A Microsoft Monopoly: Mini reviews of several Microsoft OS's

[i-SnipeZ]

Microsoft owns over 75% of the computer market and has for 10+ years. Lately thats started to decline but its still an incredible number. Microsoft has been able to beat out several OS's and is still managing to keep the ones that remain at bay. Ive decided to take a look at the several OS's Ive gotten my hands on and as I use more I will add to these reviews:

img]http://209.167.114.38/support/images/win95logo.gif[/img]

The start of the real Microsoft monopoly, before this, you could run Windows 3.x applications on the much more stable OS/2 and get all Microsoft apps for Mac as well. When Windows 95 came out, it replaced DOS, beat down OS/2, and lowered Apple's share of the market considerably. Though by todays standards, is very outdated, and is in no way viable for any use today, with its constant crashing and slow downs. However it introduced many 32 bit enhancements, usable GUI that supported multiple windows, the now standard Plug and Play support, as well as the wonderful processing known as DirectX. You can not deny the impact Windows 95 has had on modern computing.



Legacy Rating: 8.5, Modern Rating: 2.5

img]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/e ... 4_logo.png[/img]

This mess of computing did revolutionize networking allowing access to what is now the internet, built in internet card support, as well as networking applications and PowerPC support. However, asside from Microsoft Office, this mess was the Windows 95 GUI with Windows 3.x level of computing. It had horrible driver support, almost no apps writin for it from Microsofts own, and was never a sucess even in the buisness world.

Legacy Rating: 5.5, Modern Rating: 1


img]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/e ... 8_logo.png[/img]

Furthering on this "house of cards". Windows 98 improved on Windows 95 with better support for applications and devices. As well as enhanced DirectX, Networking, and Plug and Play features. It could support broadband and even some wireless cards. A later Second Edition was released which included several very cool themes, as well as many updates to the overall software, making it a pleasure to use.

Legacy Rating: 9.5, Modern Rating: 7
img]http://www.dpscomputing.com/sitenew/ima ... ws2000.png[/img]

This is the best Windows OS. Period. It had great support for games, older hardware, and applications. Had Windows 9x code built appon an NT kernal. Had great support for internet, although wireless support was less then stellar, it worked. It had very low system requirements. Great security, a speedy simple GUI, and a startup sound that everybody loved. It supports the latest version of Direct X, Firefox 3, Skype, as well as Office 2003 and almost any game up to 2006 are compatable, many more are and dont even say it.. You Mac, Linux, or young people that have never seen Windows at its peak. Please, do yourself a favor, stop posting "lawlz ur O/S'z SUX" threads, and try this for yourself. This OS is support for another year and a half so you still have security updates, and Norton can even take this OS further.

Legacy Rating: 10 Modern Rating: 9

img]http://blogs.msdn.com/blogfiles/cjacks/ ... oriz_2.png[/img]

Windows ME... sucks. Windows 98 was stable, but just enough, and it was ready to tople. Windows ME, is the result of that fall. An unsupported, unusuable mess of windows, error messages and virus's up the ***. I can not explain, how bad it is, Its impossible to explain. Go find yourself a copy (dont if you have to pay, not worth it even if your payed to use it), get a 3gb drive you dont mind trashing, and load it up just to watch it fail when it boots up. This is the absolute WORST OS I have ever used. I would rather us an original Commodore 64 without the software command list than this.

Legacy Rating: 0 Modern Rating: -2

img]http://usera.imagecave.com/dfwsales/Lis ... p_logo.jpg[/img]

Windows 2000 with a better Wireless support and compatability. I am one of the few people that just cant get past the "fisher price" GUI. Themes were fairly forgotten, but thats not a big problem. This wonderful OS has been arround retail for 7 years. This OS has stood the test of time. I dont think I really need to explain it since 79% of the Windows userbase still uses this as their main OS. Now thats power.

Legacy Rating: 9 Modern Rating: 9

img]http://www.istartedsomething.com/wp-con ... osound.jpg[/img]

The first change of the main Windows code in nearly 10 years (2000 and XP had just about the same code). This OS was sorely welcomed. XP owned a huge ammount of market and they werent exactly thrilled about the update. Now that we have reached service pack 1, driver issues have thinned, performance improved. Security is much better, and the UAC keeps unwanted software from running on your computer. Microsoft is finally accepting computers as a true gaming platform. And the GUI has been improved significantly, if a bit of a rescource hog. The main problem ive seen with Vista is that people are trying to run it on 7-9 year old hardware that ran XP fine. This is one of the main problems, people havent been slowly upgraded, its a huge jump in performance required. Which was a horrible idea on Microsofts part. Luckily, they are getting back in the game with Windows 7 soon coming out in 2010 or 2011. This will hopefully get people back in the game of hardware needing to be upgrading.

Legacy Rating: NA Modern Rating: 8 (6 before SP1)

Seeing as these are my first reviews, I tried to do my best but I really did enjoy writing these mini-reviews so please leave feedback and tell me what I could improve, what I was missinformed about etc. I will hopefully have a Windows 1 and Windows 7 Beta review up shortly.

-RJ

[Harryc]

IF you must add a photograph to your post, PLEASE limit the size to 50k or less and place a warning in the subject line.
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=14339

I am growing tired of posting this many times a day. In fact I am just going to lock threads that disregard this rule ... end of discussion.