Jump to content

Why continue to use Windows 9x?


DukeBlazingstix

Recommended Posts

Francesco, you don't seem to understand that it's useless to install XP on new or older machines.

Because the less ram and speed, the less XP is useful and the more ram and speed, the more w98 is stable.

Upgrading your system to make it XP capable just make it useless to install XP.

It's not useless XP is easier, extremely stable unless you have hardware with messy drivers and actually more supported by hardware manifacturers (so for example if in the future you'll want to buy a new usb printer/scanner for your pc etc you won't have any problem).

Generally XP is better i've installed it on very old machines like Pentium 200 mmx, celerons etc when tweaked down it runs very well (and sometimes even better) than 98/ME (and no, ME doesn't always runs bad with the right drivers).

The only problem you may have is with integrated videocard that enormously slown down the user esperience especially on XP (for reasons that are too long to explain now) and with ram that most of the times can be upgraded.

To solve the RAM problem I bought plenty of 64mb sticks so if one of my friends wanted to install XP on their ultra-old machine I just had to put 2/4 sticks of 64mb ram and everything would have been running fine. Processor speed hasn't never stopped me as long as the CPU is MMX compatible (so this means at least a pentium mmx with more than 200mhz).

Nobody has ever complained that their system was slower with XP, instead people told me that they didn't notice slowdowns and had better esperience with XP, unless the people had integrated videocard (but most of the times I solved by adding some old PCI ATI rage videocards).

I understand that 95/98 may be faster on very very old system however I think that if the hardware allows XP to be installed then I think that XP should be preferred over 9x (unless you need specific software that runs well only 9x like games but you still can use dual boot).

Also don't forget that if XP doesn't run you (non-MMX cpu, chipset that doesn't support more than 128mb of ram etc)there's still Win2000 that is not bad at all.

i made a mistake a meant mandrake 10.2 was a resource hog but xp is a much bigger resource hog,

have you tried running xp on 64 mb of ram,

i disabled most of the services,

the install probably only took a short three hours or so

and it wasnt practically doing more than one thing at once.

also sure xp can run on a p3 866mhz with 128mb ram but if sophos is installed on it than it wont run anymore

Yes it probably runs bad because XP wants ram: when I can't install more than 128mb of ram I usually give up the AV (I install for example AOL virus shield (a rebranded version of KAV) and disable all the realtime scans, etc. I just say the user to scan the stuff manually), automatic updates (and all the related services), imapi, time service, sysmon, server, workstation services, all the useless background processes installed by hardware drivers and software, etc.

I can manage to get it up to about 50 mb of ram however if you still need the AV or just find the experience too sluggish you can still try installing 2k.

Edited by Francesco
Link to comment
Share on other sites


To solve the RAM problem I bought plenty of 64mb sticks so if one of my friends wanted to install XP on their ultra-old machine I just had to put 2/4 sticks of 64mb ram and everything would have been running fine.

ZZZOOM!

What's that? It's the sound of my point flying past your head, and you missed it!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

What's that? It's the sound of my point flying past your head, and you missed it!

Like I said before when the hardware allows XP (or win2k) to run I think it should preferred over 9x. I don't know how can you say that an OS is "running fine" when such OS stability can be compromised by any bad-written application. And as you may know finding an application that doesn't suffer memory leaks or doesn't have any bugs is very, very hard.

The only idea of using an OS that has memory leaks even when creating new threads (yes, win9x does) and that relies on a partition type that risks to get completely corrupted with each crash gives me the creeps.

Edited by Francesco
Link to comment
Share on other sites

There have been times when I had dozens of crashes and/or system freezes daily, while testing alpha builds of a certain application. Pushing the Reset button was a common task. Power outage was also common at that time. And guess what: my Win98SE is still there, with no format/reinstall/recovery, after 25 months.

Do that to an XP machine and you'll switch to Linux in less than a week.

An operating system is a frame. I need my system to run my chosen applications, not the OS and nothing else. Even if the hardware allows XP or 2k, I'd rather use the resources swallowed by the imperative antivirus and firewall on an NT system, for the running applications instead. Yes, I don't need AV nor firewall, and I'm connected to the Internet 24/7 and on a LAN. No, no router. Can you believe that? Why should I give up my freedom in exchange for a life of terror?

MS know that. That's why they're doing everything they can to force users abandon 9x and "upgrade" to 2k/XP/Vista. They made a mistake: offered freedom to ordinary people and now they wanna take it back.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There have been times when I had dozens of crashes and/or system freezes daily, while testing alpha builds of a certain application. Pushing the Reset button was a common task. Power outage was also common at that time. And guess what: my Win98SE is still there, with no format/reinstall/recovery, after 25 months.

It's almost impossible that on XP/2k an application can bring down the entire OS. Also you can still launch the application with the lowest priority to avoid it to slow down the OS.

