[sc7]

My personal favorite is Windows 98SE, completely stock. It is compatible with the older versions of software, which, combined with Windows 98, were really the golden age of computer functionality without bloating and eye-candy. The OS was basic and out of the way, but when I needed to, thanks to the ability to boot into DOS, I really could do anything. (NT os command prompts are OK for certain things, but they don't allow close to as much direct access as DOS oses). With a DOS based OS, I could always boot from a DOS floppy and fix anything that went wrong.

For instance, 98 is so tweakable, and I really feel that it's the version of Windows most able to be customized/tweaked by the user. In addition to that, for productivity, it really is my favorite. It takes Office 97 the same time to load on a 750 MHz Celeron or 600 MHz PIII as it does Office 2007 on my 2.93 GHz Core i7 940. It has a basic interface, easy to work my way around, distraction free, and allows me to get work done.

Now don't get me wrong, for my Facebooking/Youtubing/Media/AutoCAD, Windows 7 is a great OS. It has some great improvements that help productivity, it's well built from the ground up (obviously a much better architecture than the 9x based operating systems).

I've got:
Photoshop 7
Office 97
Acrobat Reader 5
Visual Studio 6

And I prefer all these versions. I still use IE6 on those machines, because I prefer it's basic interface, and how out of the way the browser is. IMHO, it was the last web page centric browser (I do wish it had tabs). I don't do much internet on those machines, mainly basic web forums and blogs). I realize it's quickly becoming outdated and such, but I wish there was another browser out there today that I could put fullscreen on a 1024x768 monitor, use as little resources, and only have the basic functions to help me navigate the web. Again, this idea of providing only the fucntionality needed seems to be lacking from all of today's operating systems, in the case of trying to eye candy appeal to the customer.

In any case, I will continue to do as much productivity work as I can on my Win98 Desktop/Laptop, and only use my 7 Desktop and Laptop for Facebook/Youtube/Daily Browsing/AutoCAD.

[rkarthea]

I know this is going to attract a lot of flak but... I'd say Windows Me was amazing in its time. I know, I know... You guys are going to say that it was a stupid, unstable OS but I'm talking about my experiences with it. For me it ran just beautifully. Much better than even 98SE.
When XP came, I was among the first few to switch over. Then to Vista and now to 7.
Today I'd say Windows 7 is my favorite OS. Although, kubuntu live CD has also saved my life a few times, that was a few years ago when it was only one of the very few live CD distros available and that too the simplest one to use at that.

[rkarthea]

@sc7 Try "K-Meleon" - A no non-sense, basic functionality browser. Disable all the plugins if you have any installed and it works just beautifully. Its ultra-light and ultra-fast. I use it for urgent web page browsing where I just need to see basic html. No complicated graphics, flash, etc. Although, it also performs well if you want those features with the plugins enabled.

[sc7]

rkarthea, on Aug 10 2009, 10:07 PM, said:

I know this is going to attract a lot of flak but... I'd say Windows Me was amazing in its time. I know, I know... You guys are going to say that it was a stupid, unstable OS but I'm talking about my experiences with it. For me it ran just beautifully. Much better than even 98SE.

I ran Me for a while years ago before I had a machine that could handle Xp. For it's time, if you disabled system restore and certain other things, Me ran fine, just as stable as 98SE. Arguably the interface is a little more refined. However, I now use 98 because I can use Real-Mode DOS without hacking. That said, I didn't have bad Me experiences myself.

Anyway, I will definitely give K-Melon a shot, thanks for the suggestion.

[eksasol]

XPDUDE777, on May 14 2009, 09:30 AM, said:

I love Windows 7 the most!

In close second is Windows xp I love windows XP

Windows 7 is amazing and so is xp

XP is fast but Windows 7 is definatly faster than vista and xp combined!

Can you explain how it is faster or give example or sources with benchmark? (I'm not saying this to be a troll, I really want to know.) Because everyone seem to be saying this, but to me it is only marginally faster than Vista and still have the annoying Vista layout (weird Display configuration layout with links instead of simple tabs like in XP, and Control Panel list items left to right and no details view) Opening a large executable file in Windows 7 with UAC turned on takes sometimes (ie 700mb), but I guess that goes with Vista as well. Even the simple act of opening a folder on 7 is slower than XP, half of the time the folder isn't in the view that you set it to, it has to be smart and thumbnail it. Or executing command lines in 7 taking slower than XP, when you write a bat file and launch them.

This post has been edited by eksasol: 14 September 2009 - 11:51 AM

[jcarle]

Prefer Windows 3.1 because it doesn't come with a bloated task manager that hogs system resources with it's graphical processor charts.

