[DustFalcon85]

My favorites so far are 95, 98 SE, XP, and 7. Got any good/bad stories a/b your experiences w/ any of the Windows OSs you'd like to share? I got some

Good:

• Windows 95: Loved the Win Plus! themes w/ the screensavers. Mystery is the best theme & screensaver ever. Played Doom II on it.
• Windows 98 SE spent a lot of time playing Duke 3D, Redneck Rampage, C&C series, Diablo, Hexen and anything else I can think of.
• Windows XP. Not much I can say a/b it. It was a fun OS anyways.
• Windows 7. Currently have the Pro version all the way! Win 7 Pro Forever!

Bad:

• Windows NT/2000: When I was fooling around w/ my dad's machine w/ these OS's. I was pissed that Microsoft removed MS-DOS component from that boring as shit OS. I can't play Duke 3D or Jazz Jackrabbit anymore! Why Microsoft WHY!?
• Windows ME: It was prone to crashing and malware. Especially that piece of malware disguised itself as a Weather Bug. Screw ME (not literally! ).
• Windows 8: I never experienced 8 and I never will.

[Person of Color]

2000 was the perfect cut down OS. I could give a rat's ass about DOS support, just grab a second machine for that.

7 is super fast, bulletproof and it has the best UI ever, so it's my favorite.

95 is underrated, OSR 2.1 is where it's at. That's what I use on my retro rig (The other retro rig runs 98SE)

[neoacix]

My summary:

* Windows 1.0 - 3.11 ... mostly useless
* Windows 95 ... crashs, crashs, ugly stuff, crashs... back to DOS
* Windows 98 ... crashs, crashs, ... SE comes out, ... almost usable
* Windows ME ... crashs, crashs, useless stuff, crashs ...
* Windows 2000 ... somewhat stable but lack of drivers, later kind of usefull, fast and stable
* Windows XP ... strange at first look, needs more ressources then 2000, but it just runs and runs and runs...
* Windows Vista ... drivers came to late, eats to much ressources but besides this, stable and quite nice, nice features like aero snap
* Windows 7 ... stable, faster, uses less ressources, just nice
* Windows 8 ... maybe more stable and faster, but ... Modern-UI, Windows-Store WTF?!?

[♥Coraline♥]

Not sure why everyone always says ME is unstable - I upgraded from 98SE at the time and NEVER experienced any issue with it. The DOS mode thing didn't bother me because you could patch that back up yourself. It was a nice stopgap between 2000 and XP - back when what's-this-called NTFS and "Whistler" were sort of vague.

Windows Media Player and Movie Maker were essential to ME and every version thereafter though, so it can't be that bad.

[ReaperMan]

DustFalcon85, on 16 January 2014 - 05:24 PM, said:

Good:

• Windows 95: Loved the Win Plus! themes w/ the screensavers. Mystery is the best theme & screensaver ever. Played Doom II on it.
• Windows 98 SE spent a lot of time playing Duke 3D, Redneck Rampage, C&C series, Diablo, Hexen and anything else I can think of.
• Windows XP. Not much I can say a/b it. It was a fun OS anyways.
• Windows 7. Currently have the Pro version all the way! Win 7 Pro Forever!

^This.

[neoacix]

@Coryyne
I once made a clean install with Windows ME once it comes out and it keeps crashing right after start up.
Maybe your version runs quite stable because it uses the Win98SE drivers and settings, but I saw no advantage in this OS, NONE, and Win98SE runs quite stable at this time.

And I never used Windows Media Player and Movie Maker, because there was allways better software on the market.
Also I never used the Explorer for file managing if I can avoid it.
Even in DOS I used Norton Commander, later Win Commander (now known as Total Commander) and today Speed Commander or Total Commander.
The Explorer was and will ever be a pile of crap to me and btw, with these tools you don't need to install packaging tools like WinRAR, WinZIP or 7Zip... it's all included...
I even use some similar tools like Midnight Commander and Krusader under Linux...

BTW, upgrading from DOS 6.22 to Windows 8:

I found this freaking awesome!

And for a little side comparison, some other OSs I've tested in this time:

* OS/2 Warp 4 (Win3.11, Win95/98 times): stable, fast, some nice features, could run Win3.11 software, but the GUI was irritating and some kind of confusing, also not much software available

* BeOS 5 (Win98, ME, XP times): amazingly fast, stable and way beyond everything I've seen before, sadly not much software available and therefor useless, but the best desktop OS for PC at this time in concept (still waiting for HAIKU to be finished, which is basicly a better opensource remake of this OS)

* some Linuxes, which were quite nice a this time, stable, fast, but also lacks a lot of software

[Jimmy]

I like XP a lot. I think it's just because I'm so used to it. XP Professional SP3 is fucking gangster. I'm using Windows 7 now because unfortunately you're just limiting yourself with XP these days. Oh well, gotta move on. It's nice, it's mostly what I would want out of a modern OS. I have some minor complaints, but overall it's not bad.

