Thinkpads Forum

I'd like some opinions -

I'm rebuidling my 600E 2645-8AU (128m) to give to my neice.
My other 600E runs Win2K but has 512m of memory. Runs fine.

I have Win2K on this one, but (obviously) it was much slower. Also, I'm having that nagging modem error.

Asking for opinions on installing Win98Se or Win2k. I know the big positive about Win2k is that it's still supported by Microsoft.

All advice accepted.

Thanks
Howie

2k on 128 is alright for a basic user, but you need to tell us, what will she use it for, that will help me answer your question

If you can get ahold of Windows XP (If you don't have a copy, then have lunch with the company IT guy), that'd probably be best. People like to say how worse XP is than 2000, but fact of the matter is that it takes a third the time to boot up, it's still under full support of Microsoft, it's more user friendly and it still has everything that Windows 2000 had. On my Athlon desktop, I used to have Win 2k and I eventually upgraded and XP ran so much better, smae thing happened with my friend on his ThinkPad i1200, which has 129mb RAM and a Celeron 500.

She's a basic user. I assume most of her time will be IMing, web browsing, and emailing (gmail). In that order

Also - writing resumes (MS Word).

Like I said - basic

Unfortunately - my company uses Win2k exclusively. Having lunch with the IT guy will only result in a deep discussion of the foolhardy users of XP.
I just love Corporate America.

In that case, I would say go with Windows 98 because it's so much simpler, but Windows 2000 will be the better choice since if she's as basic as you say, she won't know to set up all the security stuff that computers need nowadays.

Go with Windows 2000, but make sure that before giving it to her, you have all the system settings exactly as they need tob e for the machine to run well. Also make sure the system has all the updates and service packs installed. The more you do, the less chance you take of getting a phone call from her in the future asking you to guide her through something.

2000 will be more stable
98 will be more simple and faster

Your call

Howie wrote:She's a basic user. I assume most of her time will be IMing, web browsing, and emailing (gmail). In that order

Also - writing resumes (MS Word).

Like I said - basic

No-brainer Howie. 98Lite!

http://www.litepc.com/98lite.html

Regards,

James

I'm using 98se on my 600E 2645-8AU but with almost 300 Meg of ram

Do get all the IBM support disks (you can download the lot)

And when you find a file called APM2APM.REG (Note this is for 98se, don't know about 98, but do know it's needed in 98se) invoke it one time

Fixes a yellow exclamation point in the device manager hard drives section caused by a registry error

JHEM wrote:No-brainer Howie. 98Lite!

http://www.litepc.com/98lite.html

Regards,

James

I've got a question for you James, and anyone else who is using 98lite. I've got Windows ME on my 770 (installed with 98lite), but I had a really difficult time getting it to install. I kept getting the 98lite error message that SmartDrv did not load. I kept trying different boot disks for a couple of weeks, and finally it booted and evidently loaded himem.sys and installed fine.

Well, now I'm trying to install with 98lite on two additional desktop machines, and am having the same trouble. Only, this time I can't seem to find a boot disk that will work. I've tried downloading 95a, 95b, 98SE, ME all OEM and custom. Also made my own from systems running 98SE and ME. Even have a OEM IBM bootdisk. None of them seem to work for me. 98lite always tells me "SmartDrv did not load, try booting with a Windows boot disk next time."

What am I doing wrong? Is there something I need to do differently to make 98lite install?

This is just my opinion, and lets be clear---I liked '98, and still have some older machines that I use it on.

In this case, however, I think I'd recommend W2K, if not XP.

Her being able to make the eventual "forced" transfer from W2K to XP, or Vista, or Sunset, or whatever the latest next "all new" Microshaft product will be much easier.

Microsoft has ALREADY rolled back support for '98, and it sounds like it's coming up for sure.

I would think that with the number of Business's using W2K, that Microshaft will have a hard time dropping W2K support anytime soon.

ME is as far as I'm concerned, dead out of the chute.

I agree that XP is prabably a better choice for an OS, if you have the hardware to support it. But my thinkpad has a PII 233Mhz CPU and 160MB RAM, with a 4GB HDD, so you can clearly see why I was looking to install 98lite. And I like it a lot BTW. That's why I'm trying to use it on another system.

Anyway, I'm still looking for some help with 98lite installation, if anyone has enough experience to shed some light on my problem.

Maybe I should have started my own thread instead of highjacking this one, because I think the originator of the thread has probably long since solved their issues. It was almost a year ago after all.

On older machines I would try and stay away from XP,there's too much eye candy,etc. so XP will run slower on an older computer..

I have a T23,1.13 CPU,512 Ram and XP on it...My wife has a T23 with the same specs except hers has Win2000 and 256 RAM... Her machine is 'snappier' then my T23..

Windows/pages open and close quicker on her machine..XP is alright,even on a 600 series it will run.. I just think WIN2000 is 'better' and has a better feel on older machines..

