I have only ever used two operating systems - Windows NT Workstation Version 4 and Windows 2000 Professional.
I have Windows 2000 at home.
Many other people know use Windows 98 or Windows ME.
I have tried these but I can’t stand them for any length of time.
They’re not secure, they tend to freeze more often than the NT line of products and need to be rebooted on a regular basis.
Quite often I go into computer shops and see that many computers have Windows XP Home Edition pre-installed. I would be more used to the NT /2000 systems so I would prefer XP Professional because I am fimilar with logging on.
Windows 95/98/ME/XP home users: Why do you not want to use a more relaible, stable and secure operating system?
If you were given the choice would you use one of the business operating systems?
Why do people who build PCs think that people want operating systems such as Windows 98?
Hey, my first preference is OS 10.2. Which is what I have on my G4 PowerMac. But since my PC can’t run OS 10.2, it has Windows XP Pro. A computer geek friend of mine recommended Pro over Home.
I don’t know why people use Windows 98, other than perhaps their aging computer won’t run XP, or they don’t like the intrusive nature of installing XP. To be honest, I am struck by the contrast in installing XP vs. installing OS X. Big difference. OS X is so much nicer about it.
But I’m not trying to make this into a platform war. I am glad I got XP Pro as opposed to Win 98. XP is so much better than 98.
I’m neither a PC user nor a gamer, but I think “games” has something to do with it. (I think it was also a factor for the longevity of being able to boot into DOS long after everything except games had abandoned DOS as a platform).
Well, it depends on how you want to use your computer. Personally, I don’t like futzing with mine all that much. I want to turn it on, and use it. I like 98SE2, because it works. I’ve never had it die on me, or lock up, or freeze. Although I’ll probably upgrade fairly soon to XP pro, I really don’t see a need for me to. I’m just going to because I think XP’s been out long enough to show that it’s fairly stable. Don’t forget the disaster that was ME. After all the problems with that, I decided to stick with something that functioned. You know “If it’s not broke, don’t fix it”.
I have a computer at home, I have stuff on it that requires drivers for home based computers & those come with XP Home. XP Pro & N2000 have drivers for office based stuff & won’t have the ones for the stuff I need–or at least I don’t want to chance that they won’t.
XP is unstable? Hasn’t been for me, so far.
Windows 2000 is not designed for home computers, but rather for servers. Using it at home is like getting an Indy car to drive to the supermarket. Further, you need to be much more computer savvy to use it properly.
In addition, XP is designed to accomodate more peripherals than 2000. Since it uses the Win2K kernal, it’s just as dependable and secure.
Well, generally speaking… those OS’ are cheaper. It isn’t necessarily what the best is, it’s just that home users can “get by” with ME or XP Home or whatever.
More or less just a Microsoft scam… because if you think they really can’t get away with just one OS… well. (PS - I’m excluding Server apps here)
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- Many people just take whatever comes on their pre-built computers.
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- Someone else could ask you why you insist on always upgrading to the latest OS, when an older one will do. There’s lots of hardware and software that ran fine on 95/98/NT/ME/2K that won’t work on WinXP at all–some of Microsoft’s own stuff won’t work on XP. If I had a brand-new high-end mobo or videocard, I’d need something later than 98SE to use all its features, but I don’t: so 98SE still does everything I need to do.
- And “security”? That’s a relative thing, very dependent on the types of security risks a machine has to withstand. People on 56K who only use their PC for surfing and email, and turn it off the rest of the time don’t worry much about getting hacked into, and shouldn’t. Their main line of “security” is the anti-virus programs they may run, and that works. -It’s rather silly to insist that [whatever-MS] operating system is so horrible when most of the computers in the world used it for a long time…
. - And there is no “best” operating system, no OS has ever come with a crash-proof money-back guarantee–and there’s reasons for that.
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XP home came pre-installed on this computer. I don’t want to spend another couple hundred dollars on XP pro since XP home suits me just fine.