Do that to an XP machine and you'll switch to Linux in less than a week.

Why should NTFS corrupt more than FAT32? The point of NTFS, like any other journaled FS, is avoiding corruption.

An operating system is a frame. I need my system to run my chosen applications, not the OS and nothing else. Even if the hardware allows XP or 2k, I'd rather use the resources swallowed by the imperative antivirus and firewall on an NT system, for the running applications instead. Yes, I don't need AV nor firewall, and I'm connected to the Internet 24/7 and on a LAN. No, no router. Can you believe that? Why should I give up my freedom in exchange for a life of terror?

MS know that. That's why they're doing everything they can to force users abandon 9x and "upgrade" to 2k/XP/Vista. They made a mistake: offered freedom to ordinary people and now they wanna take it back.

Life of terror? If you keep automatic updates on and don't use IE I really don't see how you can get infected by a virus on XP or 2k. And the firewall on XP uses a incredibly low amount of CPU since it just monitors open ports.

Also on Win9x there were flaws that let EVERYBODY access your file shares from the internet just by guessing the first letter of the password so Win9x wasn't magically immune of bugs (and there are plenty of worms that still infect win9x machines with shares turned on and no patches).

Edited by Francesco
Link to comment
Share on other sites

What's that? It's the sound of my point flying past your head, and you missed it!

Like I said before when the hardware allows XP (or win2k) to run I think it should preferred over 9x. I don't know how can you say that an OS is "running fine" when such OS stability can be compromised by any bad-written application. And as you may know finding an application that doesn't suffer memory leaks or doesn't have any bugs is very, very hard.

The only idea of using an OS that has memory leaks even when creating new threads (yes, win9x does) and that relies on a partition type that risks to get completely corrupted with each crash gives me the creeps.

You seem to be the master of generalization, which createthread() in our virtual address space leaks memory, please be more specific. With regard to ntfs or fat, both have there own advantages disadvantages. disk size,if you like to multiboot,non(sequential) write capability,if you like control from dos,if you have software to defrag mft, all come into the equation. Both types allow only the os to disk write and in my many years of experience fat(32) has never let me down.

This forum has come across people like you before, it is all about choice, we have made our choice,you have made yours. The only difference being that you are posting in the forum of the particular os you have not chosen. Do they not talk much in their?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have been using both OS for sometime now but some comments/replies are correct

But for someone to even suggest using winxp on 200MHz with 128MB seem far stretch.

Yeah we know if u take away the services/updates/prefetch i.e strip it to barebone it can work but what the use??? u are not going to use them bare....

try installing adobe, ms office, directx, some codecs, media player and after a few weeks u get a lot of registry problem and it slow down to the point of frustration

To me win98 seems to handle better. Oh by the way dun use adobe, foxit is better and no memory hog

Another things is that i really have forgotten how many times i have reinstall winXp already.

But I dun need to reinstall win98SE that much. I only reinstall it only after 6 months when my programs files clogged

And about the ease of reinstalling the Win98SE i guess it much faster and easy with a DVD as stated in my earlier reply.

Crashs??? Yup it seems that win98se crash more often than winXP but the problems seems easier to solve than winXP

WinXP just give u an error message and I just dun know how to solve it.

Want an example?? ok here is one, I just wonder how many know how to solve it (of course someone understand the error but how many?) it quite common really

The instruction at "0x008b3b9e" referenced memory at "0x02aa2288", The memory could not be "read"

Click OK to terminate the program

ok have to go, will continue in another day

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There are several reasons why i use windows 98 instead of newer win...

Pros

1. Compatibility

With some unofficial patches i am able to run newest games (such as Doom3, or Oblivion), and its real Dos compatibility grants great performance for oldest IBM PC based games. I can run programs from 1980 and newest ones on this machine in their native environment.

Also it still supports all file formats (which i have found) if you use suitable application.

2. Virus and system protection

Most new viruses and worms are working only in GUI mode, because they use system registry entries. Win98 supports real dos mode in which are these subsystems passive and skilled user is able to remove infection manually (with scanreg-restore, and manual erasement of virus files). System can be cleared in 15 minutes.

3. Dos Support

Win98 is the last OS which supports real dos. this grants many possibilities, not only by recovery from virus infection, but even if system is unrecoverably damaged. If you have backup of system you can just erase whole windows directory and replace it with backup (in gui repeat that action to repair "file~1.ext" names).

In dos mode is also possible to use internet browsers little bit safer, if you know that browsed web is infected, or if you need driver or file which is corrupted in windows and you need to replace it.

4. System performance

Windows 98 doesnt have so much spam in itself as newer systems. Also you can gain better control to tweak up the performance of system than in windows Xp (even throught config sys, and others).

