What version of Windows is the Worst?

[vashtsakared]

I haven't used Vista, beyond playing in the stores a little bit. I've heard it takes near mandatory memory upgrades for most people to install, between the shiny new GUI and the DirectX update and all of that. But I've seen the new wallpapers it comes with, and they look nice.

Thing is, Windows waited a hell of a long time to make things pretty, and when they do, it's not worth it. Other people did that more efficiently.

Windows ME is definitely the worst, buggiest piece of crap. I'd put Windows 98 next, then 95. I can't remember, but I think Windows 2000 was built on NT, like it was a sequel to NT 4.0, yeah? The best Windows are probably XP and 3.x. Haven't used DOS much, but the idea of manual memory management sounds pretty neat.

You use Windows all the time, and you need to get things done, you can do it. There's a feature, at least in XP, to display even protected system files. It'll never be Linux, though. Also, if you ever want to program with say OLE Structured Storage, they have all these really stupid obfuscated names with no vowels. Linux is sweet, but tough. It allows you to use a lightweight window manager if you want to, or a big desktop suite like KDE, or run completely in command line mode. Mac just about never did that. I would think Macs could run multimedia design programs faster, since they only ran on their own hardware for so long and could optimize everything just right. It's a lot harder to do that when you want to support a bunch of different architectures. In this sense, I can't see anyway that Macs would ever have a leg up on non-Macs. (There is no reason not to call a Mac a PC, that's stupid.)
So, Linux wins for the knowledgeable nerd, Windows for the common man, and Mac for the artist who doesn't know much about computers, or who needs some speed but can't build a box from scratch.

For the greatest discussion of these operating systems of all time, see In The Beginning...Was the Command Line.
http://adam.shand.net/iki/library/in_the_beginning_was_the_command_line/
http://www.cryptonomicon.com/beginning.html

[xquisit]

people who bitch about vista: stop being cheap and buy more ram.
ive used every operating system except ME and DOS and alot of the linux distro's (there are just too many :<) and imo vista works fine and looks fantastic. sure it uses alot of ram but ive never had problems with compatibility and i run Crysis on full specs... and lets face it... the objective of a computer IS to be able to play Crysis
thats is all.

>xquisit

[beagle]

A person who went into a coma before Microsoft was founded, and woke up now, could pick up this morning's New York Times and understand everything in it--almost:

Item: the richest man in the world made his fortune from-what? Railways? Shipping? Oil? No, operating systems. Item: the Department of Justice is tackling Microsoft's supposed OS monopoly with legal tools that were invented to restrain the power of Nineteenth-Century robber barons. Item: a woman friend of mine recently told me that she'd broken off a (hitherto) stimulating exchange of e-mail with a young man. At first he had seemed like such an intelligent and interesting guy, she said, but then "he started going all PC-versus-Mac on me."

What the hell is going on here? And does the operating system business have a future, or only a past? Here is my view, which is entirely subjective; but since I have spent a fair amount of time not only using, but programming, Macintoshes, Windows machines, Linux boxes and the BeOS, perhaps it is not so ill-informed as to be completely worthless. This is a subjective essay, more review than research paper, and so it might seem unfair or biased compared to the technical reviews you can find in PC magazines. But ever since the Mac came out, our operating systems have been based on metaphors, and anything with metaphors in it is fair game as far as I'm concerned.

That's from http://adam.shand.net/iki/library/in_th ... mand_line/. Thanks for that link, vashtsakared. That was a very interesting article!

[SunSpyda]

I loved 98se.

It was fast & it didn't do all this 'grinding' that people talk about.
It was no where near as bloated as any newer version & it didn't crash much, as long as you cleaned the HDD & registry regularly.
I didn't have tons of colourful wizards or big tours like newer ones.
It had the ability to boot into pure MSDOS.
If you removed all the extra wallpapers & tours & stuff it ran so fast.
With a few registry & DLL files, you could give it XP compatibility.

It was small, compact, super fast & did the job.

If there was a 64 bit version of 98se that still had security updates, I would use it over any other Windows OS.

Vista & 2008 Server are the biggest failures. Take it from someone who has used 95, 98, 98se, NT, 2000, XP, 2003 Server, Vista & 2008 Server. I have used them all (After 95) & I can safely say they are the worst. I have 2GB of RAM & a fast AMD CPU, so hardware isn't a issue.

98se rocked, when updates where still going for it.

I'm a Unix user though so I don't really have to worry about Windows OSs anymore.

[Sharmz]

i run Crysis on full specs... and lets face it... the objective of a computer IS to be able to play Crysis
thats is all.

>xquisit

haha thats a funny point.

[Ace0fWar10cks]

I think the worst one is the version my school uses... Windows 98. I didnt believe it untill I booted up the computer in command prompt "saftey" mode and it said "Starting up windows 98"... And its worse since my school doesnt even use real computers.