Who liked windows 98 back when it came out? POLL

[GreenMonkey]

This link19 dude is funny. Every post has the words "POS OS" in it. This thread provided a good 15-20 minutes of amusement

98SE was a very decent OS. XP is about the same. Most Microsoft OSes all suck about equally - maybe Windows ME sucked a little bit more.

 

[Stumps]

Originally posted by: GreenMonkey
This link19 dude is funny. Every post has the words "POS OS" in it. This thread provided a good 15-20 minutes of amusement

98SE was a very decent OS. XP is about the same. Most Microsoft OSes all suck about equally - maybe Windows ME sucked a little bit more.

Link IS entitled to his opinion...no matter how misguided it maybe, but maybe he should just stop trying to force it on to every one else....there is no need to have POS OS repeated in every post...we get the message...you don't like win9x...but in reality, his opinion really just counts for nothing, he can't change the past so really the way I see things is his rambling is completely pointless

Link if you use the fact that Win2k was a 32bit OS so it is fine, then is pretty clear that you have never used Win2k before SP2, I still have an OEM Win2k pre SP1, it is a pretty nasty OS when it is just left in this configuration, sure later service packs fixed it and it is a good OS NOW..but it was a pathetic attemp at an OS when it first came out...Win98SE WAS miles better and far more stable.

I can remember my first attemp at switching from 98SE to 2K...I gave up after 5 days of frustration because of major software and hardware incompatibilities, I didn't try it agian until SP3 was released...it was fine then and ran fine on the same hardware that pre SP1 had failed on...so your point on win2k being a 32bit OS which made it "fine" is moot...many people agree with me on this point, Win2k was barely better than ME in it's first release...and miles behind 98SE.

But I'm not a Win2K hater...in fact I like it quite a bit.....once sp3 is installed(I now have a geniune SP4 OEM edition...it's pretty good).

 

[Link19]

Link IS entitled to his opinion...no matter how misguided it maybe, but maybe he should just stop trying to force it on to every one else....there is no need to have POS OS repeated in every post...we get the message...you don't like win9x...but in reality, his opinion really just counts for nothing, he can't change the past so really the way I see things is his rambling is completely pointless

Link if you use the fact that Win2k was a 32bit OS so it is fine, then is pretty clear that you have never used Win2k before SP2, I still have an OEM Win2k pre SP1, it is a pretty nasty OS when it is just left in this configuration, sure later service packs fixed it and it is a good OS NOW..but it was a pathetic attemp at an OS when it first came out...Win98SE WAS miles better and far more stable.

I can remember my first attemp at switching from 98SE to 2K...I gave up after 5 days of frustration because of major software and hardware incompatibilities, I didn't try it agian until SP3 was released...it was fine then and ran fine on the same hardware that pre SP1 had failed on...so your point on win2k being a 32bit OS which made it "fine" is moot...many people agree with me on this point, Win2k was barely better than ME in it's first release...and miles behind 98SE.

But I'm not a Win2K hater...in fact I like it quite a bit.....once sp3 is installed(I now have a geniune SP4 OEM edition...it's pretty good).

That would be like saying an Eagle Summit had far less problems than an untested Lexus ES that had loads of problems upon its first release. It still doesn't change the fact that Windows 98 is a cheap, low end, low performance OS and Windows 2K is a solid high end, high performance OS. It just needed some tune ups because it was released unready, just as if a Lexus ES were released wtihout thorough testing and were unready.

 

[Link19]

The results of this poll make me barf. They only continue to get worse and worse.:| :| :| :|

Face the technical facts. OS/2 WARP, Solaris, BSD, Linux, and a light stripped down low resource usage Windows NT based OS (if only devs actually wrote lots of native applications for anyone of these operating systems and wrote an easy to use GUI for the masses for even just one of these operating systems), would have eaisly blown POS Windows 95/98/ME out of the water any day back in the 1990s.

All thanks to Microsoft and other relevant market forces, the worst OS kernel compared to all others released since 1994 was the only choice for most consumers back in the 1990s. :| :| :|

 

[MOCKBA1]

I tried many OSes like Win2K, XP, Linux and even Mac OS. So gues what? Right WIndows 98 is a clear winner. I use it since 97. It's fast, relaibale. light OS. I hope some other company will create something such good as WIndows 98 in 23rd centurary. I'll celebrate 10 years of 98 in next year. Do you want to join me?

