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A few days ago IIRC

I'd agree tbh. It's a good OS, but it's as unstable as 2000 (if not moreso) and doesn't have as many modern usability enhancements as Vista onwards. I personally use it, but it's not my old Windows OS of choice by any means if I'm given the freedom to choose something else (I really only use it because of its compatibility with what I need and also the fact that I have era-appropriate hardware).
Interesting take. Windows 2000 is regarded as one of the most stable operating systems of all time.
 
Did I say 2000? I meant 98, sorry. It was late and I was tired when I wrote that >.>
I wouldn't say XP is less stable than 98. XP is miles better than 98 in every way. I grew up on 98, my grandmother (who got me into computers in the first place) would still use 98 today if she could get away with it. I hated it. My dad had XP at the time and it was so much better.
I will agree that I like 2000 over XP, but definitely XP over 98.
My opinion of Windows stability goes something like this
Code:
7>2003>2000>Vista>8.1>XP>10>8.0>NT4.0>98SE>ME>95
I didn't include the pre-95 versions because I don't have enough experience with them to care. I've used 3.0, 3.11 and NT3.51, but the clunky UI makes me wonder how anyone back then used anything other than a Mac and was enough that a few min of tinkering was more than plenty.
 
Interesting take. Windows 2000 is regarded as one of the most stable operating systems of all time.

Yep, when it froze on my laptop, a friend was shocked because of the rarity.

I agree. WinNT 2000 was an awesome OS.

By Microsoft standards, definitely - especially given its in-house predecessors. :D

For me, Douglas Adams sums it up:

The idea that Bill Gates has appeared like a knight in shining armour to lead all customers out of a mire of technological chaos neatly ignores the fact that it he who, by peddling second-rate technology, led them into it in the first place.


I've used 3.0, 3.11 and NT3.51, but the clunky UI makes me wonder how anyone back then used anything other than a Mac and was enough that a few min of tinkering was more than plenty.

Which is why during the mid to late 90s, I was bemused at the reaction of "A Mac? Eurgh!" from grown adults whenever I recommended the Mac as a replacement to their DOS/Win boxes. I still encounter these attitudes today but nowhere near as much.
 
That is indeed the case :D
What I was trying to say is that you’d have to rewrite every single driver and even write new ones to make use of your hardware
Ok, cool. I thought that might be what you were trying to say, but I wasn't entirely sure :D
I wouldn't say XP is less stable than 98. XP is miles better than 98 in every way. I grew up on 98, my grandmother (who got me into computers in the first place) would still use 98 today if she could get away with it. I hated it. My dad had XP at the time and it was so much better.
I will agree that I like 2000 over XP, but definitely XP over 98.
My opinion of Windows stability goes something like this
Code:
7>2003>2000>Vista>8.1>XP>10>8.0>NT4.0>98SE>ME>95
I didn't include the pre-95 versions because I don't have enough experience with them to care. I've used 3.0, 3.11 and NT3.51, but the clunky UI makes me wonder how anyone back then used anything other than a Mac and was enough that a few min of tinkering was more than plenty.
Ah, good point. Being on an NT base definitely helps stability. I largely agree with your assessment of stability although my experience with 10 seems to be better than the average user experience.
 
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Not without QEMU emulating an x86 cpu, it doesn't. And I only know that because I've gone out of my way to run Wine in the Linux Subsystem for Windows, which only allows x86-64 apps to run, while Wine pretty much universally tends to want to run in 32-bit mode. So effectively, you have to run QEMU to emulate a 32-bit x86 cpu on your 32-bit compatible x86 cpu.

It's as convoluted as it sounds. But that's what you get for running Wine in Windows.
You can use a 64 bit distro if there is a package for the 32 bit libs, which will allow you to run not only Wine but also other 32 bit software, assuming the distros have some sort of compatibility. I don't know what "Linux Subsystem for Windows" is, I am referring to a direct install.

As for PPCs, Wine may indeed not work, I'm a PPC Linux noob, I don't know.
 
No, no, no! Windows Server 2003 SBS!!!!
SBS 2003 is still Windows 2003... They’re all the same OS with different feature sets. Except for web and standard having lower CPU and Memory limits.

When you’re using 2003 as a desktop OS none of that really matters. Enterprise and Data Center are still the best ones. The only thing SBS had going for it was it’s easier to set up. I never found Windows Server hard to set up in the first place though.
 
