512 mb memory is the max for windows 98 so 2000 or xp might be a better choice.

Driver support is probably fine either way, and if you already have a Win98 SE machine then you might as well use that for anything that won't run in Windows 2000.

2000 should work just fine. I ran it on an Athlon machine for a while, and an Athlon64 thereafter - it was a fair while before I ran into a Windows game that hard-required Windows XP. Won't run DOS games all that well, but then, if you have a 98 box, that will. IMHO, Win2k is more stable and less, err, prone to randomly eating itself than 9x of any stripe. It was the first version of Windows that, IMHO, actually delivered on the promises of NT.

Driver support is solid, generally speaking. Good support for hardware in 2k was a large part of the reason why there wasn't a lot of hardware-support heartburn when XP came out.

Which OS really depends upon what you intend to run on it. Got both? Just dual boot and you can cover all angles. 😎

I'd always prefer Windows 2000 over 98 as a general OS any day, that is unless I intended to play DOS games where you will find 2000 obviously lacking - that's where a dual boot setup would come in handy.

I see you're going for a "2000 build" so may want to stay period specific, but myself personally with a PC of that spec I'd stick XP on it instead of 2000. Once you trim some of XP's fat, it generally performs just as nicely as 2000.

Windows 2000 it is....

W2K is (in my opinion) one of the best OS Microsoft ever made.

And, when running w98 on more than 512 MB ram, you could use the rest as Ramdrive.

Richo wrote:

512 mb memory is the max for windows 98 so 2000 or xp might be a better choice.

That is not true. Windows 98 can happily work with 1GB without any third party patches, etc (been there done that in may different configurations), providing that you add (or change the parameters of) just two lines in your system.ini file. Another option is utilizing some of it as ramdrive, as another pal already stated above.

Windows 2000 and Windows 98SE can run on the same machine even without the help of a third party multibooting software. Make two partitions (or use two HDDs), install Windows 98SE to the first partition, then install 2000 into the second partition (that way you can use NTFS)with the "save the existing OS" option. Installation will take care of the rest, and in the end you will have a boot option screen which will enable you to boot into either of them.

So I suggest, why not both? I love multiboot systems, even when it is 100% unnecessary, so yes, I'm biased. 😈

I have actually done both as previously suggested. I once had An Athlon XP+ build that ran 98 and Win2k dual boot. It was actually a really really nice machine.

Windows 2000 is a great OS, and one I would use to this day if it had Microsoft support, but it does have just a few compatibility issues with SOME games, however I am sure they can be fixed.

IMO, use Windows 2000, it's the best OS Microsoft ever made and the last decent thing Microsoft EVER produced. Not a single operating system today can compare, and even with my quite nice Windows Server 2016, Windows 2000 is a great OS.

Windows9x does have its charms It's a teething period between modern NT based operating systems and the monolithic DOS kernel. It will without a doubt support almost everything (except Steam) that you may need.
But IMO the not out of the box memory issues at 512MB just tells me that you need a newer OS.

Another idea is NT4, which while older than the two, still has good game support, with it's only major flaw being no PnP support.

Heck, you can go real crazy and try ReactOS. Win32 support on a Linux Kernel, it's a weird misfit, but it's interesting nonetheless.

Ampera wrote:

it does have just a few compatibility issues with SOME games, however I am sure they can be fixed.

The NTVDM is notoriously incompatible if the end goal includes running anything DOS-based.

Ampera wrote:

Another idea is NT4, which while older than the two, still has good game support, with it's only major flaw being no PnP support.

Didn't DirectX support under NT4 end at DirectX 3? And that's assuming you can find decent drivers for the hardware one wants to use.

Heck, you can go real crazy and try ReactOS.

Yes, that is an option if the end goal is to go real crazy.

You might also want to check out Windows ME 😀

I've just recently used it with an Athlon 1000 build and it works great. In fact I had less issues than with Windows 98 SE. You can also run Windows XP and max out the RAM to what the machine can handle. I tried XP vanilla and that worked great, but to install the VIA USB 2.0 driver, which I really need, I had to upgrade to SP1 😀

Ampera wrote:

Heck, you can go real crazy and try ReactOS. Win32 support on a Linux Kernel, it's a weird misfit, but it's interesting nonetheless.

Just a small correction. ReactOS doesn't use Linux at all. Its kernel is developed in house to mimic the Windows NT kernel. More specifically, I think it follows the design of the kernel found on Windows 2003 Server: https://www.reactos.org/wiki/Kernel

Jorpho wrote:

The NTVDM is notoriously incompatible if the end goal includes running anything DOS-based. […]
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Ampera wrote:

it does have just a few compatibility issues with SOME games, however I am sure they can be fixed.

The NTVDM is notoriously incompatible if the end goal includes running anything DOS-based.

Ampera wrote:

Another idea is NT4, which while older than the two, still has good game support, with it's only major flaw being no PnP support.