PS I know secret of 98.

 

[Maximilian]

Originally posted by: Link19
The results of this poll make me barf. They only continue to get worse and worse.:| :| :| :|

Face the technical facts. OS/2 WARP, Solaris, BSD, Linux, and a light stripped down low resource usage Windows NT based OS (if only devs actually wrote lots of native applications for anyone of these operating systems and wrote an easy to use GUI for the masses for even just one of these operating systems), would have eaisly blown POS Windows 95/98/ME out of the water any day back in the 1990s.

All thanks to Microsoft and other relevant market forces, the worst OS kernel compared to all others released since 1994 was the only choice for most consumers back in the 1990s. :| :| :|

Yep, ive been quietly watching your percentage getting pushed from 13% to 11% in the poll Warms my heart to see that so many people like windows 98.

Originally posted by: MOCKBA1
I tried many OSes like Win2K, XP, Linux and even Mac OS. So gues what? Right WIndows 98 is a clear winner. I use it since 97. It's fast, relaibale. light OS. I hope some other company will create something such good as WIndows 98 in 23rd centurary. I'll celebrate 10 years of 98 in next year. Do you want to join me?

PS I know secret of 98.

Hell yea! Long live 98! Good year, good OS, i made a windows 98 day a week or so ago, to celebrate the longevity of this great OS.

Share the secret of 98!, you are amongst windows 98 fans here. In fact, im going to start a windows 98 fan club!

 

[Maximilian]

Started a windows 98 fan club. Sign up here and declare your fondness of windows 98.

 

[Link19]

Originally posted by: MOCKBA1
I tried many OSes like Win2K, XP, Linux and even Mac OS. So gues what? Right WIndows 98 is a clear winner. I use it since 97. It's fast, relaibale. light OS. I hope some other company will create something such good as WIndows 98 in 23rd centurary. I'll celebrate 10 years of 98 in next year. Do you want to join me?

PS I know secret of 98.

That is so untrue. Windows 98 is the clear loser. All the othyer opertaing systems blow POS Windows 98/ME out of the water

At least the other are true 32-bit operating systems and not some Windows Manager on top of 640KB memory limited DOS which is all POS Windows 98/ME were.

I want to see at least 20 votes for hating Windows 98.

Windows 98 was only good enough at its time because people knew of nothing else. It is not because it was really the best thing there could have been.

 

[Fox5]

Originally posted by: drag

yeah the MacOS was and is pretty good...just a pity about the hardware it used to run on

Why? The hardware was better in almost every conceivable way when compared to x86 stuff at the time.

You had multi channel high quality audio. Serial ports that were fast and reliable. Faster cpu, better graphics. SCSI harddrives. etc etc.

Why do you think it was more expensive?

It wasn't until x86 cpus started getting up to 1ghz or so when they started getting faster then the powermac stuff. Now the reason why macs are still more expensive is a marketting thing.

Mac hardware has been basically a PC with a different cpu since 1997, and the PC was better than the Mac hardware in every way by sometime in 1999 and has stayed that way ever since. (ok, sometimes the Mac can equal the PC hardware, but Apple hasn't been "think different" in quite a long time and it's kind of hard to surpass PC hardware when you're just implementing it...the G5 may have been better at some tasks at release, but Apple's lack of a high performance chipset for it really killed any performance wins it could have had in pretty much all but synthetic benchmarks)

XP was so much better than the 9x systems, my 9x systems crashed far too often, and really, as soon as you start loading any complex software onto it (such as all that crap you find common in systrays on computers now), it dies a horrible death.

t is a technical fcat that Windows 98 is a cheap, low end, low performance OS. Windows NT/2000/XP/2003, Linux, Unix variants, Solaris, OS/2 WARP are all high quality high performance operating systems.

