Compare Win 95, ME, NT, XP

[mjhdad]

Ok, I finally got c: formatted and i have 95, me, nt, xp home or pro discs to install.

I learned on 3.1 and currently run 98se, ... not sure which to install first, if multiple installs and not sure which is best for my uses.

puter has 128 mb ram and 20 gb ide hdd, dvd, cd-rw, should handle any/multiple install.

as far as i know it's fat32 system now

not a big gamer or sound freak, i do photo, would like to do video edit (need tv card), would like to setup wireless with other pc at home -cable internet, i do business stuff, self employed remodel contractor

Any quick comparisons/tips ?????

[argon007]

Ok, I finally got c: formatted and i have 95, me, nt, xp home or pro discs to install.

I learned on 3.1 and currently run 98se, ... not sure which to install first, if multiple installs and not sure which is best for my uses.

puter has 128 mb ram and 20 gb ide hdd, dvd, cd-rw, should handle any/multiple install.

as far as i know it's fat32 system now

not a big gamer or sound freak, i do photo, would like to do video edit (need tv card), would like to setup wireless with other pc at home -cable internet, i do business stuff, self employed remodel contractor

Any quick comparisons/tips ?????

I think Windows XP Pro would be better for you, because you said:

not a big gamer or sound freak, i do photo, would like to do video edit (need tv card), would like to setup wireless with other pc at home -cable internet, i do business stuff, self employed remodel contractor

I saw your hardware, what is your CPU?

[mjhdad]

I saw your hardware, what is your CPU?

ibm aptiva 2174595 600mhz amd k7

(not bad for a hand me down)

note: it has factory added s3? number9? savage4 video card, i believe -from ibm specs, and i remember seeing it in bios before i formatted

btw, it is running ME now and it's not getting the video card, next step is to try and reload it in bios?

in a flurry of disk swapping i had failure in xp and nt setups, can't say exactly which error with which install, i'd have to try again

Thanks for your responses

[Tokugawapants]

With that CPU I wouldn't recommend anything more recent than ME. I have a 733mhz CPU on 98SE and it works fine. I do a lot of photo editing on it too.

Since you want a wireless network, 95 is not your choice.

I think 600mhz running XP would be simply unbearable for anyone.

I don't know about NT (I'm not too familiar with it).

I would stick with 98SE if I were in your shoes.

[xolox]

Well, actually, I've been running Windows XP on a 500 MHz pc for 1 full year. Of course, now I've got 1,4 GHz and 512 MB-ram, but at that time it was 500 MHz and 128 MB-ram. And believe me, everything ran fine. Of course, not with a clean install, but disabling the services I didn't need ( http://www.blackviper.com/WinXP/customREG.htm for an easy way of doing it) and disabling themes. So it might be worth a try (IMHO).

Windows XP is WAY more stable than ME. I tried to install it on a pc lately, and what a hell man! Crash after crash, and that might be just my experience, but I know for sure that XP is more stable.

Good luck making your choice!

[ps7]

Hi there,

As a part time job, I troubleshoot pc's for my university and I have noticed that pc's running Windows ME have a tendency to crash and have lots of error messages. (It could be the way Windows was setup on the machines but I believe that Windows ME is just unstable.)

As such I sugest to either use Win98SE or XP. You might also want to increase your RAM size to 256MB or more. Depending on the type of pictures and the kind of photo editing software that you use, some of these software could use up a lot of RAM.

Hope this helps.