BenoitRen

Why are you singling me out? He's been just as civil as I have been. Best joke I've heard all day. How? By looking at the source code? Oh wait, it's closed-sourced... Those studies, knowing Microsoft, are also likely paid for. It would not be the first time that M$ tries to buy the people's trust, or make false claims.

Emphasis on "was". Because I'm defending Pentium II CPUs from ridiculous assertions? Please. What have you been smoking? They are very much usable. Unless, of course, you load them with resource-hogging software (like XP). What most people need: -Web browser. -E-mail client. -Music player. A Pentium II runs that pretty well. Don't you dare try to convince me that everyone is a geek who edits photos (in PhotoShop, of all things! probably pirated, too), encodes a lot of movies, edits audio, develops software, etc. Maybe you have forgotten why most people bought a PC in the first place? The Internet. No. We're still using a Windows OS with the same (though crippled more in every release) UI, we're still increasing the speed of hardware instead of writing good software, we're still using retarded security mechanisms, we're still using proprietary file formats, we're still using a strange browser from Redmond, etc. So, what, exactly, has changed, outside of numbers? It's not a gauge for its complexity, was my point. Oh, please, he explained in detail why it was. Get over it.

You didn't specify! You also didn't give any specifics like "Log in first! Use Firefox!". How the hell was I supposed to know? I'm not psychic. Also, I didn't load the page you saw 10 times. You saw the main page, and the 10 other tabs were of comments pages of different stories featured on it (I wasn't going to cheat with the cache). I'm not sure about that. Then what the hell are you doing here? Go troll somewhere else. You said yourself that you haven't seen a Pentium II box for years. How would you even know they don't cut it anymore? You're just spouting FUD. The computing world has barely evolved in 10 years. Sure, improvements keep coming, but actual new stuff? Rarely. And about that complex WHATWG page I linked, this is what my mentor said: How big a CSS file is doesn't mean anything. Shows how much you know.

What the hell is this? I show you that I can take 10 pages of Slashdot comments pages, and suddenly you shake more conditions out of your sleeve? Obviously, no matter what I show you, you'll never be satisfied. Unsupported browser? This is SeaMonkey, which uses the same rendering engine as Firefox, and it knows AJAX just as well. Here's what makes IIS insecure: its defaults are bad. Very bad. Sure, an experienced sysadmin could tighten it up, but the amount of work required is just stupid. Apache is much better in this regard. Apache being open-source also helps. Microsoft always downplays the severity of their security holes. It's not 'just hear-say'. He's my mentor, and works as a professional web developer. I learned everything about standard and semantic coding from him. We'll have to agree to disagree on that one. After a night of sleep, I'm wondering why I'm wasting my time on you. It would seem you're just another WinNT fanboy who's come here to bash Win9x (who also often bash older things because they can't fathom that those can also still be useful).

Okay, I've opened 10 Slashdot comments pages. I actually still have them open right now! I can still browse the web fine. I even took a screenshot for you. This kind of argument again... Security is more than just the number of exploits. What also matters is the response time, and how the product fares in actual day-to-day business. Apache does much better there. I have almost 9 years of experience with Windows 95 to back up that it is. I'll get back to you on that one. The one who told me, my mentor (I'm still learning), told me that. When we talk of IE, we're talking about the actual engine. Third-party components do not apply. I'm not claiming that Firefox can block ads, for example, because it takes an extension. That's nice. Its DOM support, which is also vital to AJAX, is still lacking, though. Um... no. They swear by the keyboard and mouse combo. Personally I find it really awkward. But there's more gamers out there than just strategy and (dull) FPSs. My mistake. I didn't mean to.

You obviously don't look at my quotes at all. No, watching MPEG4, (HD-)DVDs and burning DVDs isn't advanced, hence I didn't quote those. However, editing photos and encoding MP3? I'd call that advanced. If you can't trust people at home, you've got a serious problem. And no, obviously I didn't mean to say every comptuer is used only by one person. I'll give you that one. It's graphic fluff. Googled it. Yes, it's an advanced thing. Hell, Microsoft even says so themselves! "Microsoft Windows PowerShell command line shell and scripting language helps IT Professionals achieve greater productivity." You're deluding yourself into thinking that everyone does all the stuff you do. Hah! He retreats!