You have to separate Eye Candy from XP Basics. The machine in question is probably a bit slow to run XP. But with respect to eye candy, just get rid of it. In My Computer -> Properties -> Advanced -> Performance, click on adjust for best performance, and the eye candy will be gone. There is one custom setting you need in there (Smooth edges of screen fonts) to allow Clear Type. But you can speed up a slow machine by the above action. My own machine is indestinguishable from Windows 2000 in look and feel except for Clear Type. ... JD Hurst

you can still have some eye candy (the blue and green look) but by removing all other visual enhancments I also find XP indistinguishable, if not faster than Win 2k. Your daughter will appreciate XP more as it will be what all her mates, schools computers will use. I like XP because of the easier networking.

Another vote for XP. It's so much easier to install new devices (e.g. USB flash drives), because it comes with many drivers. For Windows 98SE, you usually need to download the drivers and install them manually.

I have eComStation 1.1 on my T23 and eComStation 1.2 on my A22m. They work great. http://www.ecomstation.com

Since it is an older computer, OS/2 Warp ver 4 might work better. One might get a copy of it at eBay (with installation diskettes and cd).

There is also FreeDOS and OpenGEM.
http://www.freedos.org

I bought OS/2 Warp 4 to install on my 600X (along with 98SE, 2000 Pro, BeOSand two varieties of Linux!).

It doesn't understand hard drives bigger than 8.4 Gb IIRC. There is a patch but it's not for the novice. I can't be more accurate as I haven't got around to doing it myself yet.

I partitioned the hard drives that I have used with eComStaition; the upgraded version of OS/2. I Have it on a 80 gigabyte hard drive (partitioned into three - c: d: and e:). On my Tinkpad T23 with 40 gigabyte hard drive, it is partitioned into two; c: and d: . The c: drive is 4 gigabyte and the others are the rest of the drive. It works for me.

http://www.ecomstation.com

I believe they are working on a bootable JFS for OS/2-eCS. I think it is at Netlabs; http://www.netlabs.org . I believe JFS allows for bigger partitions that OS/2-eCS can boot from.

My drive's only 20 Gb. I bought it thinking it would be plenty big enough but regretted it immediately afterwards.

It's already partitioned with 98 and 2K in primaries and BeOS and the Linuxes in logical drives. I left a primary to install OS/2 but when I booted from the CD it didn't recognise there was a drive present. I downloaded the updated boot files from IBM but that's as far as I've got.

It would probably be a good idea to get a bigger drive anyway before I start.

Heck Ken, with so many OSes installed no wonder a 20GB isn't big enough!!

Howie, I'm running XP-Pro on a 128MB 600E. It boots a little slow, but runs faster than Win98SE once it boots up. I installed using the custom setting then reviewed EVERYTHING. I took out everything I knew I wouldn't need and/or could do without. No wallpaper or themes and such. It runs great with no problems. It will run better with more memory, but will run fine with 128K.

I first installed 98SE then decided the original 5GB HD wasn't big enough. Since I was swapping HDs, I decided to try XP-Pro just for kicks. It surprised me, running much faster than 98SE.

If I could think of more OS's I'd install 'em, just to prove I can.

A previous comment remarked on the ease of networking with XP. Strangely I find the opposite. I can network 98 almost in my sleep. I always end up arguing with XP.

It appears to me whatever Microsoft does to make things easier for people who don't know what they're doing, it makes it more difficult for people who do know.

I've got XP Pro (and two separate installations of 98, just in case you thought I was going soft) on my 570E which is a PIII 500 with 320 Mb memory. The only reason is because 98 doesn't like the wireless network card, apparently due to the 98 Cardbus drivers not the card itself.

I find it slower than 98 but I also take all the rubbish out of startup as a matter of course. The most irritating thing to me is the sluggish Trackpoint in XP and 2000 (and Linux) on both the 600X and the 570E.

just another vote for 2k or xp.

pros:

- ntfs
- user rights
- better way of taskswitching / handling with cpu-time and mem
- stable
- no need to deal with drivers for usb / cardbus - devices like mem-sticks, card-readers, usb 2.0 controllers... (very annoying thing on 98se)

cons:

- slightly more mem needed
- no wallpapers, eyecandy, only one (or no = system beep) sound for windows events, no indexing of files
- you should know which services you really dont need and deactivate them


i had 98se on my 380xd and switched to 2k (i had a license left, else it would have been xp).

ok, its not really a rocket, but 233 mhz and 96 mb (92mb in pagefile and 40mb free phys mem on desktop + antivirus) are enough for:
- surfing via wlan (opera with 4 tabs),
- doing the usual office things with ooo 1.1.5,
- dealing with the images from my digicam (irfanview / some gimp),
- some geogrid things,
- handling my mobile phone,
- mp3s
- and even some gaming: outcast and baldurs gate 2.

(with the space and speed of a 5400 rpm, 30gb hdd, that is...)


btw: will soon transplant the hdd into a 560x (same system specs as 380xd, but lighter, smaller and no fans -> ideal for traveling in odd places like egyptian deserts...)