Cons

1. System stability

Windows 9x based systems are less stabile as newer ones, but this can be fixed. Some of errors can be caused by bios, some by dos entries, some by drivers, and finally most by applications. It is necessary to choose some best programs and use them without replacing them each month. If you can handle these circumstances system can gain very good stability.

2. "This program cannot run on this OS"

Some newer programs use OS detection during installation. most of them can be replaced by older version of same program, or by alternative application without any disadvantages.

3. Hardware limits

Win98 is not designed for large ram machines, some newer limits shall appear soon. But for now i am still to gain 1,5 gb ram which is more than i need.

Win Xp is stable and has potential for future aplications, but when something screws up it is hard to detect the error, and it is much harder to fix it. XP contains too much automatic updates (i like to do them manually, i want to know what is being installed on my system).

Win 98 is not so stable, but it also have same potential, when something screws up it is instantly certain (system crashes and locks up), and it can be fixed in few minutes without reinstallation process. Also there is community which works on its upgrade. Many software and hardware limits have already been broken.

for now and for next years i do not need to replace my OS.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You seem to be the master of generalization, which createthread() in our virtual address space leaks memory, please be more specific.

As long as I remember CreateThread()/_beginthread() leak some memory on Win9x this is why Apache has the following compile switch:

PMT_PTHREAD

This MPM is based on the PREFORK MPM and begins by forking the desired number of child processes, each of which starts the specified number of threads. When a request comes in, a thread will accept the request and serve the response. If most of the threads in the entire server are busy serving requests, a new child process will be forked. This MPM should be used on platforms that have threads, but which have a memory leak in their implementation.

With regard to ntfs or fat, both have there own advantages disadvantages. disk size,if you like to multiboot,non(sequential) write capability,if you like control from dos,if you have software to defrag mft, all come into the equation.

The important advantage of the NTFS is however that since it's journaled it's way more reliable than FAT. Also it has some cool features like additional streams that can be used by antiviruses (for example kaspersky) to store checksum data to avoid scanning the same files twice.

Both types allow only the os to disk write and in my many years of experience fat(32) has never let me down.

There are linux ext2 users that could say the same thing of ext2 because they have a stable setup: that doesn't change that with ext2 or fat32 you risk losing more data if the O.S. crashes or the computer is suddently powered off.

This forum has come across people like you before, it is all about choice, we have made our choice,you have made yours. The only difference being that you are posting in the forum of the particular os you have not chosen. Do they not talk much in their?

If you didn't notice this thread is named "Why continue to use Windows 9x?" so I didn't come here accidentally saying that NT-based OSes are better without reasons just to p*** other people off. I answered in this thread because somebody asked why windows 9x should still be used and I gave my reasons not to use it, because it's unsupported and very unreliable.

If you prefer performance over stability it's your preference however that doesn't change the fact that NT based oses are years ahead in terms of stability.

Edited by Francesco
Link to comment
Share on other sites

There are several reasons why i use windows 98 instead of newer win...

Pros

1. Compatibility

With some unofficial patches i am able to run newest games (such as Doom3, or Oblivion), and its real Dos compatibility grants great performance for oldest IBM PC based games. I can run programs from 1980 and newest ones on this machine in their native environment.

Also it still supports all file formats (which i have found) if you use suitable application.

What about graphics and motherboard drivers? Nvidia and ATI stopped supporting Win9x. And as you may know often newer drivers mean better performance on games.

2. Virus and system protection

Most new viruses and worms are working only in GUI mode, because they use system registry entries. Win98 supports real dos mode in which are these subsystems passive and skilled user is able to remove infection manually (with scanreg-restore, and manual erasement of virus files). System can be cleared in 15 minutes.

3. Dos Support

Win98 is the last OS which supports real dos. this grants many possibilities, not only by recovery from virus infection, but even if system is unrecoverably damaged. If you have backup of system you can just erase whole windows directory and replace it with backup (in gui repeat that action to repair "file~1.ext" names).

In dos mode is also possible to use internet browsers little bit safer, if you know that browsed web is infected, or if you need driver or file which is corrupted in windows and you need to replace it.

You can create a Windows PE CD to access your NTFS partition, fix the registry, restore your windows backup etc.

4. System performance

Windows 98 doesnt have so much spam in itself as newer systems. Also you can gain better control to tweak up the performance of system than in windows Xp (even throught config sys, and others).

XP is actually slower only if you run it on really old hardware without much ram or with really bad drivers. If you run it on recent hardware usually you get much better performance than win9x systems, especially since I told you before recent hardware is only supported on XP (and not only videocards, now even chipset producers are dropping 9x support).

Better performance than 9x was one of the things that MS continuosly advertized when XP came out:

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/eva...erformance.mspx

Win 98 is not so stable, but it also have same potential, when something screws up it is instantly certain (system crashes and locks up), and it can be fixed in few minutes without reinstallation process. Also there is community which works on its upgrade. Many software and hardware limits have already been broken.