Not an OS feature. It's an insecure piece of crap as well. Use Apache. Again, not an OS feature! Oh, so you're one of those WinNT fanboys who believes the popular lie that Win9x is a BSOD fest? Please. It's been years since I saw a BSOD. You don't understand. I wasn't talking about "ZOMG old Flash version!", but the fact that it likely plays through Flash. By the way, have you made sure it doesn't have malware first? Obviously you're not a professional web developer. Hahahaha! Yeah, right. You know how IE handles XML, XMLHttpRequest, and thus AJAX? With ActiveX! The browser doesn't support it natively at all! I'll do it soon, don't worry. Every PC I run into runs it like a dog. Including every laptop of school buddies. Even mine, which I keep in pretty good shape. It's got an AMD Sempron 3000+ with 512 MB of RAM. Oh, please. This is Microsoft we're talking about. Oh, a lot of people disagree with me! I must be wrong! Please. Since when was the mouse useful for anything but strategy games? And this "buy the graphics card to get the graphics you want" thing is irrelevant. It's actually detrimental to gaming, as other people can get an advantage over you in multi-player because they have a better graphics card. Developers are also paid to optimise their game for the latest graphics card, so you then get to buy a new one. Not to mention that this leads to a lot of different graphic quality, so it's hard for the developer to get you to see what they intended. Lack of standards is a problem.

Yes, because it's great to have our files stored in a proprietary format whose inner workings are a trade secret. The security that it offers isn't even needed at home. Drive size (not partition, drive) restriction got solved. As for file size limitation, well, you have to have really large files for that, which would fall in the advanced user section. Access Control Lists? Aren't those on the router? Or do you mean something else? Which is useless at home. Possible with various VNC clients. Useful on LCDs, horrible on CRTs. In the end, it's not a must-have feature. What the hell is that? Win98's implementation of that was incomplete, I have to admit. Both pieces of crap, and not OS features. WMP11 = WMP6.4 + bloat + DRM IE7 is still based on the ancient engine that IE6 used. It was a marginal improvement. Why even bother with it if you already use Firefox? Microsoft Management Console? Win9x is a home OS, so why would you even need it?

That's not basic use at all! I'd go so far as to say that it's advanced. Yeah, that application's badly programmed. The recently released version is better, I hear. For what you do, yes. As I said, it all depends on what you do.

I guess I'll take your word for it... for now. However, you fail to rebut the points I made above, and answer my questions. You don't even specify what exactly it is you're doing. Really, this "P2s are outdated" crap is silly. They can still do a lot of things with well-written software. Especially with Linux on them. Heck, even 486s can still be good for something nowadays. They make great IP Masquerading routers and basic web servers.

Actually, I beat you to it.

Twice as much RAM, maybe. But CPUs twice as fast? You do know that 2 Ghz CPU is only 50% faster than a 1 Ghz CPU, right? Which would explain why you have such a skewed image of them.

Dammit! My reply didn't get sent because of this message board script's retarded quote limiting feature! What features? At that speed, it should work just fine. It could be because of the video card, or because of a Flash-based video player. I think those would be slower. The major reasons I boycott Flash is because it's proprietary and often used in a way that's against the web. Flash should never be used as a website. I've never come across a Flash site that actually has good content. I'd think those are rare. And hey, if you really need to access the site, you can temporarily install Flash. A Slashdot comments page? I'm a Slashdot member, so I've browsed plenty of those. I can view them just fine on my PC. Opening 10 of them requires a lot of memory, not processing speed, so it'd be fine. If you want a page that's actually complex (in terms of CSS) and long, look at this one. You've misinterpreted what I said. Using JavaScript for animation is for amateurs and contentless sites. I'm not saying that good sites don't use JavaScript, but that they can be browsed without JavaScript, hence they don't rely on it. It should degrade gracefully. We'll see when it actually gets wide-spread. AJAX won't take off that quickly, by the way, because IE can't handle it. Examples, please. Then I don't think you're doing basic work. What is it that you're doing? Visual Studio 2005 is unbearable on anything but the most high-end PC. Obviously it's bloated. I use Visual C++ 6.0 to compile SeaMonkey, a large open-source project. I have no idea about Eclipse. SQL Server is by M$, so it's probably bloated as well. Web servers actually don't need that much RAM or a fast CPU. I think you're really pushing it for "hello world" projects. I'll give you that one. Still, games should be played on game consoles anyway.

I still like my idea best. Make a topic that lists and links the older stickies, and have newer sticky-worthy topics be stickied. Change this every time some new stickies get added. As in, older stickies get archived into the topic.