[Spartacus]

I'm liking Windows 7, I had alot of problems with Vista but preferred the layout to XP, so now Vista feels like XP and Vista combined. The layout of vista but it works like XP

[woody.cool]

Tripredacus, on May 14 2009, 02:26 PM, said:

XP, 98 and then NT 3.51.

Never thought I'd see any love for NT 3.51
For me, it's:
Workstation OSes
Windows 2000 SP4, followed by Windows NT 4.0 SP6a followed by Windows 95 OSR2.5 (but without the Windows Desktop Update crap that got bundled with IE4.0)

Server OSes
Windows 2000 SP4, followed by Windows 2003, followed by Windows NT4.0, followed by Windows 2008

As much as I like Windows 7 (and 2008 R2 for than matter), I hate the UI. I hate Vista full stop and XP although good, has given me some problems .... I've had far less issues with 2000 than I ever had with XP.

jcarle, on Sep 14 2009, 02:04 AM, said:

Prefer Windows 3.1 because it doesn't come with a bloated task manager that hogs system resources with it's graphical processor charts.

I completely forgot to mention 3.1x .... a solid version, but unfortunately with naff all features. However, Windows 3.1x with Calmira shell on it is superb

This post has been edited by woody.cool: 08 October 2009 - 08:03 AM

[HardDriv'n]

eksasol, on Sep 13 2009, 06:19 PM, said:

Can you explain how it is faster or give example or sources with benchmark? (I'm not saying this to be a troll, I really want to know.) Because everyone seem to be saying this, but to me it is only marginally faster than Vista and still have the annoying Vista layout (weird Display configuration layout with links instead of simple tabs like in XP, and Control Panel list items left to right and no details view) Opening a large executable file in Windows 7 with UAC turned on takes sometimes (ie 700mb), but I guess that goes with Vista as well. Even the simple act of opening a folder on 7 is slower than XP, half of the time the folder isn't in the view that you set it to, it has to be smart and thumbnail it. Or executing command lines in 7 taking slower than XP, when you write a bat file and launch them.

Yes, and you have to take into consideration the hardware as well. If you really want to compare the OSes to each other speed wise, you'll have to run them on the same PC.

Back in the day on a dual boot Windows ME/2K PC, the 2K outperformed the 9X system hands down. I kept the ME around for the 9x only programs.

Running a dual boot (factory Vista) PC with Vista/XP, I see XP running much faster.

It does have a much lower system requirement after all...

[chilifrei64]

My favorites are Server 2003 and Windows 7. I am just still sooo comfortable with Server 2003. I know everythign about it and where everythign is in it.. Server 2008 changed a lot and I like it, but am just not as familiar with it, which should be expected since it is soo new..
And 7 is just soo nice and fluid. Not slow at all, it is everything vista was supposed to be and more.

[g-force]

I don`t love my Windows - I use it. Most of time XP.

[Phenomic]

Guess which Windows I prefer based on my chronological progression:

Windows 3.xx (made Apple look good)
Windows 95 (its creator was a gifted man)
Windows 2000 (stable, reliable, simple UI)
Windows XP (it was NOT better than 2000 so I went back)
Windows 2000 (leaner, meaner, more reliable than XP)
Windows Vista (it sucked so I went back again)
Windows 2000 (looked even better after Vista fiasco)
Windows 7 (it’s just Vista-Lite with new skins)
Linux, Ubuntu/openSUSE (dual booting with Windows 2000)

[CoffeeFiend]

MS-DOS was good for its time, no real complaints...

Win 3.x was barely OK. Most people used it as a launcher for DOS apps primarily (kind of useless IMO). Besides MS Office 4.x and Claris Works (and solitaire/minesweeper) there just wasn't much windows apps yet. Still, it was pretty good for its time.

Win95 was a big change, and pretty good for the most part.

Win98 mainly brought bloat (ran like crap on a $3000+ P133 which was like 3 years old at the time) and somewhat better support for USB devices that nearly nobody used yet. Unimpressive.

WinME was a bad joke. Kind of like Win98, but only suckier, and trying to hide the real DOS mode (which was half the reason to still use Win9x). Biggest epic fail ever.

NT 3.1 was a very nice OS. It might have had the GUI of Win 3.1 but it was a very solid, quality OS that worked fine for the most part. There was a bunch of DOS stuff that didn't work though, which is why most people didn't use it. However, we had support for 32 bit apps (none of this win32s junk). Same story more or less with NT 3.51 (rather short lived though)

NT 4 was a big improvement on 3.x, sharing Win95's GUI. But, a lot of software back then still wasn't really written for NT (mainly 9x) and didn't run... Drivers were a real problem (e.g. having to wait months for a service pack to get a driver for your expensive & high quality printer, and even then it only worked at half the resolution!)

