Which operating system is the best?

[Jeysie]

So who is going to build the new operating system or were you planning on helping to build it, Jeysie?

Heh. I'm afraid not... I couldn't code my way out of a wet paper bag (at least, not yet, anyway), and my thoughts are just educated guesses based on my observations of the techies and non-techies I've encountered. One would have to do some serious user surveying and stuff to get a real overview of the matter.

Peace & Luv, Liz

[dew7]

   I have been trying to get Microsoft to bring back the 9x code that contains true Dos, but Microsoft is stubborn and set their hearts, minds and money on NT.  I have heard that XP only contains the command prompt and does not even have a fake Dos.  Now if only users would overwhelm Microsoft with requests for the 9x code to be brought back then we might have something.  It would probably take thousands or even millions of letters to Microsoft for them to get off the NT horse and consider going back to the tried and true old 9x horse.  In addition, it might also help by having as many users as possible switch to 98SE.  Unfortunately, 98SE will not support hyper-threading for new computers and although it is a great operating system now, I am starting to fear that its days are numbered unless we get a miracle.

[Say]

dew! you're back, wtf you've been in Awayland too much

[dew7]

   Yes, I was away on business and now I am back.  
Also, I will be limiting my participation to only a few threads because work keeps piling up.  Be seeing you, Say.

[copycat]

Now if only users would overwhelm Microsoft with requests for the 9x code to be brought back then we might have something.  It would probably take thousands or even millions of letters to Microsoft for them to get off the NT horse and consider going back to the tried and true old 9x horse. In addition, it might also help by having as many users as possible switch to 98SE.

In all honesty, I think it's unrealistic to try and and find millions of people who care about whether or not Windows XP is security-flawed, and don't care whether or not the Windows is called XP or 98, so won't bother spending time ane effort on a petition.
Also, in economic terms, it'd be downright stupid to throw away all the effort they put into Longhorn and start again from Win98SE.
AFAIK, (a legal) Win98SE isn't available anymore anywhere, so those who have WinXP OEM-installed on their pc when they bought it, don't necessarily have a Win98SE-cd, so how do you suppose they could switch back to 98SE?

[copycat]

One legal way would be to buy 98SE on the Internet from places such as E-bay.  Second, you may acquire it from a friend who no longer uses it.

a) AFAIK, M$ is not monitoring online auctions, so they wouldn't know if someone bought 98SE that way.
b) If I were to acquire it from a friend who no longer uses it, that transaction would be even less likely to make it through to M$ HQ.
Both of them are good suggestions to acquire 98se legally, but they won't make M$ realize anything.

[racx_00]

Why dont/do u want M$ to realise that ur getting 98se

[dew7]

   I am replying to myself to keep this issue alive and so it does not get buried.  How come the newest reply does not get put at the top of the page?  I think this is unfair.  

[Jeysie]

I'm not sure what you mean. When a post is replied to, it goes to the top of the first page of the forum topic listing, just underneath any sticky topics. (I think we have four sticky topics in Off-Topic now.) Then when people reply to other posts, those posts go to the top themselves, pushing down all the other ones.

Sticky topics always stay at the very top, also ordered according to which has had the most recent reply.

Peace & Luv, Liz

[copycat]

Have you ever seen a petition that actually worked? 'cause I haven't.

I seem to recall something SQ or PQ-related.

[Storm]

I don't... but I'd love to hear about a documented case of a successful petition, especially one to Microsoft or Sierra  

[dew7]

   I do not know about a successful petition but there may be a first one.  

[racx_00]

I wish there was a way to bring back the 9x code

[dew7]

   I will let you know if I get any response to my letters to Microsoft.  Remember, if you choose to use 98SE as the operating system for your new PC, that is great but there are limitations.  Ram over one gigabyte can be unstable but some people have managed to get their ram to one and half gigabytes without problems on 98SE.  You will have to adjust memory settings when you go above 512 mb's.  Hard Drive space is limited to 137 gigabytes or below with the latest patch.  Hyper-threading is not supported.  There may be a few other limitations but these ones are on the top of my head.

[racx_00]

You could just install 2 Operating Systems and then use a program to stop them from conflicting

[dew7]

   You could have a dual boot system and use a third party program to prevent them from seeing each other.  I may consider this in the future.  It is becoming popular with users who want 98SE and XP Pro.  Who knows, it may be the wave of the future?  However, the inherent limitations of 98SE are still there and they cannot be overcome with the use of a third party program or a dual boot system.  If someone knows differently I welcome their opinions but this is the knowledge that I have gleaned with my finite experience.  Have a great day --- time to eat, prepare for the day and swim.  I will probably check in late tonight or tomorrow.

[Yonkey]

I'm not sure if you know this already, but if you install WinXP as a new installation onto a different drive/partition from your Win98SE, they won't conflict so it won't matter if they "see" each other.  In fact, if the file system is NTFS, Win98SE won't even be able to read the WinXP partition.

Here's my setup:  two hard disks.  On my primary HD, I first have a Win98SE FAT32 partition, then the rest is an WinXP NTFS partition.  On my second HD, it's another WinXP, NTFS.  So, I have a Win98SE and two WinXP's installed, but the one on the primary HD has less free space (and the HD is slower) so I just use the second one.

Anyway, I didn't want to get into all that technical jargon.  All I'm saying is that XP has a built-in dual-boot capability with your existing O/S and that as long as they're on separate partitions (separate drive letters) it doesn't matter which Windows sees what.

[copycat]

All I'm saying is that XP has a built-in dual-boot capability with your existing O/S

Only a dual-boot capability, and not a multi-boot?

[Yonkey]

Considering the average amount of RAM people had around the time Win98SE came out (I'd say it was 64MB or less), it's no wonder the O/S can't support really high quantities 1GB.  The O/S was probably based on what the average motherboard could support at that time as well.  Since 256MB chips didn't exist yet, they probably considered 4*64MB (256MB) chips to be the max most people would have, so to be safe, they designed for double that amount.  Anyway, this is all speculations, I personally don't know why Microsoft limited their ram capacity.  Maybe they thought the 4GB limit of virtual memory was good enough to handle memory issues.  

Oh and Copycat's correct, it dual boots if you only have one operating system on your computer.  If you have Win2k, and Win9X, it will triple boot.  And if you have more than that, it will continue onwards.  

Let n be the number of operating systems installed on a user's computer, Win2K/XP creates a boot menu with n+1 choices.  (Sorry, I have an exam in a few days and I'm gonna have to write lame crap like this on it)

[racx_00]

Poor Yonkey has to write about crap on an exam