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Which Windows 9x or NT i should install?

spookymulder90

By spookymulder90
in Windows 9x/ME

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Tommy

Tommy

Posted
Posted

To provide some context, a typical 2K desktop machine (new, in the short time time the OS was mainstream) had 128 or maybe 256 Mb of RAM (and was typically set with a 512 Mb pagefile), typically with 512 Mb of RAM it was very, very fast, and I doubt that nowadays you can actually (in normal use, not "intentionally" in a benchmark or similar) fill up the 3 Gb of RAM, the exact amount available depends on specific motherboard/chipset/etc.:

http://blogs.technet.com/b/markrussinovich/archive/2008/07/21/3092070.aspx

 

 

jaclaz

It is actually quite difficult, but it's not impossible for at least 600MBs of RAM to be filled with just your internet browsing. I personally don't think the web has evolved into anything that's fantastic enough to warrant such extreme use on your computer's memory. In fact a Pentium III 1GHz coppermine still isn't that bad unless you put it on the internet. Local programs itself work pretty good, but the internet is what drags it right down, and this is even with 512MBs of RAM, which is the max for most machines of that era.

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Tommy

Tommy

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That would be your best bet I think! Windows NT 4.0 can handle 4GBs of RAM, but the problem is that not much runs on it because it's extremely limited on DirectX (only goes unofficially to 5), although IE6 and Office XP will install if you have SP6a installed. (Probably lower, but I'd never use NT4 without it). The only think I love though is NT4 is solid as a rock, I've never had it crash on me. But there are no unofficial updates for it to my knowledge so you're basically limited to what runs on it from the time SP6a was released. Windows 2000...you'll love it. It looks and feels exactly like 98 but with the inner workings of NT.

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jaclaz

jaclaz

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It is actually quite difficult, but it's not impossible for at least 600MBs of RAM to be filled with just your internet browsing. I personally don't think the web has evolved into anything that's fantastic enough to warrant such extreme use on your computer's memory. In fact a Pentium III 1GHz coppermine still isn't that bad unless you put it on the internet. Local programs itself work pretty good, but the internet is what drags it right down, and this is even with 512MBs of RAM, which is the max for most machines of that era.

 

Sure :), and count additionally a stupid real-time antivirus in it (if you use one), the point I was trying to make was about the 3 to 3.5 Gb of Ram that the OP will have available on a 4 Gb machine, that amount is tough to fill on 2K (and even on XP, for that matters), it is actually uncommon to go over 2 or 2.5 Gb of used memory (of course occasionally it may happen, but is a rather rare case IMNSHO).

 

jaclaz

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Mathwiz

Mathwiz

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Posted (edited)

 

You'd need a 64-bit OS to use all 4GB of RAM.

 

Reallly? :unsure:

I guess that until 64 bit systems came out the world servers must have been very short of memory. :whistle:

 

jaclaz

Really. At least with Intel's 32-bit architecture. 2^32 is ~ 4 billion, so their 32-bit processors could only address 4 GB.

 

But some of that address space is needed for non-RAM uses, so only about 3-3.5 GB (maybe a bit more) is accessible in the 32-bit address space. The remainder is only accessible with additional addresses; that generally means a 64-bit OS.

 

There are ways around it, if you're creative enough. (Remember "expanded memory" back in the old 16-bit days?)

 

Edit: and now I've read your final post, and apparently you agree!

... the point I was trying to make was about the 3 to 3.5 Gb of Ram that the OP will have available on a 4 Gb machine....

So why the snarky comment?

Edited by Mathwiz
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jaclaz

jaclaz

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I will try again. :unsure:

 

 

 

You'd need a 64-bit OS to use all 4GB of RAM.

 

Reallly? :unsure:

I guess that until 64 bit systems came out the world servers must have been very short of memory. :whistle:

 

 

 

HInts ;) (supported RAM in 32 bit Windows 2000):

Windows 2000 Advanced Server    8 GB of physical RAM

Windows 2000 Datacenter Server    32 GB of physical RAM

 

jaclaz

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Tommy

Tommy

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I will try again. :unsure:

 

 

 

You'd need a 64-bit OS to use all 4GB of RAM.