Windows 8 is a pile of fucking shit, though. I couldn't figure out how to use it.

[Person of Color]

Trust me, you'll grow to appreciate Windows 7 more and more. Go ahead and drag one window to the absolute left of the screen. Now do it to the another window.

ISN'T THE UI AMAZING?!

[neoacix]

Ever heared of Microsoft BOB?
This was the greatest bullshit ever released by Microsoft and even worse as Modern-UI:

[Forge]

MSDOS 6.22
played all my games great and never crashed to the desktop

[Kathy]

3.1, 95, 98, ME lacked NTFS support, so screw those.

[♥Coraline♥]

Kathy, on 16 January 2014 - 07:24 PM, said:

3.1, 95, 98, ME lacked NTFS support, so screw those.

To me there was no real advantage at the time - it wasn't until 2000/XP that NTFS became a big deal. Have you used any of those? Ive used them all, and they did just fine on FAT32.

[Jimmy]

Dial V for Viper, on 16 January 2014 - 07:11 PM, said:

Trust me, you'll grow to appreciate Windows 7 more and more. Go ahead and drag one window to the absolute left of the screen. Now do it to the another window.

ISN'T THE UI AMAZING?!

I dunno, it's a neat feature. But I've always been the minimalist. I'd probably still be typing shit into terminals if modern tech wasn't forcing me otherwise.

[neoacix]

@Kathy
The only Windows that uses the "New Technology File System" before Windows 2000 was Windows NT, short for "new technology"... (yeah, Microsoft was realy creative with their names...)
...and these were operation systems for servers only, so they had no DirectX, no 3D-drivers for graphic cards and so one....

So basicly, you had to use Win95, 98, ME to get your shit running...

Dial V for Viper, on 16 January 2014 - 07:11 PM, said:

Trust me, you'll grow to appreciate Windows 7 more and more. Go ahead and drag one window to the absolute left of the screen. Now do it to the another window.

ISN'T THE UI AMAZING?!

Wanna see some real crazy UI?
Watch this, it's called compiz fusion and runs on linux:

And... it's fully customizable...

ELFDICK, on 16 January 2014 - 07:37 PM, said:

I dunno, it's a neat feature. But I've always been the minimalist. I'd probably still be typing shit into terminals if modern tech wasn't forcing me otherwise.

After playing a lot with different UI, I also went back to basics, but one thing I never ever wanna miss again:
2 monitors on 1 PC!

[Radar]

ELFDICK, on 16 January 2014 - 07:37 PM, said:

I dunno, it's a neat feature. But I've always been the minimalist. I'd probably still be typing shit into terminals if modern tech wasn't forcing me otherwise.

LOL, awesome. I'd probably do that too. I'm in a CCNA class right now, and if you know the commands, typing into terminals can be real fun.

[MusicallyInspired]

Fond memories of Win 3.1x era. Those were the days. Boot disks, as true Dos mode as you can get, all the best games worked as they were supposed to. 3.1x itself was terrible for most games and applications, though. But it was the least obtrusive Windows ever.

98SE wasn't as stable as 95, but it had more drivers and more support so I used it more. Lesser of two evils. There was still true Dos mode. Only problem was the bad legacy emulation of Adlib for the PCI Sound Blasters.

XP was a fixed 2000. More stable again. I skipped ME and 2000, the worst of either style of Windows (on top of Dos and independent of Dos). The loss of Dos was sad and inevitable and Vdmsound was trash for emulating sound in Dos prompt mode, but eventually we had great versions of Dosbox to fill that gap. It was one of the most stable Windows experiences I'd had due to the way it handles crashes.

Windows 7 was a nice step up from XP (and of course Vista). Even more stable, even better crash handling, and looked nicer. Not much else to say. I'll be using it for a good while.

Compiz was a lot of fun. I remember my excitement when I finally found decent drivers for my ATI card and could finally use it! A seemingly impossible feat. What a joyous day that was.

[Inspector Lagomorf]

I pretty much give props to Win3.1, 95, 98SE, and 7 for the reasons stated above in previous posts.

If there was an OS on that list I could designated as "absolute least favorite", that would go to Windows 8. Yes, I have tried it. No, I will not try it again. I'm waiting for Windows Threshold.

[Radar]

I'm another one of those guys that never understood the hate against ME. I had an ME computer for a couple years and I liked what it could do for the hardware I was sucking it dry with.

[Kathy]

Coryyne, on 16 January 2014 - 07:28 PM, said:

To me there was no real advantage at the time - it wasn't until 2000/XP that NTFS became a big deal. Have you used any of those? Ive used them all, and they did just fine on FAT32.

I've used all of them except ME. Sure, I never even knew back then why ntfs was better, but now I have to deal with the whole concept of software demanding admin privileges to run. And part of the reason was the way MS handled home versions of Windows with the lack of NTFS support.

dpax, on 16 January 2014 - 07:38 PM, said:

@KathyThe only Windows that uses the "New Technology File System" before Windows 2000 was Windows NT, short for "new technology"... (yeah, Microsoft was realy creative with their names...)...and these were operation systems for servers only, so they had no DirectX, no 3D-drivers for graphic cards and so one....

