VOGONS


Reply 20 of 34, by PhilsComputerLab

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Well I tried all 4 OSes on that same machine. Windows 2000 is giving me the most issues. USB 2.0 driver won't install because of some licencing and needs SP4. And OpenGL isn't working for some reason. And it didn't play ball with the Promise controller, got extremely slow booting times and file corruption errors.

I'll re-visit 2000 at some later stage, but first impressions are not that great. So my advice is to do your own tests with whatever machine you are using and don't be a Lemming 😊

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Reply 21 of 34, by appiah4

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PhilsComputerLab wrote:

Well I tried all 4 OSes on that same machine. Windows 2000 is giving me the most issues. USB 2.0 driver won't install because of some licencing and needs SP4. And OpenGL isn't working for some reason. And it didn't play ball with the Promise controller, got extremely slow booting times and file corruption errors.

I'll re-visit 2000 at some later stage, but first impressions are not that great. So my advice is to do your own tests with whatever machine you are using and don't be a Lemming 😊

Well, Win2K gets USB2.0 support with SP4 and I really don't see why you wouldn't install SP4 anyway.

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Reply 22 of 34, by PhilsComputerLab

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appiah4 wrote:
PhilsComputerLab wrote:

Well I tried all 4 OSes on that same machine. Windows 2000 is giving me the most issues. USB 2.0 driver won't install because of some licencing and needs SP4. And OpenGL isn't working for some reason. And it didn't play ball with the Promise controller, got extremely slow booting times and file corruption errors.

I'll re-visit 2000 at some later stage, but first impressions are not that great. So my advice is to do your own tests with whatever machine you are using and don't be a Lemming 😊

Well, Win2K gets USB2.0 support with SP4 and I really don't see why you wouldn't install SP4 anyway.

Well the other three do it Vanilla. It's not a big deal, but I pickup these little differences and they are worth pointing out and everyone can decide for themself if it affects them or not.

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Reply 23 of 34, by appiah4

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PhilsComputerLab wrote:
appiah4 wrote:
PhilsComputerLab wrote:

Well I tried all 4 OSes on that same machine. Windows 2000 is giving me the most issues. USB 2.0 driver won't install because of some licencing and needs SP4. And OpenGL isn't working for some reason. And it didn't play ball with the Promise controller, got extremely slow booting times and file corruption errors.

I'll re-visit 2000 at some later stage, but first impressions are not that great. So my advice is to do your own tests with whatever machine you are using and don't be a Lemming 😊

Well, Win2K gets USB2.0 support with SP4 and I really don't see why you wouldn't install SP4 anyway.

Well the other three do it Vanilla. It's not a big deal, but I pickup these little differences and they are worth pointing out and everyone can decide for themself if it affects them or not.

If you mean Win98/Me/XP by the other three, one of those three doesn't come with Universal Mass Storage drivers out of the box, the other has a terrible driver model and given me more BSODs than Win95/98 combined due to chipset driver issues, and the last is a Win2K with a new skin..

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Reply 25 of 34, by Fusion

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appiah4 wrote:

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.

I love Win2K. It runs and looks clean and only uses 45mb of RAM or so, especially after you disable a few processes . My only issue so far has been The Need For Speed series. I have NFS5 (Porsche Unleashed,2000) working great and NFS3:HP as well but only after much headache. High Stakes (NFS4) has not run on my Pentium III machine since I built it. 😵 I have come to realize that its my Voodoo 3 causing the issues and not my system. NFS4 hates Glide and Win2k. 🤣

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Reply 26 of 34, by tayyare

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Tetrium wrote:
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 😀

I was using Windows 98SE in my home PC in year 2000 like many others. Then came the Windows 2000 and ME. I just waited a bit to see what they were. I had chance to try them in the company I'm working for, and had access to both of them. I choose ME over 2000 since I really still didn't want to give up real mode dos yet (yeah I know, but it's a 10KB patch that works and was readily available even at that time) so I made the switch from 98SE to ME in early 2001. The funny thing is, during that period, my interest in computers was all time low (fiancé, wedding preparations, job change etc.) and I was away from computer magazines and general PC talk in internet. So I did not have a chance to see what people say about ME during that period.

