What's the best OS for...

[Medessec]

Hello! I'm posting this here because I'm an uptight Windows fan... and I'm going to be playing around with older hardware this week and I need to know what you guys think:

What's the best OS to put on a 486? I have a 701C that has 98 on it, although it seems to run okay, it does have it's hiccups.

What's the best OS for a 770(Pentium I/II 300+ MHz?) I usually work up to putting XP, but I'm wondering if people get away with 98/Me without too many troubles with a lack of software.

[edragon]

I have one running Windows 2000 and it works well.

[ajkula66]

What's the best OS to put on a 486? I have a 701C that has 98 on it, although it seems to run okay, it does have it's hiccups.

Win 95. These machines will run 98 just fine with 40MB RAM in my recollection, though.

What's the best OS for a 770(Pentium I/II 300+ MHz?) I usually work up to putting XP, but I'm wondering if people get away with 98/Me without too many troubles with a lack of software.

I'd say Windows 2000. While I've never owned a 770, the hardware from that era plays well with W2K.

My $0.02 only...

[RealBlackStuff]

Hunt (deeply) around for Windows XP-FLP.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Fu ... Legacy_PCs

[A31]

Or make your own 'cut down' version of XP using nLite. http://www.nliteos.com/

[TRS-80]

Hunt (deeply) around for Windows XP-FLP.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Fu ... Legacy_PCs

Wow, that is interesting. I had never heard of that until just now.

And everyone thinks the sky is falling with the end of "official" support for XP...

M$ has always gone out of their way to support older hardware.

[ajkula66]

Wow, that is interesting. I had never heard of that until just now.

A great little OS if you like XP. Speaking from experience here.

And everyone thinks the sky is falling with the end of "official" support for XP...

M$ has always gone out of their way to support older hardware.

Well, the sky isn't falling, but XP should be retired for a plethora of reasons.

As for supporting older hardware, Vista pretty much killed all of it...on purpose, I'd say.

What M$ wasn't counting on was the amount of people who decided that they would rather stick to XP than buy new hardware to match the latest OS...but I digress.

[pianowizard]

What's the best OS for a 770(Pentium I/II 300+ MHz?) I usually work up to putting XP

If you just install Windows XP, without any Service Pack, updates or virus scanner, XP is actually quite acceptable even for 233MHz Pentium MMX and only 128MB of RAM, i.e. Microsoft's official minimum system requirements for the original XP. I ran XP Pro on an ancient Packard Bell desktop with 233MHz and 128MB for couple years before the Service Packs and the ever-growing virus definitions started to slow things down too much.

As for supporting older hardware, Vista pretty much killed all of it...on purpose, I'd say. What M$ wasn't counting on was the amount of people who decided that they would rather stick to XP than buy new hardware to match the latest OS...but I digress.

Forcing consumers to upgrade their hardware would benefit hardware manufacturers, not Microsoft. I have always suspected that Microsoft had some sort of a secret pact with the hardware manufacturers, which backfired, of course.

[ajkula66]

Forcing consumers to upgrade their hardware would benefit hardware manufacturers, not Microsoft.

Not directly, but I would argue that M$ had expected more people to upgrade to Vista from XP therefore selling more licenses. Now that one didn't fly too well. Not at all.

I have always suspected that Microsoft had some sort of a secret pact with the hardware manufacturers, which backfired, of course.

My thoughts exactly.