What after XP?

[gaz]

Personally I wouldn't rate it as highly as that.

System Restore was innovative, as was the principle of using wizards for
complex tasks, and the philosophy of including a much greater driver
database built in.

I havent come across a winme machine for at least twelve months, still
encounter 98se now and then though.

Gaz

 

[Conor]

98 - OK

98 rubbish, 98SE OK.

Win2k OK...

XP - OK
Vista - More kak
7 - Looks to be OK

Anyone see the pattern here?
And I know I left out NT and 2K, but they were intended more for commercial
use.

More importantly, they prove you wrong.

 

[gaz]

Just bought a Dell with Vista Home Premium.

Out of the stalls it carried out the final load very quickly. I did
not need to use the networking wizard to log on to tinternet, it
picked up my router into which I punched my pass key and it updated
itself to the latest patches. Without any input from me it found my 3
other XP machines to complete my home network. I then used the
network wizard to set up printing to a Canon printer attached to my
main XP SP3 machine without any fuss whatsoever.

I suppose in all about 45 minutes work.

So as far as my experience goes Vista Home Premium has been problem
free.

I unpacked a dell laptop about three weeks ago with vista home premium, out
of the box it had about three to four errors that caused start up glitches
and required troubleshooting.

Gaz

 

[Conor]

Apart from pre sp2 lacking in even the most basic security...

And Pre SP1 being as bad as Vista pre-SP1.

 

[Conor]

This is true, it's just that it had the unfortunate habit of falling over every
ten minutes.

47.9 day reboot....

 

[Conor]

I unpacked a dell laptop about three weeks ago with vista home premium, out
of the box it had about three to four errors that caused start up glitches
and required troubleshooting.

Most of that down to all the bundled shite they put on.

 

[XP-dinaosur]

Well Windows Vista is demonstrably horrid .. Windows7 has yet
to be convicted, but might turn out to be even worse. Who can
tell. XP is still much the best option, except it isn't an
option unless you are a corporate customer, or install the OS
yourself....

If you're going to climb a learning curve I guess you might as
well do it with Win7 though. I mean it =could= be worse than
Vista, but it is hard to imagine.

Someone said Win7 is officially released later this week. Everyone
seems to talk of Win7 as if they have been using it a while. They
must have been talking about a beta version.

 

[XP-dinosaur]

The only thing that put me off about Vista was how bloated it
was and how unpredictable it was at times. It also had IPv6 on
permanently, but not one router or software firewall I used
could ever deal with IPv6 so users were left wide open to those
knowing how to bypass the firewall. The same will happen with
Win7, IPv6 is on permanently. At least with XP you have to
tell the computer to use it and are safe with the default
setting of it being switched off. Windows 7 is just a fix for
Vista. All the problems reported to Microsoft by Vista users
have been corrected and instead of yet another service pack it
has been renamed Windows 7.

I was going to wait until Win7 stabilised but from what you say
about Win7 being a sort of service pack for Vista then there's
probably no real need to wait. Is this a correct understanding?

 

[harikeo]

Someone said Win7 is officially released later this week. Everyone
seems to talk of Win7 as if they have been using it a while. They
must have been talking about a beta version.

I've been using it for a year in beta and had the RTM installed since
August as have a lot of people.

 

[XP-dinosaur]

Vista is obsolete, Win7 launches in 4 days - and it makes up a
lot of the deficiencies in Vista.

PC ads seemed to suggest Win7 was an established option. If Win7
isn't officially announced then I guess the vendors were just taking
advance orders. Or has the OEM version of Win7 been out some time?

 

[Grinder]

Vista should never have been released. Is there anyone anywhere that can
honestly say that the world would not have been a better place if MS had
skipped vista and went straight for Windows 7?

Windows 7 really /is/ Vista, just with some of annoyances filed down.
Without all the bad press from Vista, Windows 7 would never have been
released so quickly, or with as much sensitivity to users' complaints.

I did, however, "skipped Vista and went straight for Windows 7."

 

[Jeff Gaines]

PC ads seemed to suggest Win7 was an established option. If Win7
isn't officially announced then I guess the vendors were just taking
advance orders. Or has the OEM version of Win7 been out some time?

Manufacturers have had access to it for perhaps 4-8 weeks along with
places like MSDN.

 

[Jeff Gaines]

Someone said Win7 is officially released later this week. Everyone
seems to talk of Win7 as if they have been using it a while. They
must have been talking about a beta version.

MSFT made the release candidate available for public down-load for a
while. It expires around next Spring.

 

[Mad Ad]

Manufacturers have had access to it for perhaps 4-8 weeks along with
places like MSDN.

yeah its just us plebs waiting the last few days till the official pleb
launch date...anyone that mattered got it weeks or months ago.

Ad

 

[Mad Ad]

And Pre SP1 being as bad as Vista pre-SP1.

and being what, 8 years old now?


Ad

 

[Dr Zoidberg]

Someone said Win7 is officially released later this week. Everyone
seems to talk of Win7 as if they have been using it a while. They
must have been talking about a beta version.

No , I have a full and finished version on a genuine disk direct from
microsoft entirely legitimately.

 

[Tony Houghton]

System Restore was innovative, as was the principle of using wizards for
complex tasks, and the philosophy of including a much greater driver
database built in.

And you stood a fair chance of installing 3rd party drivers without
messy crashes, which was a big improvement over 98. I only had the
original 98 though, maybe SE was a lot better.

 

[~misfit~]

I still have a copy of ME "full retail" from the M$ "Candy Store"
(favor from a friend who works for M$) somewhere around. It's been
installed ONCE (see below).

I was running 98SE at the time, but always have been collecting
various M$ generic OEM OS packs "just for the hell of it" . One was
Win 2K.
Just for a lark, I took both ME and 2K for a test trip one day on a
spare hard drive.

The machine was a DFI ATX mobo with a K6/III-450, other than that it
was pretty much standard stuff. I zero'ed the HD each time, so as to
avoid any MBR glitches

ME ?
I tried installing it TWICE, both times it fell over (at different
points) in the install. I gave up.

Win2K installed on first pass, and everything worked. I did have to
do a few drivers that were 2K specific.. but it was a piece of cake.

But, there were a number of websites that were devoted to tweaking the
hell out of 98SE at the time. One of the most popular ones was making
a "Frankenstein OS" out of the best parts of 98, 98SE, and ME, with
other stuff gleaned elsewhere.

One variant of that "Frankenstein OS" actually used the ME core (with
tweaks) and got a lot of traction on the forums at the time.

I have an old Dell Latitude CPi-A laptop that's running one of said
'Frankenstein' OS's. It's 98SE2ME. It uses mostly 98SE but adds in a few of
the things that ME did better. It works surprisingly well. Very reliable and
crash-free, handles USB2 and WiFi PC Cards....

That said, to the OP; Get W7.

 

[Philip Herlihy]

With friends like that who needs enemies...as they say...

Over the years I installed ME on several machines without any problems
at install time or later. I wouldn't choose it over XP, but it was a
big improvement on W98SE, as I found it.

Phil

 

[Dr Zoidberg]

All I remember about it was constantly reaching for the reset button
(which frequently didn't work)..cold reset required. Can't remember what
hardware I was usually using in that era.

That was the era of bargain basement cheap crap components from dodgy white
vans at computer fairs.
I wouldn't be surprised if a fair chunk of the issues were as a result of
using dire hardware.

Me never really gave me any major issues and didn't seem worse than 98se