| Forum Home | ||||
| Press F1 | ||||
| Thread ID: 28731 | 2002-12-29 12:58:00 | Windows 98 or 2000 better for a Pentium 166MHz? | jonohill (361) | Press F1 |
| Post ID | Timestamp | Content | User | ||
| 109804 | 2002-12-29 12:58:00 | I've been given a Pentium 166 with 128mb of ram and 2.1gb hard drive. The hard drive is totally blank, and I'm trying to decide which operating system to install on it. Windows 95 is out as it is too old and won't run everything. Windows 98 is a possibility - Microsoft's website tells me it will run on a 486 66mhz, so it will run ok on this. Windows ME is out because my experiences with it have found it to be slow and large and not much is better than 98. Windows 2000 is meant to be able to run on it - minimum being a Pentium 133. Windows XP is obviously out of the question. Therefore, I am choosing between 98 and 2000. In some ways I'd prefer 2000 for reliability etc. but I'd like to know if anyone has tried it on a machine with similar specs - I do want it to run at a reasonable speed. And yes, it has to be windows. Linux will not run what I want. Thanks in advance. |
jonohill (361) | ||
| 109805 | 2002-12-29 20:42:00 | Hi jonohill, I would reccommend that you run Win2K on the PC, unless you have some specific reason for liking 98. 98 would be faster, but I personally like 2K a whole lot more, its newer, more stable (seemingly at least.. ). I have run Win2K on an old Laptop of mine (Since been sold) that is a 120Mhz with only 48MB RAM. It ran fine apart from opening larger office apps. Two things that might stop you from running 2K: HDD Size, Its a 650MB Install for windows alone, but on the Up side, you get NTFS abilities which is awesome for multi-user environments. 98 install is usualy around 300megs, give or take 20 each way. RAM - 2K uses more RAM to load the OS itself than 98 would. If you're going to play a few games every now and then, I would go with 98. All Up though, I would reccommend 2K, but in the end, its up to you. Networking with 2K is simple, as its all done during setup (For most network configs). Hope this helps Chilling_Silence BTW, if you only need 1.2 gigs of HDD Space, why not dual-boot? |
Chilling_Silence (9) | ||
| 109806 | 2002-12-29 20:50:00 | 2K will be fine as long as you are not worried about how long it takes to boot. That hard disk is inadequate however so I would suggest 98. | BIFF (1) | ||
| 109807 | 2002-12-29 21:02:00 | Mmmm... You are probably right, for reasons of HDD space, although I managed to cram Win2K, MS Office 2K, Lotus Notes, and a few other proggys all on a 1.4Gig HDD. But you are certainly right, 2K would be slower, just scraping by with the minimum system requirements. I've actually been pondering going back to 98 on the family PC which is a 933Mhz coz they have so many open programs and 2K uses the extra RAM, A formats just around the corner for me. The question is, What do you want out of it, there will be slight compromises each way, but what compromises is up to you :D |
Chilling_Silence (9) | ||
| 109808 | 2002-12-30 00:50:00 | In my opinion 98 Sec Edition would be the best O/S for a HDD of that size and i had a 166 mhz PC that ran perfectly well with 98 | kiwibeat (304) | ||
| 109809 | 2002-12-30 01:17:00 | Have a look here http://www.litepc.com Lets you strip a lot of the junk out of Win98 |
rmcb (164) | ||
| 109810 | 2002-12-30 01:59:00 | why discount win95 ?? are you sure it won't run what you need? win98 will run ok but not very fast (compared to win95). w2k is to big and slow. microsoft always says what minimum cpu will RUN the os but thats a lot different from running other apps at a REASONABLE speed. eg a 486 with win98 is to slow to bother with. |
tweak'e (174) | ||
| 109811 | 2002-12-30 06:52:00 | Hello I personally strongly recommend you to install Win98 for these few reasons: 1. It's system requirements are lower than 2000 so it will go more faster and smoother 2. I use to use Win98 and found it very stable, even more stable than Win2000 3. There isn't much difference between these two, so think about installing Win98, which will go faster. May be you could install Win2000 or Xp when you upgrade you computer somewhere down the track. If you play games upgrade you CPU, Graphics card( if you don't already have a good one and perferably ram as well). Because your machine specs will never handle the latest games, especially the CPU. Hope you find my advice useful! |
Attaboy102 (2805) | ||
| 109812 | 2002-12-30 07:18:00 | Based on your hardware I would use Win98SE. If you want security for some reason then Win2000 would be a better bet but slower. In Win98 you can use profiles but Win2000 is not so easy to get around. Just my humble opinion. :-) |
Elephant (599) | ||
| 109813 | 2002-12-30 09:03:00 | Jon, Yup Win 2k will run on it. But choosing between Win 98 and Win2k depends on what you want to do with the system now and in near future. If you just want to run office apps with net surfing then yes go with Windows 2000. Its realiable and solid compared to Win 98 and definitely better than Win 95. In fact Win 95 is crap compared to other versions. using Win95 is asking for daily headaches!! Thats my opinion anyway. But if you will be trying games and just want that little bit of speed during boot and in general and also dont pay much attention to security of data stored and need space for loading more apps in future then Use Windows 98. Hope that helpful |
pluto (2246) | ||
| 1 | |||||