Win2k Pro was a decent improvement technically speaking over NT 4 and Win9x, but driver support was truly abysmal. That alone made it suck really badly (totally unusable on many systems), pretty much until XP came out. It sucked until it was replaced, at which point it became functional but pointless. Also, *loads* of apps just weren't written for systems with multiple user accounts and just assumed everyone had admin rights... So loads of software didn't work either (again, fixed when XP came out). It even sucked for games (9x was still vastly better at that). I wouldn't rate this much higher than WinME (Win98 was still more functional in many ways -- again, until XP came out). If I rated it based on it's "active" lifetime (before XP came out & replaced it), I'd rate it second worst, right behind WinME.

Win XP was fantastic (features, looks, stability and all, mostly everything ran on it, good & stable drivers available for most stuff), albeit too easily PWNED until SP2 came out. It's basically what Win2k should have been. Arguably, it's the first OS that was quite decent since just about forever. But it's very much showing its age now. I wouldn't call it obsolete yet, but it's heading there fast (I don't miss it one bit either).

Vista suffered mainly from the same thing as Win2k (drivers not ready in time). And stupid OEMs trying to sell it on PCs that were barely sufficient for XP, and some people blaming it too for the transition to 64 bit so it got a bad rep. But as of SP1, driver support is basically just as good as XP and it works just fine (I'm still using it at work). It was the first Windows OS to bring x64 to the masses too (XP 64 sucked, and running 64 bit versions of server OS'es on your desktop also does). Loads of nice features over XP. Never had to reinstall it either. Very stable OS too.

Win 7 is the absolute best hands down. There's just no contest.

[e-t-c]

I'm still "in love" with WHS SP2 (Windows Home Server 2003) - and essential for me:
it's a "no-bloat-ware-OS" (installs ca. 1,8 GB) - with (nLite) tuning potential.


BTW: Windows Home Server with Power Pack 1 Evaluation
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details...;DisplayLang=en

This post has been edited by e-t-c: 17 October 2009 - 01:09 AM

[DosMan2.0]

I whould have to say Microsoft Windows 98 FE & SE it was reliable, easy to use, clear cut to the point, NOT over simplefided, and compatable with most everything for a long time.

[awergh]

Hmm difficult it has to be either Windows 95B, 98se, NT4, XP, 7
I'm using 7 at the moment so I think it has to win by default

This post has been edited by awergh: 06 November 2009 - 04:41 AM

[Andromeda43]

I've been using M$ operating systems since DOS 2.0 and it's hard to say which one I liked the most or the least.

Every new OS had something that was better than the OS that preceded it. Even Windows ME had attributes that were better than 98SE.
Better USB support and better printer support were just two attributes for ME, that come to mind. I personally had no problems with it.
And when trying to load a specific driver from a CD, ME would scan the entire CD till it found the proper driver and you didn't have to tell the OS exactly where the driver was located.

XP, right out of the box was horrible. It didn't look like or act like anything we'd ever seen before.
But, after SP2 and then SP3, XP is a pretty stable and useful OS.

Vista, was just too alien and most old time users didn't want any part of it.
I tested both the 32 bit and 64 bit versions, but never really warmed up to it.
It's just a bad memory now, for me.
I could tweak it and tune it to look and act somewhat like XP, which made it more acceptable to my customers, but that was time consuming. What ever prompted them to screw up Solitaire? Us old Sol players, hate the new look and feel.

Win-7, = Vista on Steroids!
MS added nothing that most people really want or need and they did away with things like the "Classic Look" which made Vista more acceptable.

I've been testing Win-7, Ultimate, both 32 bit and 64 bit, since the early Beta days and I still don't like it.
I've never been able to get Windows Mail to work on the 64 bit version.
I CAN get it to work ok on the 32 bit version, but even that requires some serious Hacking and you must have access to a Vista install, to get the Windows Mail files that will work.

Really want an exercise to try your patience?
Try, setting up a dial-up connection on Win-7 and put the shortcut to it on your desktop.

I'm still running XP-Pro-SP3 as my main OS and I'm sure I will be for quite some time to come.
It's just so much more docile and user friendly.

Cheers Mates, and Happy Holidays!

Andromeda

This post has been edited by Andromeda43: 07 December 2009 - 11:27 AM

[Jeremy]

Windows 7 is so awesome omfg lolz0rz wtf rotfcopter!!!11

Windows 7 is very nice. I had to revert back to XP because my 7 year old SBL with custom Dell chipset is completed unsupported.
I am getting a new Auzentech PCI-E sound card to replace it.
Once I get that, back to Windows 7 I go...

[cherryle]

I use Windows XP Pro, and I like it.