I used it without ANY problems till late 2005 or early 2006,when I finally switched to XP. Even just this alone means that I was regarding it much more than a "not that crap" OS. It was not 100% stable, but not worse than 98SE in any possible way and performance was quite ok (from MMX 233 to PIII 733 to P4 1.😎. I always amazed at all those biased bad reputation that surrounding it.

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Reply 27 of 34, by PTherapist

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I used ME back in the day and hated it. There is a reason there's so much negativity towards it, as on certain systems it did have stability issues.

I ran it on 2 PCs at the time, an older Socket 7 system (which was running an IDT Winchip C6 200MHz, with only 64MB RAM and a PCI Voodoo 3 card) and a newer Slot 1 system (Pentium III 650MHz, 128MB RAM, AGP TNT2). Windows ME ran great on the old Socket 7 but was abysmal on the Pentium III, with many BSODs. I put up with it for about 6 months, before switching finally to Windows 2000, where software & driver support had improved dramatically by that point, to make it suitable for usage on a home PC.

Sure, the stability issues in ME were almost certainly due to dodgy drivers, but if you consider the fact that 98 SE ran great on the same hardware and that 2000 was probably out of the question for most home users at the time, then it's easy to see why ME took such a deserved beating.

I personally could never recommend ME for a retro install, it'll be a game of chance with regards to if it works well or not.

Reply 28 of 34, by Jorpho

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appiah4 wrote:

the other has a terrible driver model and given me more BSODs than Win95/98 combined due to chipset driver issues, and the last is a Win2K with a new skin..

There are probably good reasons to hate on Windows ME (the System Restore feature gets a lot of flak, especially on underpowered machines), but it uses the same "terrible driver model" as Win98 SE, and if I'm not mistaken "chipset drivers" don't do much more than fill in some blank spaces in device manager. And XP in theory has some legitimate performance improvements over Windows 2000.

Fusion wrote:

I love Win2K. It runs and looks clean and only uses 45mb of RAM or so, especially after you disable a few processes .

Which processes do you disable? I know there are lots of "guides" out there, but I understood they are generally of dubious practical value.

Reply 29 of 34, by devius

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tayyare wrote:

I always amazed at all those biased bad reputation that surrounding it.

Well, here's my experience with Windows ME that I installed shortly after it was released:

  • Install ME
  • Install all the latest drivers, DirectX, all that jazz
  • Install Quake 2
  • Run Quake 2...
  • ...Quake 2 runs at 10fps 😠
  • Put Windows 98 CD in drive
  • Format HDD and reinstall Windows 98, drivers, etc.
  • Reinstall Quake 2
  • Quake 2 runs at over 50fps as it should 😎

Reply 31 of 34, by PhilsComputerLab

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Ampera wrote:

Win2k is only good with it's service pack. Not installing it is just, no offense, stupid.

There is no need for that. I am just reporting on my findings and testing what the various service packs affect is something that I find interesting.

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Reply 32 of 34, by Fusion

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Jorpho wrote:

Which processes do you disable? I know there are lots of "guides" out there, but I understood they are generally of dubious practical value.

I disable all network/internet related and the printer service. I only do it to free up a bit of memory, and if I'm not going to use it, why have it running? Its really something that has become a habit. Even though my Pentium III system has 512MB RAM, I like Windows to use as little as possible.

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Reply 33 of 34, by Tetrium

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appiah4 wrote:

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

2k ran more sluggish compared to ME. Also it seemed to actually need more ram and still it seemed more sluggish.
My experience is that 9x is usually fine with 512MB and if I use more, I'll skip right to XP. Especially using NLite it can be tweaked while tweaking 2k game me more issues (might have something to do with XP having been more popular or simply being easier to modify).

It's also a matter of personal experience, but I've never had the thought that I actually would've been better off using 2k.

appiah4 wrote:

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.

I didn't shit on ME and neither have many others. There are several reports of people here who experienced more problems with 98SE (including me) compared to ME.

There are several reasons why ME got a lot of bad press, but by now these are common knowledge.

And while 2k was definitely a great OS at its time, these are the days of retro gaming so things changed as the needs changed.

But in the end to each his own.

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Reply 34 of 34, by 95DosBox

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Smack2k wrote:
Looking for opinions... […]
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Looking for opinions...