Didn't DirectX support under NT4 end at DirectX 3? And that's assuming you can find decent drivers for the hardware one wants to use.

Heck, you can go real crazy and try ReactOS.

Yes, that is an option if the end goal is to go real crazy.

Funny as Civnet worked just fine for me. So did most of the Sim games, but I'm not law, I haven't had a Win2k build in years (Which I cry myself to sleep about daily)

And yeah, I guess NT4 doesn't support anything better than Dx3. Huh.

And I thought the ReactOS kernel was Linux. Huh.

TBH, Go with a dual boot, it's piss easy to set up, and will give you Windows 98SE for games, and Windows 2k for more serious and modern applications (And a dreamy UI)

And Phil, you broke my heart when you didn't have Win2k as an option 🙁 (Jk, love you)

WinME is a, 🤣 IH AVE WIND OS ME HAHA HA, until you realize that ME isn't as bad as everybody goes on about. The main reason nobody liked it is that there was no reason to get it. Windows XP was a year away, Power users were sticking with Windows 2000, and Windows ME didn't do a whole lot more than Windows 98SE. XP is the legend of Windows operating systems, with a not that bad near to Windows 2000's excellence.

Wait, when I typed that I felt the need to point out that excellence is a relative term. Microsoft has never released an operating system that anybody even loved. They had some shitshows like Vista and Windows 8, and some decent releases like most of the NT3.1 - 5.1 lineup, and some really craptastic dick moves with Windows 10 (Server 2016 is alright, but it still has some bullshit you need to spend turning off) but I don't look that fondly at almost any Windows operating systems. If you want to talk nostalgia, I am nostalgic for the time that windows didn't stick a cattle brander directly to your face, and instead just applied a small soldering iron to your arm.

Rant over, my tl;dr is that you should dual boot. I found the 98SE part worked well for games, and the NT5 part worked well for utilities and interfacing with more modern operating systems (removable storage and whatnot)

Yea I saw the comments, I'm sure I'll check it out 😀

Ampera wrote:

WinME is a, 🤣 IH AVE WIND OS ME HAHA HA, until you realize that ME isn't as bad as everybody goes on about. The main reason nobody liked it is that there was no reason to get it. Windows XP was a year away, Power users were sticking with Windows 2000, and Windows ME didn't do a whole lot more than Windows 98SE. XP is the legend of Windows operating systems, with a not that bad near to Windows 2000's excellence.

I kinda like what you wrote here, it's kinda true haha!

I actually got ME because I couldn't get anything else (no XP yet and 98SE was already very popular, so people would not want to let it go and sell it or throw it out). 98FE was kinda lacking in the stability department for me and 95 didn't seem any better for my purposes (a home PC used mostly for gaming and messing around with files and the occasional burning of a CDR and stuff).

I got ME for €15 shrinkwrapped and I was really skeptical because of all the stories and convincing opinions...but they turned out to simply not be true.
Course it has certain issues, but so does any other OS, though some OSs have more severe ones or might have issues that are simply not any bother to someone. It was my very first PC, so I barely had any old DOS games and as such, didn't have a need for it. The few DOS games that I did run, mostly ran (I remember having an issue with sound with some DOS games, but I'd just use an audio CD and continue playing like that).

98SE has some inconveniences that I don't like. 2k I have to say I used it only once or twice on a rig of my own and it seemed to mostly be much slower than ME and anything faster was pretty good with XP (especially after having NLited it).

Another OS that really impressed me when I tested it was Server 2003! It seemed really fast even on a Coppermine 800MHz and a TNT2 and something like 256MB SDRAM? (might've been 384MB but I think I dismantled that rig years ago).

PhilsComputerLab wrote:

You might also want to check out Windows ME 😀

I've just recently used it with an Athlon 1000 build and it works great. In fact I had less issues than with Windows 98 SE. You can also run Windows XP and max out the RAM to what the machine can handle. I tried XP vanilla and that worked great, but to install the VIA USB 2.0 driver, which I really need, I had to upgrade to SP1 😀

Glad your first impression is a positive one 😀

Is there anything going on with OpenGL and Windows 2000?

So long as you're using hardware with drivers that support OpenGL, I can't think of any reason why OpenGL would not work just as well under Windows 2000 as it does in XP.

If you have more than 256MB RAM and a PIII-800 or faster processor always go for Win2K. That sweet NT kernel..

Phil really needs to rebuild that Athlon 1GHz PC with Win2K to appreciate just how good the OS is so that he can better understand why people shat on WinMe.

Most poeple dont shat on winme. And when they do they only read how bad is the os bevause they never used it. Same as me.the people who shat at me have most of it never used. I personaly hate the 98. I have never really used it because it was too old for me. I have used win me before xp era almost two years without any issue. And i was not the only user of the pc but other members of the family. And today is the situation the same. Most of the my retro pc that can not run xp run windows me of course. The dos mode im not using as i have dedicated dos machine. Sorry that you hear that windows me haters but windows me will be still my first choice over 98. As for me is it a much better option.