 

Reallly? :unsure:

I guess that until 64 bit systems came out the world servers must have been very short of memory. :whistle:

 

 

 

HInts ;) (supported RAM in 32 bit Windows 2000):

Windows 2000 Advanced Server    8 GB of physical RAM

Windows 2000 Datacenter Server    32 GB of physical RAM

 

jaclaz

I was gonna say that the more advanced server editions of Windows 2000 could handle a lot more than just 4GBs of RAM. So that is very true indeed. And they were not 64-bit operating systems either. Did Windows even have a 64-bit edition before XP?

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Mathwiz

Mathwiz

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Posted

Fair enough. As I said, there are ways around it if you're creative enough. So, yes, to be completely correct in every detail, to use the full 4GB you would need either a 64-bit OS or one of the 32-bit Windows Server OSes you mentioned. But I don't think server editions of Windows were ever remotely under consideration by either the OP or anyone else.

 

Windows XP was indeed the first Windows with a 64-bit edition, AFAIK.

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cov3rt

cov3rt

Posted
Posted (edited)

Hello,

I apologise for my English, it's not my native language. I want to try something from 9x or old NT line, but... I don't know which will be best for me. I thought about Windows 95, NT 4.0 or Windows 2000.

Hardware:

- Intel Core 2 Duo 1.8GHz

- 4GB DDR3 RAM

- Geforce 8400GS

- 60GB IDE HDD

- ASUS P5LD2-VM

Later a help in the installation of the update and everything will be needing me what needed for normal everyday use (Word, old games, maybe Internet :)).

If you need something more - write.

Bye and thanks for any help,

spookymulder90!

just looking at the specs and not factoring much of other things, windows 2000 would be the best choice. being that the board you use is an ich7 chipset, it is supported for the chipset part, 4 GB of ram will WORK on windows 2000 ( but may be a little less though, like 3.5 GB or so ), geforce 8400gs might work, but im not sure, i know that the 7000 series are supported officially. even then, it would be easier to make newer hardware to work on windows 2000 than to do the same thing on windows 98SE so there may be a slight advantage of using windows 2000 in general. with all that said, even if you dont use the geforce 8400gs, the gma 950 is supported on windows 2000 which your motherboard uses. the older operating systems have too many limitations and modificiations needed to make it practical to work for your particular setup. 

Edited by cov3rt
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cov3rt

cov3rt

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Posted

i just checked now and there seems to be an official driver for the geforce 8400gs under windows 2000 basing off the inf file and readme of forceware 163.75 so i think your set for the graphics card. 

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jaclaz

jaclaz

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Posted

Fair enough. As I said, there are ways around it if you're creative enough. So, yes, to be completely correct in every detail, to use the full 4GB you would need either a 64-bit OS or one of the 32-bit Windows Server OSes you mentioned. But I don't think server editions of Windows were ever remotely under consideration by either the OP or anyone else.

 

Windows XP was indeed the first Windows with a 64-bit edition, AFAIK.

Yep :), and to be fair, XP 64 bit doesn't really exist :w00t::ph34r:

 

Check (attentively) the version number of XP 64 bit files and compare it with those of Server 2003 64 bit ....;)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_XP_Professional_x64_Edition

 

XP 64 is nothing but a "homefied", "renamed" version of Server 2003 (not that there were such big differences in earlier versions of the 32 bit, i.e. between NT Workstation and Server editions and Windows 2000 Professional and Server edition), slightly OT, but JFYI, blast from the past, a time when Mark Russinovich was a naughty kid ;):

http://www.cyberdelix.net/adminz/3a2e3896_5832_10bf550.html

 

jaclaz

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CamTron

CamTron

Posted
Posted

32-bit operating systems can make use of well over 4 GB of RAM using something called Physical Address Extension, or PAE, which extends the page table. Each process is still limited to 4 GB of virtual address space, but the physical addresses that the memory pages map to can be well above 2^32. However, I think only the very high end versions of Windows 2000 and Server 2003 can support over 4 GB.

 

Windows 2000 will probably run well on that machine, but I don't see why XP is any worse. There are ways to tweak XP, remove all the cruft, and make it look and act just like Windows 2000. XP is really just a heavily updated and patched Windows 2000.

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