It is not a technical fact, Windows 98 is higher performance than all those operating systems, sometimes by a large margin. 98 leaves the most free cpu time and memory for applications to run, and has the least memory restrictions. It's still the crappiest OS, but generally the better the OS, the lower its performance and the higher its system requirements. (well, 98 may get beat at some networking code or something, but it obviously wasn't designed to be able to do that well, but most applications don't depend on the OS for anything that performance intensive so having the least restrictions and the lowest requirements makes 98 the fastest OS of the bunch to run apps on)

 

[Link19]

It is not a technical fact, Windows 98 is higher performance than all those operating systems, sometimes by a large margin. 98 leaves the most free cpu time and memory for applications to run, and has the least memory restrictions. It's still the crappiest OS, but generally the better the OS, the lower its performance and the higher its system requirements. (well, 98 may get beat at some networking code or something, but it obviously wasn't designed to be able to do that well, but most applications don't depend on the OS for anything that performance intensive so having the least restrictions and the lowest requirements makes 98 the fastest OS of the bunch to run apps on)

NO IT IS NOT!! High end operating systems can take advanatge of faster hardware and maximize performance. POS Windows 98/ME can NOT!!! Linux is far more high performing than POS Windows 98/ME could ever dream of being!!! Even Windows 2000/XP are as well!!

 

[Jlo555]

Alright Link, I'm done with you. You really need some serious help; perhaps I could recommend an excellent psycologist, you really need it. I think you were one of those people that just got traumatized at the site of the "general protection fault" message in the BSOD. Now you're out to get back at the loyal users of such a "POS OS". Everyone's entitled to an opinion, although I think your "opinions" are really more just strong obsessions. You have Windows 98 rants in your signature for Christ sake! In your mind, you are winning the argument (though the poll begs to differ), in the minds of the Win98 users, we won the argument a long time ago because you keep arguing the same crap. I've at least managed to pull a couple new facts out of my ass.
So, to wrap it up: Link19, you are full of crap, you need medical help, don't argue with the loyal win9x users and we won't argue with you! It's simple and easy!

 

[spherrod]

I thought this thread was going to die.....

 

[Fox5]

Originally posted by: Link19

It is not a technical fact, Windows 98 is higher performance than all those operating systems, sometimes by a large margin. 98 leaves the most free cpu time and memory for applications to run, and has the least memory restrictions. It's still the crappiest OS, but generally the better the OS, the lower its performance and the higher its system requirements. (well, 98 may get beat at some networking code or something, but it obviously wasn't designed to be able to do that well, but most applications don't depend on the OS for anything that performance intensive so having the least restrictions and the lowest requirements makes 98 the fastest OS of the bunch to run apps on)

NO IT IS NOT!! High end operating systems can take advanatge of faster hardware and maximize performance. POS Windows 98/ME can NOT!!! Linux is far more high performing than POS Windows 98/ME could ever dream of being!!! Even Windows 2000/XP are as well!!

How exactly are they taking advantage of faster hardware? Unless you're talking about 64 bit support or larger ram sizes, I can't really see what they're taking advantage of. There's definetely SCSI drivers for 98.

98 was crap due to instability and lack of security, but slow it was not, it's actually a rather minimalist OS compared to the bloated OSes of current day.

 

[Link19]

Originally posted by: Fox5

Originally posted by: Link19

It is not a technical fact, Windows 98 is higher performance than all those operating systems, sometimes by a large margin. 98 leaves the most free cpu time and memory for applications to run, and has the least memory restrictions. It's still the crappiest OS, but generally the better the OS, the lower its performance and the higher its system requirements. (well, 98 may get beat at some networking code or something, but it obviously wasn't designed to be able to do that well, but most applications don't depend on the OS for anything that performance intensive so having the least restrictions and the lowest requirements makes 98 the fastest OS of the bunch to run apps on)

NO IT IS NOT!! High end operating systems can take advanatge of faster hardware and maximize performance. POS Windows 98/ME can NOT!!! Linux is far more high performing than POS Windows 98/ME could ever dream of being!!! Even Windows 2000/XP are as well!!

How exactly are they taking advantage of faster hardware? Unless you're talking about 64 bit support or larger ram sizes, I can't really see what they're taking advantage of. There's definetely SCSI drivers for 98.

98 was crap due to instability and lack of security, but slow it was not, it's actually a rather minimalist OS compared to the bloated OSes of current day.