Oh, please. There's Firefox, SeaMonkey, K-Meleon (though it doesn't really have tabs), Flock, and Opera. There's choice enough. Just because there'll be no Firefox version for you in 1.5 years isn't reason to write off Win9x. Especially since it can still be patched to work on Win9x. I browse the web fine on my Pentium II. You make it sound like the whole web is like that, which is far from the truth. -An embedded video player isn't too heavy. -Flash, I admit, sucks. But hey, you can choose to not install Flash. Sites that are Flash-based should be boycotted anyway. Those aren't websites, they're slideshows. -Music is not a heavy load. -More complex designs are not a big load unless the page is really big (like hundreds of kB). Complex designs that are also standards-compliant are rare, anyway. -Good websites don't depend on JavaScript, or not too heavily. Sites using JavaScript animation are often those sites that have no worthwhile content. You aren't going to see professional sites using such amateurish techniques. -AJAX is very new, but I doubt it is heavy on the CPU. As for the net being slow on a 3 Ghz PC: remember that connection speed has nothing to do with how fast your computer is. You may be confusing heavy-load pages with network slowdown. And heavy use of Flash will always be a problem. With Vista, your computer isn't yours, it's M$'. There's a lot of DRM thrown in there, phoning home measure, etc. You also have to activate it, which makes you reliant on M$ for getting your OS to work. Where's the sense in that? NT also has quite bad emulation of DOS. And DOSBox is quite a poor emulator when it comes to speed. Joke of the week. Windows XP was the most insecure Windows OS ever, with a constant stream of exploits, and network processes just begging to be assaulted. So far, Windows Vista is living up to its predecessor. Don't believe the hype. Especially when instead of making the OS more secure they've placed 'User Access Controls' all over the place to confirm every little thing. I'm not even touching on how bloated this thing is yet. According to a friend of mine, before he started tweaking, there were 60 (!) processes running by default. With Win9x, you have full control, and great compatibility all the way back to the year 1981. It really depends on what you're going to do with your computer. Web browsing, e-mail, and other basic work? A Pentium II with 128 MB of RAM is fine. Going to do development? Get yourself a reasonably fast CPU and 256 MB of RAM. How fast depends on how large the project(s) is/are, so it compiles in a reasonable amount of time. Going to play games? Well, aside from a game console, get at least a 1.5 Ghz CPU and 512 MB RAM, along with a recent video card. etc. Don't write off Pentium II CPUs just because you've been spoiled by much faster CPUs.

Offler, you repeatedly declare that Windows 95 is out when it comes to WDM drivers, but I thought that the kernel installed by the USB updates did support WDM. What's the story on that? I'd like to know for whenever I get another Win95 license and try to install it on my new PC (which I still have to buy).

Which is sad, as most people just surf the web and send e-mail, which Win9x machines of that calibre are perfectly capable to do well. Yeah, right... My brother bought a new laptop a month back. To my dismay, it came with Vista Home Basic, there was no XP laptop from Acer left. It has 1 GB of RAM, and M$' recommended system is at least 512 MB for that edition. It ran like a dog. It took ages to install (though that could just be Acer's recovery stuff), ages to boot, too long to shut down. After a week of suffering we finally managed to put XP SP2 on it. It runs MUCH better now!

What do you mean, "still"? Is that resolution also 'outdated' now? Grr, I hate this resolution nonsense. *is still happily using 640x480*

Some guy looks to have been poisoned by M$' propaganda and is defending WinXP (and Win98 to some extent) to the end. I think Win95 is the best. http://princess.cybrmall.net/ubb/ultimateb...c;f=14;t=002660

Depends on if I heard right that MoFo will allow such a project to be hosted. By the way, it's all about Gecko. And Cairo, named Thebes in the source. I got side-tracked, and now I have exams again. I'll resume work soon. I was in the process of documenting what needed to be done.

There don't seem to be a lot of them. The last AIM version for Win95 works fine. I have problems with sending/receiving files and the IM images function, though, but it may be because of my router. aMSN works fine, except for the feature that allows you to check your e-mail in your web browser in one click. However, it's really slow to start up. Once it's started, it's not so bad, but still not fluid. GAIM is in bed with the GTK+ package. Using the last GTK+ package that you can install on Win95, you can run GAIM 0.73 (or maybe up to 0.78, I forget), but it has a serious memory leak problem of sorts, rendering your system unstable. I wonder if the last Win98-compatible GTK+ package would work if I circumvented the OS check. Miranda IM depends on IE, sort of. Specifically, the SSL library settings. I wonder if I could hack them in. Also depends on RICHED20.DLL, for some reason. I haven't tried Trillian, because it's commercial with a free version, and because I fear it will install cruft in my registry and the Windows directory. Any AIM/MSN messengers I forgot? Suggestions?

You can also just run WINIPCFG and click the buttons "Release All" and "Renew All".

Thank God transparency isn't possible in Win9x. It's bad for usability and pointless use of resources.

Windows 98 = Windows 95A + FAT32 + USB + IE4 + some bug fixes. IE4 = browser + Active Desktop (which is the shell upgrade and web integration all-in-one, essentially) DirectX has existed since Windows 95. It's not even a bad technology, it's a good one, facilitating the creation of games.

Checklist: -Get all the updates available for your OS. -Use a secure web browser. -Get a router to put between your PC and the Internet, and turn on its firewall.