My computer rarely locks up or BSOD, even when I was using 98, and I never turn it off. But that’s because I rock, and my computer is so happy to be working for me, she wouldn’t dare risk her job security by making me angry. And it helps that I will never again allow anything from the EVIL DT near my baby. Plus she likes the way I decorated her face with pics of EuroManMeat.
dual boot.
I work with NT and 2000 and 95 in a corporate environment.
Let me just say that I love 2000. NT sucks the sweat from dead men’s balls.
Every once in a while, I have gotten the legendary “Blue Screen of Death” out of Windows, but that’s really been a pretty rare occurrence. I use Windows 98 SE, and it doesn’t seem to be as crashy as the original release of Windows 98, and it’s certainly more stable than Windows 95, which I’ve never been able to keep running with much stability or performance.
I dual-boot my PC between Win98 SE and BeOS 5.0 “Personal Edition”, which is kind of nice since it (BeOS) has decent networking and Internet abilities, supports all my hardware (although overall hardware support is kind of limited), is free, and boots in about 10 seconds. Still need Windows, though, because there’s not much software out there that runs on BeOS, although the software that is out there seems to load and run noticeably faster than its Windows counterpart. Not as crashy, overall, either–it has a very effective process kill (should it be needed, you can stop an app more effectively than in Windows) and uses protected memory like NT/2000.
I just wish I could run more stuff on it. I like being able to get on the Internet 10-20 seconds after turning the PC on.
I’m running Windows 98 on my home computer, and I don’t remember the last time (if ever) I’ve gotten the Blue Screen of Death.
I have Windows NT at work. I get TBSoD once every couple of weeks or so.
Here is something to help you on the way to serenity and resignation. Or, indeed, the reverse. Heh heh heh.
A file that big?
It might be very useful.
But now it is gone.
The Web site you seek
cannot be located,
but endless others exist
Chaos reigns within.
Reflect, repent, and reboot.
Order shall return.
ABORTED effort:
Close all that you have.
You ask far too much.
First snow, then silence.
This thousand dollar screen
dies so beautifully.
With searching comes loss
and the presence of absence:
“My Novel” not found.
The Tao that is seen
is not the true Tao, until
you bring fresh toner.
Windows NT crashed.
I am the Blue Screen of Death.
No one hears your screams.
Stay the patient course.
Of little worth is your ire.
The network is down.
A crash reduces
your expensive computer
to a simple stone.
Yesterday it worked.
Today it is not working
‘Windows’ is like that.
Three things are certain:
Death, taxes, and lost data.
Guess which has occurred.
You step in the stream,
but the water has moved on.
This page is not here.
Out of memory.
We wish to hold the whole sky,
But we never will.
Having been erased,
the document you’re seeking
must now be retyped.
Rather than a beep
or a rude error message,
these words: “File not found.”
Serious error.
All shortcuts have disappeared.
Screen. Mind. Both are blank.
Another thing that I hate (can you tell yet that I LOVE Windows??).
After the umpteenth lockup or BSOD, you restart your computer. Because it wasn’t closed properly, the sequence promts the dreaded Disk Scan. This is annoying, and can luckily be skipped. HOWEVER: has any of you ever READ what these pedantic idiots have put on top of the screen during the Disk Scan???
From memory, it’s something like this:
“Windows was not shut down properly. As a result, errors may have occured on your hard disk. ScanDisk is now checking your drive. To avoid this procedure in the future, please shut down Windows by selecting “Shut down computer” from the “Start” menu.”
AAAAAAAARRRRGGGHHHH!!!
Do these people actually think I voluntarily shut down Windows incorrectly?? It’s because your crappy software MADE me hit the reset button, idjits!
When the hard drive is NOT full, I hardly ever get it. Since it’s now stuffed with MP3’s, I get it all the time. Especially when I’m playing MP3’s.
I feel so ancient… I’m running Win95 on a 200 MHZ machine… I rarely get BSOD - especially since I installed Norton anti-freeze.
What is this Anti-Freeze you speak of, and where can I get it??
Try installing IE 5.5 on it, unless they fixed it.
As for Win ME, I installed it, found it to be slower, have no drivers for my laptop peripherals, and no noticeable improvements over 98. I then uninstalled it and went back to 98. YMMV.
We call that annoying pedantic message “The Blue Screen of Misplaced Blame.” My cow-orkers always know what has happened when I scream at my PC "No, Bill, I didn’t shut it down improperly, you did, you stupid . . . "
At least they are truthful when they display the message “If you continue using Windows, your system may become unstable.” Yeah, thanks; I think that happened the first time I INSTALLED your freakin’ crap collection of drivers masquerading as an OS.
Use FreeBSD. Go months without a reboot. 
As for Windows. I was having troubles a couple of times a day on my box at work. They upgraded me to Win2k and I haven’t had a problem since. I’m impressed.
My computer at work is an IBM AS/400. It has shut down, gracefully, exactly once in the last three years of runing 24/7. And that was because one of it’s cooling fans froze up.
Unfortunately, I now have to use PCs to talk to it.
My desktop at work runs Windows NT and I only have to reboot it about twice a month. When it was running 95 I had to reboot about three times a day. It would usually die when I shut down Internet Explorer 4.0. I upgraded to IE 5.0 with no increase in reliability, so had the network boys ‘upgrade’ me to NT.
My desktop at home is running Win98, and is pretty stable, only hangs up 2 or 3 times a month, but I pretty much have all the programs on it I need, so I don’t mess with it much.
Because I need that computer to communicate with the AS/400 from home, my employer supplies my software, and since we use Microsquash at work, I get Microsquash at home. That’s OK with me, but I still think Billy Bob is EVIL.
I also have a laptop with Win95 on it, But I don’t load new software on it either, so it’s about as reliable as my desktop. I have experienced the problem with having to pull the battery to shut it off, but not lately.
Of course, if Microsquash ever figures out how to write a real operating system, us ‘big iron’ guys will be out of work, 'cause IBM couldn’t sell ice water in Hell.
BTW, I tried to install two different installations of Red Hat Linux on my old machine running an AMD 486DX4/100 without success. I now have a Pentium P100 machine sitting in the corner and plan to give it a go after the holidays. Any advice?
I’ve been running IE 5.5 sense I installed 2000…No issues here!
oh, there are some peices of software that you can run in windows 2000 to make the system believe its running windows 98. One comes with the system called apcompat. The other is a shareware program called resplendent resolver. Both seem to do a good job of fooling an older program into working in windows 2000. ya may want to try those before setting up a dual boot system
:::Looks at all previous posts. Grabs his Macintosh 350MHz G3 in a ferocious clench. Begins rocking and muttering “Don’t ever leave me. Don’t ever leave me…”:::
:::Another happy MacOS user looking for exit:::
yes Celyn, and that simple stone flies in a beautiful arc out of the window to hit the street below. HAHAHAHAAA!
Has anyone ever recovered from a BSOD? I mean, when it says ‘press CTRL ALT DEL or press any key to wait.’ and you wait and wait and wait…except you can never be bothered and turn it off in disgust after ten seconds.
I am luckly an I-Mac user and only herd stories about Billy-Bob and Mr. Thank you verry much(BSOD) but am quickly learning not to get a pc just for games. Thank you everyone for posting your views and please continue posting so I may create a good report about how bad(forgive me) Microsoft actually is. once again, Thank you all.
I’ve had Norton Antifreeze on my computer, and experienced easily 5 times as many BSOD crashes as I did before I installed it. Number dropped back down to “normal” after I uninstalled it. And I’ve got 256 MB of RAM, so it’s not simply the amount of memory it was using…