That's not true. Just because an OS takes more resources to run does not mean it is slower. Yes, if you run it on the slowest system with the minimum amount of RAM required for it to run, then it wil be slow. But with a decent amount of RAM and a 500MHz or faster CPU, Windows XP will always be faster than POS Windows 98/ME.

 

[Link19]

Originally posted by: Jlo555
Alright Link, I'm done with you. You really need some serious help; perhaps I could recommend an excellent psycologist, you really need it. I think you were one of those people that just got traumatized at the site of the "general protection fault" message in the BSOD. Now you're out to get back at the loyal users of such a "POS OS". Everyone's entitled to an opinion, although I think your "opinions" are really more just strong obsessions. You have Windows 98 rants in your signature for Christ sake! In your mind, you are winning the argument (though the poll begs to differ), in the minds of the Win98 users, we won the argument a long time ago because you keep arguing the same crap. I've at least managed to pull a couple new facts out of my ass.
So, to wrap it up: Link19, you are full of crap, you need medical help, don't argue with the loyal win9x users and we won't argue with you! It's simple and easy!

You need some serious help because you still insist on using a 16-bit OS for your everyday computing.

 

[Fox5]

Originally posted by: Link19

Originally posted by: Fox5

Originally posted by: Link19

It is not a technical fact, Windows 98 is higher performance than all those operating systems, sometimes by a large margin. 98 leaves the most free cpu time and memory for applications to run, and has the least memory restrictions. It's still the crappiest OS, but generally the better the OS, the lower its performance and the higher its system requirements. (well, 98 may get beat at some networking code or something, but it obviously wasn't designed to be able to do that well, but most applications don't depend on the OS for anything that performance intensive so having the least restrictions and the lowest requirements makes 98 the fastest OS of the bunch to run apps on)

NO IT IS NOT!! High end operating systems can take advanatge of faster hardware and maximize performance. POS Windows 98/ME can NOT!!! Linux is far more high performing than POS Windows 98/ME could ever dream of being!!! Even Windows 2000/XP are as well!!

How exactly are they taking advantage of faster hardware? Unless you're talking about 64 bit support or larger ram sizes, I can't really see what they're taking advantage of. There's definetely SCSI drivers for 98.

98 was crap due to instability and lack of security, but slow it was not, it's actually a rather minimalist OS compared to the bloated OSes of current day.

That's not true. Just because an OS takes more resources to run does not mean it is slower. Yes, if you run it on the slowest system with the minimum amount of RAM required for it to run, then it wil be slow. But with a decent amount of RAM and a 500MHz or faster CPU, Windows XP will always be faster than POS Windows 98/ME.

Benchmarks when XP came out showed it was slower than 98, sometimes significantly so, across the board. If that situation has changed, then it is likely due to outdated/nonexistant drivers for 98.
Increase ram requirements could make a system faster once those ram requirements are met, but there's no reason an OS that requires a 500mhz cpu will suddenly get much faster when it gets a 600mhz cpu or much slower when it gets a 450mhz cpu. The only reason ram will cause a stepping effect is due to the harddrive swapping that occurs when there isn't enough system ram.

 

[Link19]

Originally posted by: Fox5

Originally posted by: Link19

Originally posted by: Fox5

Originally posted by: Link19

It is not a technical fact, Windows 98 is higher performance than all those operating systems, sometimes by a large margin. 98 leaves the most free cpu time and memory for applications to run, and has the least memory restrictions. It's still the crappiest OS, but generally the better the OS, the lower its performance and the higher its system requirements. (well, 98 may get beat at some networking code or something, but it obviously wasn't designed to be able to do that well, but most applications don't depend on the OS for anything that performance intensive so having the least restrictions and the lowest requirements makes 98 the fastest OS of the bunch to run apps on)

NO IT IS NOT!! High end operating systems can take advanatge of faster hardware and maximize performance. POS Windows 98/ME can NOT!!! Linux is far more high performing than POS Windows 98/ME could ever dream of being!!! Even Windows 2000/XP are as well!!

