The DOS Collector's CD version is the best TIE Fighter experience. For me the most important thing about the this version is 640x480 resolution. I got a little spoiled to really appreciate 3D games in 320x200, it is like unsufficiently sharp. Gouraud shading was already present in the TIE Fighter floppy version.
I was also crazy about TIE Fighter (floppy) back then. Maybe even more so then about System Shock/Dune2/Doom... Strangely I never really played X-Wing. I did play the later X-Wing Alliance: A very decent game IMHO.
I bought The X-Wing/TIE Fighter for Windows CD too, totally unaware that some moron had been assigned to port this game to windows 🙁 .... The new menu screens are out of style, and I agree: the lack of dynamic midi music is a fatal flaw. Sometimes the windows game just won't run for some mysterious reason.
Either way, the DOS collector's version is there, and it does the job fine. There was never a no-CD patch for it so I hacked out the CD check myself once. Not that I can really hack, but somehow I obviously succeeded. 😉 PM me if you care for it.
Attached the legendary TIE Fighter music, I made this recording once with DosBox. 😀
Also let me share this great TIE Fighter tribute mp3, All credits to the unknown author: tie_fighter_-_sample.mp3