I am pretty much the only person using this computer, so I don’t want to log on every time I want to use it.
I do much prefer Windows XP over Windows 98. XP is very stable for me, I can go weeks without rebooting.
Ummm, Windows 2000 professional can easily be used on home machines. Windows 2000 SERVER is for server purposes. Though, you can use some server components in Pro.
I run Win2K and Win98 on my other machine. My brother and sis-in-law use Pro. I have my parents on Win98 because I don’t want them messing with Win2k settings and really screw things up. Besides, the access the net, Word, Quickbooks, ACT! and a few other things that don’t require the features that Win2K Pro or XP Pro have.
Probably will upgrade them in the next year though.
Exactly what hardware is “office based stuff?” You talking about plotters, giant printers and other stuff like that?
I’ve gone through a lot of hardware, but I have yet to come across something that won’t work with Windows 2000. I’m not saying such hardware doesn’t exist, but it’s a lot more rare than the naysayers will have you think.
As far as “I don’t want to chance that they won’t” goes, sheesh! Just look on the websites of the companies who manufacture your hardware BEFORE you buy Windows 2000. If they don’t have 2000 drivers, then don’t buy the OS.
Eh? Define “use it properly.” The Windows 2000 installation procedure is about as straightforward as it gets (pretty much 45 minutes of clicking “Next” over and over). The GUI is virtually identical to Win9x. For an average user, the only obvious difference is the fact that Setup will require you to provide a password for the Administrator account. Optionally, you can set up other accounts at the same time. There is a check box during installation that allows you to log on automatically; Windows enters your username and password for you.
If things are set up this way, I honestly can’t think of a way that Windows 2000 could confuse a novice user in a way that Windows 98 can’t (excluding stupid things like messing with the Security settings with no apparent goal in mind).
My reason - I read the advice saying get winxp home edition if you never intend to network your computer. I never intend to network my computer. I didn’t want to spend 60 quid more for extra features that I would never use.
And, I believe XP, even the home edition, is based on the windows 2000 ‘codebase’ so windows xp home is supposed to be exactly as stable as winxp professional.
Is that right?
Well, I use WinXP home because it came on the computer when I bought it, and it’s fulfilled all my needs (including extremely easy and effective networking – not sure who said that Lobsang, but I think they’re wrong).
DEFINITELY a vast improvement over 98 and ME in terms of stability. It has yet to crash, and the few application crashes I’ve encountered have been handled nicely (no freezing up or restarting, the application simply ended)
Correct, Logsang. Home is basically Pro with a lot of the networking stuff gutted and a few other things. I believe Pro allows you to encrypt files without a third-party program while Home does not.
(Looking at preview, seeing DrLizardo’s post):
AFAIK, you can network computers with XP Home, but you can’t join a Windows 2000 domain. I’m not sure about an NT4 domain. Somebody please correct me if I’m wrong about, because I haven’t used XP all that much (and don’t want to). I’m sticking with 2000 for now.
I’ve got XP Home on my laptop, because that’s what it came with. On my other laptop and my desktop, I’ve got XP Pro, because I built my own desktop, and upgraded the laptop from 2k. I wasn’t going to bother with an upgrade for my other laptop, since it does everything I’ve ever needed it to do.
I use XP Home because it was close to a hundred dollars cheaper than XP Pro,(I bought my computer from a white-box clone builder, and you can chose the OS) I only need basic networking and I have a single processor system, not a duel one, so I had no need for the extra features of XP Pro. Also, XP Home has been extremely stable, the only time it has crashed is when I overclocked the processor and video card too high, or have run some really flaky programs. Even then, with a bad program I can almost always kill it in the task manager, unlike Win 98 where I would have to reboot often.
Like many others, my XP home came on this computer. We do have Pro laying around for some reason; perhaps we’ll install it upon finding any useful merit it has.
You can network up to 5 computers on a peer to peer network using Windows XP Home. Any more than that and Microsoft tells us to recommend XP Pro. (I work for a major computer manufacturer)