How exactly are they taking advantage of faster hardware? Unless you're talking about 64 bit support or larger ram sizes, I can't really see what they're taking advantage of. There's definetely SCSI drivers for 98.

98 was crap due to instability and lack of security, but slow it was not, it's actually a rather minimalist OS compared to the bloated OSes of current day.

That's not true. Just because an OS takes more resources to run does not mean it is slower. Yes, if you run it on the slowest system with the minimum amount of RAM required for it to run, then it wil be slow. But with a decent amount of RAM and a 500MHz or faster CPU, Windows XP will always be faster than POS Windows 98/ME.

Benchmarks when XP came out showed it was slower than 98, sometimes significantly so, across the board. If that situation has changed, then it is likely due to outdated/nonexistant drivers for 98.
Increase ram requirements could make a system faster once those ram requirements are met, but there's no reason an OS that requires a 500mhz cpu will suddenly get much faster when it gets a 600mhz cpu or much slower when it gets a 450mhz cpu. The only reason ram will cause a stepping effect is due to the harddrive swapping that occurs when there isn't enough system ram.

Those benchmarks were only on systems with slow CPUs and less than 128MB of RAM.

 

[Fox5]

Originally posted by: Link19

Originally posted by: Fox5

Originally posted by: Link19

Originally posted by: Fox5

Originally posted by: Link19

It is not a technical fact, Windows 98 is higher performance than all those operating systems, sometimes by a large margin. 98 leaves the most free cpu time and memory for applications to run, and has the least memory restrictions. It's still the crappiest OS, but generally the better the OS, the lower its performance and the higher its system requirements. (well, 98 may get beat at some networking code or something, but it obviously wasn't designed to be able to do that well, but most applications don't depend on the OS for anything that performance intensive so having the least restrictions and the lowest requirements makes 98 the fastest OS of the bunch to run apps on)

NO IT IS NOT!! High end operating systems can take advanatge of faster hardware and maximize performance. POS Windows 98/ME can NOT!!! Linux is far more high performing than POS Windows 98/ME could ever dream of being!!! Even Windows 2000/XP are as well!!

How exactly are they taking advantage of faster hardware? Unless you're talking about 64 bit support or larger ram sizes, I can't really see what they're taking advantage of. There's definetely SCSI drivers for 98.

98 was crap due to instability and lack of security, but slow it was not, it's actually a rather minimalist OS compared to the bloated OSes of current day.

That's not true. Just because an OS takes more resources to run does not mean it is slower. Yes, if you run it on the slowest system with the minimum amount of RAM required for it to run, then it wil be slow. But with a decent amount of RAM and a 500MHz or faster CPU, Windows XP will always be faster than POS Windows 98/ME.

Benchmarks when XP came out showed it was slower than 98, sometimes significantly so, across the board. If that situation has changed, then it is likely due to outdated/nonexistant drivers for 98.
Increase ram requirements could make a system faster once those ram requirements are met, but there's no reason an OS that requires a 500mhz cpu will suddenly get much faster when it gets a 600mhz cpu or much slower when it gets a 450mhz cpu. The only reason ram will cause a stepping effect is due to the harddrive swapping that occurs when there isn't enough system ram.

Those benchmarks were only on systems with slow CPUs and less than 128MB of RAM.

Actually they were done with a beta version of XP with beta drivers, just like how Vista currently performs much worse than XP.
But I'm going to have to concede anyway. I found a system much beefier than you described, and ME gets rocked. And decreasing cpu speed and memory actually seems to push the benchmarks more in favor of XP.
http://techreport.com/reviews/2001q4/os/index.x?pg=1

 

[GreenMonkey]

Originally posted by: link19

That's not true. Just because an OS takes more resources to run does not mean it is slower. Yes, if you run it on the slowest system with the minimum amount of RAM required for it to run, then it wil be slow. But with a decent amount of RAM and a 500MHz or faster CPU, Windows XP will always be faster than POS Windows 98/ME.

HAHAHAHA. You should see how WinXP runs on my dad's old K6-2 450mhz system. I brought it up to 384MB and it still runs like hell the minute it gets any sort of stuff installed in the taskbar. It takes so long to boot and so long to clean up Windows that it's been sitting on the floor in my computer room for about 2months. I don't have the hours to dedicate to cleaning the damn thing of spyware. Last time it took me like 8 hours :thumbsdown:

I'd install Win98 on it if Microsoft still updated it. Win98 runs much better than XP on anything less than a higher end P3 or Athlon.