Have a Year 2000 build I am working on, and trying to figure out which OS to put on the system, Windows 2000 Professional or Windows 98 SE? I am leaning toward 2000 as I don't have a 2000 machine right now, but am on the fence as I dont know how compatibility with games is and how good driver support for the video cards / sounds cards / etc is...

Machine Details:
ASUS CUV4X Motherboard
PIII 933 MHZ
768 MB RAM
Opinions on the OS?

I agree with tayyare.
98SE Partition 1 Boot Drive
2000 Partition 2 Windows 2000 SP4

For XP you can easily install this on Z77, Z87, Z97, Z170, Z270 no problem and play all the XP retro games if necessary at the max resolution. But your current rig is best optimized for 98SE and Windows 2000 is harder to get running on modern computers so take advantage of the dual boot option (98SE/2KP).
For the memory of 768MB I believe it should work in tests from long ago. 512MB slot 1, 256MB slot 2. If any BSOD occurs during 98SE install then remove the 256MB module and reinstall again from scratch until completion.

PhilsComputerLab wrote:

Well I tried all 4 OSes on that same machine. Windows 2000 is giving me the most issues. USB 2.0 driver won't install because of some licencing and needs SP4. And OpenGL isn't working for some reason. And it didn't play ball with the Promise controller, got extremely slow booting times and file corruption errors.

I'll re-visit 2000 at some later stage, but first impressions are not that great. So my advice is to do your own tests with whatever machine you are using and don't be a Lemming 😊

Yeah I had similar issues with Windows 2000 and USB ports before switching to XP later down the road. I couldn't remember if it was the USB drivers causing hit or miss connections. I might revisit those issues again on the resurrected fanless P4 when I have more time. I usually used Vanilla W2K Pro then since I just love its small size and snappy UI. The service packs back then felt too bloaty after installed and I liked keeping the OS image as small as possible then since space was a premium I stayed away from XP for as long as possible. 98SE was always very compact in comparison.

tayyare wrote:

I was using Windows 98SE in my home PC in year 2000 like many others. Then came the Windows 2000 and ME. I just waited a bit to see what they were. I had chance to try them in the company I'm working for, and had access to both of them. I choose ME over 2000 since I really still didn't want to give up real mode dos yet (yeah I know, but it's a 10KB patch that works and was readily available even at that time) so I made the switch from 98SE to ME in early 2001. The funny thing is, during that period, my interest in computers was all time low (fiancé, wedding preparations, job change etc.) and I was away from computer magazines and general PC talk in internet. So I did not have a chance to see what people say about ME during that period.

I used it without ANY problems till late 2005 or early 2006,when I finally switched to XP. Even just this alone means that I was regarding it much more than a "not that crap" OS. It was not 100% stable, but not worse than 98SE in any possible way and performance was quite ok (from MMX 233 to PIII 733 to P4 1.😎. I always amazed at all those biased bad reputation that surrounding it.

Interesting I remembered a friend who had ME on the laptop. I couldn't get to the ME DOS prompt like 98SE using the F8 method. That was enough to piss me off that MS would do that since we all knew it ran on top of MSDOS. Also that hand drawn ME logo was a bit tacky whereas Windows 2000 looked like they actually cared. That DOS patch you mentioned shouldn't have been required. I think that's partly what killed ME from the outside to not be given a real chance. It didn't add something new making it worthwhile like 4GB memory patch, SATA drives, and PCIe graphics card support and maybe it would have had some sway today instead of 98SE. If Windows 2000 and XP had not come around so soon after I think we would all be ME retro users. 😀 Maybe had they waited for 2001 it would have been called 2001SE if they added all these modifications. (95B/98SE/2K1SE).

Oh and if you are inclined and have enough hard drive space. Just make 3 partitions or a 4th for extra data storage only.
C: 98SE bootable - 2GB FAT16
D: 2KPro SP4 - 8GB FAT32 so you can still see it in DOS
E: XP SP1, SP2, or SP3 - 16GB FAT32 in case you are running a lot of programs.
F: Free space partition - whatever is left. Good for storing images of boot partition in case of boot loader or OS corruption you boot off a 98SE floppy disk and restore C: image and all is well.

Done.