You can fix XP very fast too with WinPE. I fixed plenty of malware-infested PCs with it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have been using both OS for sometime now but some comments/replies are correct

But for someone to even suggest using winxp on 200MHz with 128MB seem far stretch.

This is why I told that if you have very low ram you can try installing win2000 that has much lower hardware requirements.

Yeah we know if u take away the services/updates/prefetch i.e strip it to barebone it can work but what the use??? u are not going to use them bare....

The common user usually doesn't need many of the services in XP. You can disable plenty of services and still have plenty of uses for your XP install.

try installing adobe, ms office, directx, some codecs, media player and after a few weeks u get a lot of registry problem and it slow down to the point of frustration

I made clean installs on plenty of PCs and never got slowdowns because of the OS. The only PCs that slowed down were PCs where the users used P2P software that create a lot of fragmented files (but that happened on 9x systems too), PCs infested with malware or PCs that ran out of ram because of plenty of useless applications running in background.

To me win98 seems to handle better. Oh by the way dun use adobe, foxit is better and no memory hog

Actually there's adobe 7 lite that somebody in this forum released. It has most of the adobe reader features but loads faster and uses much less ram.

Another things is that i really have forgotten how many times i have reinstall winXp already.

But I dun need to reinstall win98SE that much. I only reinstall it only after 6 months when my programs files clogged

And about the ease of reinstalling the Win98SE i guess it much faster and easy with a DVD as stated in my earlier reply.

With nlite you can do a completely automated install cd of 2000/XP with applications, updates and, if you use driverpacks, all up-to-date drivers already integrated.

Crashs??? Yup it seems that win98se crash more often than winXP but the problems seems easier to solve than winXP

It's almost impossible that XP crashes unless you have faulty hardware or very bad drivers.

WinXP just give u an error message and I just dun know how to solve it.

Want an example?? ok here is one, I just wonder how many know how to solve it (of course someone understand the error but how many?) it quite common really

The instruction at "0x008b3b9e" referenced memory at "0x02aa2288", The memory could not be "read"

Click OK to terminate the program

Oh well that's an application issue not an OS issue (unless you have ram problems). If you get those kind of crashes with any application and also BSODs i'd suggest you to scan your ram with memtest86.

Edited by Francesco
Link to comment
Share on other sites

What about graphics and motherboard drivers? Nvidia and ATI stopped supporting Win9x. And as you may know often newer drivers mean better performance on games.
often but not always
Actually there's adobe 7 lite that somebody in this forum released. It has most of the adobe reader features but loads faster and uses much less ram.

actually adobe 7 has been run on 98

http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=72627

This is why I told that if you have very low ram you can try installing win2000 that has much lower hardware requirements.
but it still crashed when i only had 48mb of ram
With nlite you can do a completely automated install cd of 2000/XP with applications, updates and, if you use driverpacks, all up-to-date drivers already integrated.

http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showto...l=unattend'

http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=80800

also what if i dont want to download winPE its an 800mb download i think

Link to comment
Share on other sites

What about graphics and motherboard drivers? Nvidia and ATI stopped supporting Win9x. And as you may know often newer drivers mean better performance on games.

often but not always

On the recent games almost always you get better performance and more reliability with more recent drivers. On 9x ATI video cards after the 9800 and all nvidia cards that came out in 2006 are not supported. Same thing for recent nforce/ATI chipsets: they're not supported.

Actually there's adobe 7 lite that somebody in this forum released. It has most of the adobe reader features but loads faster and uses much less ram.

actually adobe 7 has been run on 98

http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=72627

I was actually answering to the comment that acrobat 7 is slow (and 8 is even slower). I wasn't talking about application compatibility.

This is why I told that if you have very low ram you can try installing win2000 that has much lower hardware requirements.

but it still crashed when i only had 48mb of ram

Probably because you have some bad drivers or faulty hardware (for example a broken ram stick) I have never seen a 2k crashing because of low ram.

With nlite you can do a completely automated install cd of 2000/XP with applications, updates and, if you use driverpacks, all up-to-date drivers already integrated.

http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showto...l=unattend'

http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=80800

Those 2 utilities aren't as easy as nlite where you can integrate drivers/updates(and updates are really integrated in the cab files)/applications and configure every aspect of your xp/2k install.

also what if i dont want to download winPE its an 800mb download i think

You can build it from a XP cd using bartPE.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

ok i crashed 2k by taking some ram out going from 96 to 48 or something because i needed a 64mb stick

i knew what you were talking about with acrobat 7 but i metioned it anyway

nlite is easy to use but there are those utils do some of what nlite does for nt5x+ for 9x

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...