There's a guy over on hardforums trying to figure out how to get games that are prevented from installing on windows-xp to run on his Athlon64 X2 / Win 98 rig :laugh:

http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1070837

 

[icyroy05]

Loved 98 back when I use to run a 200mhz system up to about a year ago. Anything newer was slowwww.

 

[Stumps]

Link19 makes baby jesus cry

 

[Link19]

Originally posted by: GreenMonkey

Originally posted by: link19

That's not true. Just because an OS takes more resources to run does not mean it is slower. Yes, if you run it on the slowest system with the minimum amount of RAM required for it to run, then it wil be slow. But with a decent amount of RAM and a 500MHz or faster CPU, Windows XP will always be faster than POS Windows 98/ME.

HAHAHAHA. You should see how WinXP runs on my dad's old K6-2 450mhz system. I brought it up to 384MB and it still runs like hell the minute it gets any sort of stuff installed in the taskbar. It takes so long to boot and so long to clean up Windows that it's been sitting on the floor in my computer room for about 2months. I don't have the hours to dedicate to cleaning the damn thing of spyware. Last time it took me like 8 hours :thumbsdown:

I'd install Win98 on it if Microsoft still updated it. Win98 runs much better than XP on anything less than a higher end P3 or Athlon.

There's a guy over on hardforums trying to figure out how to get games that are prevented from installing on windows-xp to run on his Athlon64 X2 / Win 98 rig :laugh:

http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1070837

Yeah, but on a high end P3 or Athlon or higher, Windows XP is much faster than that turd OS called Windows 98/ME!!

 

[jlbenedict]

Windows 98 Second Edition FTW!!!

 

[Lemon law]

Maybe getting into this hot debate late----but win98 had its day and that day is thankfully gone. I have used most of the 9x Os's---and microsoft never got any of them right.
And for that matter never will get one right until they start out with a clean sheet of paper approach. They just cobble together old code that have minor updates and expect it to work.
After many added years of developement and much brute force, microsoft finally rolls out another OS that is far more bloated than its predecessor---but still a bug infested
monstosity they never will get around to ever fixing--but every once in a while they may patch something.---but the selling points are not a better OS--but rather an OS that will do a few new tricks while still running that legacy base of other windows programs.

But it is and will remain to a microsoft world until an OS comes down the pike that will run that vast base of already written windows programs. OS2 could have had a chance---but IBM is even slower and more inept than microsoft---and linux won't go mainstream until it can run windows code at full speed.--and also the huge base of legacy hardware Linux won't plug and play.--thats at least an area microsoft got right.

But I must say---win xp is the first GUI OS microsoft got remotely resembling right--------my old win 98 machine would periodically fail to boot---I would cure it by booting up in safe mode, going to device manager---and doing absolutely nothing in device manager. Then I could boot into windows fine--until the next time that happened. At least in win XP it boots, and keeps booting. As for Vista---at this point I see nothing it adds that I need. And as to windows---half my time is spent keeping the crap it lets in off my computer--at microsoft, computer security always seems to be an afterthought that needs fixed only after the problem becomes way past scandalous.

But I see nothing to look forward to in terms of a better future for a GUI OS.---until a serious windows alternative exists or the justice department finally breaks the microsoft OS monopoly apart by setting up competing microsoft divisions in the OS areas.

I sure don't see that OS coming from US efforts---but India and China could become major players if they devoted some commitment.

With Bill Gates now buying some mana for heaven---by giving away some of the money he ripped off you and me with his overcharges.

 

[Rangoric]

I liked Windows98 because it worked better then 95, and played the games I wanted to play. Although I did switch to Windows 2000 when it came out and still use it on my AMD K6 (either 133 or 266, can't remember offhand and it doesn't say) laptop with 98meg ram.

I'm not a fan of Linux. I've tried it various times, it just doesn't suit what I enjoy doing, and I haven't seen a developement GUI/Office combo that suits how I work for Linux.