SBS 2003 is still Windows 2003... They’re all the same OS with different feature sets. Except for web and standard having lower CPU and Memory limits.

When you’re using 2003 as a desktop OS none of that really matters. Enterprise and Data Center are still the best ones. The only thing SBS had going for it was it’s easier to set up. I never found Windows Server hard to set up in the first place though.
Easier to set up?

I was fortunate that I never had to set it up at work. It was all set up at the time I got there. I did have to redo everything at one point, but we'd already moved on to a Win 2012 server by that point and this was mainly a backup.

But as automated as that process went, I wouldn't have called it 'easy'. But, I've never been an IT person, it just defaulted to me at the small businesses I worked for.
 
I guess for me, the best Windows release would be one that looks like Windows 2000, has support for 16, 32, and 64 bit Windows executables (and can run any installer needed) and has complete backward compatibility with DOS applications.
 
I guess for me, the best Windows release would be one that looks like Windows 2000, has support for 16, 32, and 64 bit Windows executables (and can run any installer needed) and has complete backward compatibility with DOS applications.
Now the 16, 32, and 64-bit thing would be a bit of a challenge, but only a bit. Windows uses what is effectively a dos virtual machine known as NTVDM to run 16-bit apps in 32-bit versions of Windows. They can't use it with 64-bit versions because of the way x86 gets to 64-bit, it never actually supports all 3 at once. Instead it flips 16-bit to 64-bit, if memory serves.

However, that doesn't mean people haven't worked around some of that.

 
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Now the 16, 32, and 64-bit thing would be a bit of a challenge, but only a bit. Windows uses what is effectively a dos virtual machine known as NTVDM to run 16-bit apps in 32-bit versions of Windows. They can't use it with 64-bit versions because of the way x86 gets to 64-bit, it never actually supports all 3 at once. Instead it flips 16-bit to 64-bit, if memory serves.

However, that doesn't mean people haven't worked around some of that.

Yeah, that would probably be the hardest part. I have found a little executable that allows you to run MS-DOS programs on 64 bit Windows however. I'll have to check out that link you sent.
There's very strong indications that 64-bit Windows 2000 existed on Alpha and Itanium. I'd die to get my hands on it.
Ooooo, that would be epic.
 
I guess for me, the best Windows release would be one that looks like Windows 2000, has support for 16, 32, and 64 bit Windows executables (and can run any installer needed) and has complete backward compatibility with DOS applications.

Gosh, I remember spending hours and hours in EDIT perfectly fine-tuning autoexec.bat and config.sys on my main 98SE box to tailor everything exactly to my liking so that I could exit a Windows session and enter Real DOS mode to play games with the hardware configured correctly for that environment.

If you desire the Win 2k aesthetic, XP to Win 7 (I haven't tried the later releases) have the option to change the UI to the Windows Classic/Basic theme. After installing XP, that was one of the first things I did and beyond looking far more pleasing to my eye, it also freed-up considerable CPU cycles. :)
 
Gosh, I remember spending hours and hours in EDIT perfectly fine-tuning autoexec.bat and config.sys on my main 98SE box to tailor everything exactly to my liking so that I could exit a Windows session and enter Real DOS mode to play games with the hardware configured correctly for that environment.
Ooooh yes. I used a menu that allowed me to select between several configurations. :D

If you desire the Win 2k aesthetic, XP to Win 7 (I haven't tried the later releases) have the option to change the UI to the Windows Classic/Basic theme.
You still have to do something about the icons though. For XP there's this lovely patch:

 
The problem is by the time Itanium boxes were finally shipping in limited quantities in 2001, XP64 was in beta so no one cared about 2000 anymore. :(
That's too bad :(
Gosh, I remember spending hours and hours in EDIT perfectly fine-tuning autoexec.bat and config.sys on my main 98SE box to tailor everything exactly to my liking so that I could exit a Windows session and enter Real DOS mode to play games with the hardware configured correctly for that environment.

If you desire the Win 2k aesthetic, XP to Win 7 (I haven't tried the later releases) have the option to change the UI to the Windows Classic/Basic theme. After installing XP, that was one of the first things I did and beyond looking far more pleasing to my eye, it also freed-up considerable CPU cycles. :)
Ah, honestly I do the same (just look at my XP screenshot in the September desktop screenshot thread) :D
You still have to do something about the icons though. For XP there's this lovely patch:

Thank you! I'll look into that :3
 
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