account once I connected with the internet, but I just kept x'ing it out. After awhile, the message doesn't come up anymore. That's the only problem with the software. I can either have MSN on or off, but not in the middle somewhere. You just have to decide. For those people with MSN, it's a dream cause it's already setup. For those people that don't want it to run ALL the time, it's a pain. My overall experience with XP has been good. Maybe because most of the hardware I have connected to the system is newer, dunno, but I haven't had problems with connecting stuff. As for CD software, XP has it built in. If the drive it is connected to is a burner CD drive, you can copy files to the drive and it will pop up a box asking if you want to burn it to the drive. I guess maybe if you use the original software that came with the drive, it might not be so compatible. I only use the burner to make backups of files though. I don't know if that works or not for the MP3's/music stuff. If you are happy with your system though (98,ME,NT,2000, whatever) then I would recommend sticking with it. I went to XP because I got tired of the reboots. I haven't looked back yet.

[Morgeruat]

Morguerat on his work comp~~~

in defense of Win2K it only really has issues when RevRuby is using it, it works fine for me, but then again it's an older machine and if you know the tweaks and tricks to make it run smooth you don't have problems.

Larry in response to WinXP and system upgrades, if your system changes too much (IIRC something like 4 major upgrades) you must purchase a new liscense.