They should have included NTFS into the 'client' versions.

[Jeff]

I don't remember much of the older OSes, but of the ones I've used:

Windows 7 would be the best. I would try Windows 8.1, but some of my software doesn't run as well on it as Windows 7. Might be because its old software or something.

I recently upgraded to Windows 7 Professional from Home Premium, and it seems to be more stable. Explorer was acting up a lot, but I don't get that with Professional. Not sure if the more expensive versions of Windows are better (eg. XP Home vs Pro. Windows 7 Home vs Pro), but seems that way for me.

[Kathy]

Jeff, on 17 January 2014 - 09:01 AM, said:

I recently upgraded to Windows 7 Professional from Home Premium, and it seems to be more stable. Explorer was acting up a lot, but I don't get that with Professional. Not sure if the more expensive versions of Windows are better (eg. XP Home vs Pro. Windows 7 Home vs Pro), but seems that way for me.

They just have more features, but everything else is the same. If you had problems with explorer then it was surely not because of the version.

[Paul B]

Jeff, on 17 January 2014 - 09:01 AM, said:

I don't remember much of the older OSes, but of the ones I've used:

Windows 7 would be the best. I would try Windows 8.1, but some of my software doesn't run as well on it as Windows 7. Might be because its old software or something.

I recently upgraded to Windows 7 Professional from Home Premium, and it seems to be more stable. Explorer was acting up a lot, but I don't get that with Professional. Not sure if the more expensive versions of Windows are better (eg. XP Home vs Pro. Windows 7 Home vs Pro), but seems that way for me.

There is no real difference in terms of stability between Windows 7 HP and Windows Pro. They are essentially the same cookie cutter OS with some features disabled or hidden from running on the Home version. The Parent version of Windows 7 Pro would be Server 2008 R2.

[TerminX]

I don't feel like reading this whole thread, but I like Windows 8.1 a lot. If you ignore/tweak/disable the bullshit, you end up with an improved Windows 7--not a bad thing at all, imo. Sure, I had to spend about as much as you might spend on lunch to buy a few apps (StartIsBack and ModernMix come to mind), but overall the OS really isn't bad. There are a lot of really useful tweak utilities at http://winaero.com/ that help a lot.

[Kathy]

Win 8's window interface is way better that Aero. It is flat, straight and plain.

[Person of Color]

I like the frosted glass look of 7 much more. Windows 8 is fucking boring to look at.

[Paul B]

Dial V for Viper, on 17 January 2014 - 12:44 PM, said:

I like the frosted glass look of 7 much more. Windows 8 is fucking boring to look at.

From what I have seen of Windows 8 which is mostly on the service side of things when something goes wrong with Windows 8 it usually requires a format Re-install. I have yet to see the Windows 8 Microsoft Restore Point / Windows Refresh or Windows Reset actually work as intended. These features typically aren't useful in the Windows 8 Start-up Recovery using a Windows 8 DVD. If your PC no longer loads windows, don't count on these features too much.

With Windows XP that operating system could ALWAYS be repaired regardless of how screwed up it gets without the need of a Format Re-install. As for Windows 7, I don't recall having too many issues by having to do a repair installs via the in place upgrade option.

Moral of the story, just don't break Windows 8 and you should be fine. To give windows 8 some credit at least these newer systems offer secure boot and GPT partitions which make MBR rootkit infections impossible which would cripple a windows 7 or XP PC making Windows 8-64 way more resilient against malware infections which is a good because I'm getting tired of removing them.

On a personal level I am planning on skipping Windows 8 entirely and I'm hoping the cure for ease of use will be found in Windows 9 come April 2015. Time will tell, sooner or later, time will tell.

[Hank]

My favorite Windows OS is Windows 7, right after I learned how simple it is to get it working faster.

Windows 8 is OK, but will never enter my number one spot. Even MS noticed the sluggish sales for 8.
But here is hoping for 9.
http://www.geek.com/...ggests-1582492/

[TerminX]

Paul B, on 17 January 2014 - 02:36 PM, said:

From what I have seen of Windows 8 which is mostly on the service side of things when something goes wrong with Windows 8 it usually requires a format Re-install.

I haven't seen anything like that after a bit over a year experience with 8 at this point. You can do all kinds of things with the 8 recovery system...

[Forge]

TerminX, on 18 January 2014 - 02:10 AM, said:

I haven't seen anything like that after a bit over a year experience with 8 at this point. You can do all kinds of things with the 8 recovery system...

this

out of the box i prefer win 7 over 8 based on user interface.
as much as i liked my XP, these versions seem to take much more of a beating before they start to lose stability

[Radar]

My favorite was Vista.













Kidding. I've been using XP ever since it came out. Yes yes, I know it's extremely unsecure and it's not as supported as it used to be, but it will forever hold a place in my heart. I'll upgrade when absolutely nothing works for it anymore. XP till i die baby.