BleepingComputer.com: Windows 98 is much better than Windows XP in various ways ... Do You Agree?

What do you think of both? Is win 98 better than win XP? I m of the view that win 98 is much better than win XP in different ways, as it is speedy, works more faster and gives optimum results, whereas, win XP slow down your system and if crashes, it takes lots of time to repair and install, whereas win 98 is way more easier and less time-consuming to install.

Windows 98 lacks the security that Windows 2000, XP, Vista, and 7 have in-cooperated into the operating system. This lack of security makes Windows 98 obsolete in todays ever changing IT Environment and homes with many family members. In the paste when I had Windows 98, I had to setup accounts for all my family members, but each account had the rights to install anything they wanted. This infuriated me, because my sister would install such things as Bonzi Buddy, and I couldn't stop that. However, when I got Windows 2000, my sister couldn't install anything like that on my computer.

Windows 9x and Windws Me also lacked the ability to handle huge files past 4Gigabytes in size, and Windows 98 lacks multi-thread and multi-processor support as well as RAM/Memory Limits.

So in my opinion the above things make Windows 98 obsolete and makes Windows 2000 and later far superior for todays computing needs.

Well to me its horses for courses. Win98 maybe 12 years old but its still a good system. Its getting harder to find software that works as they as designed for WinXP and above. The beauty is you still have true DOS which WinNT systems don't. Why do you need true DOS you may say? Well if Win9x/ME won't startup even in Safe Mode you can always startup in DOS and copy or use the old DOS WinZip to copy the files or folders to a floppy then you can't get Windows fixed you just format and do a fresh install. With WinXP it could all the lost because there is no true DOS.

The other problem with WinXP is it has that much running in the background which you can't see and each app is using system resources (memory) which aren't always necessary. If your thinking of upgrading or changing from Win98 to WinXP don't go by the minimum spec needed which is something like 233Mhz processor and 128kb of memory. I may run but it will be that slow you can make a cup of tea and drink it while it tries to run things.

The thing is if it isn't broke then don't mend it.

On a system that has enough resources to run XP, it is actually far superior to 98. The problem is it takes a lot more resources than than most machines that came with 98 had. On a capable machine, XP is also far less prone to crashes and as cryptodan pointed out is far more secure. The key though, as keithuk pointed out, Xp does not run well on minimum specs, but with a capable system it is a very good OS.

IMO. Besides what has already been stated.

If your PC has the hardware to run XP then it is the better OS. For a multitude of reasons.

Have run it on very minimal hardware and after some tweaking it actually ran quit well\snappy. An old IBM Thinkpad lap top with a 333 Pentium and 64MB (minimum per MS, 128MB recommended) of RAM.

Keep in mind that it was not on a PC used for Internet browsing. There were no security programs other then the native firewall installed. It served only as a printer\VoIP server on my home network.

98SE was a rather decent piece of work, once you hammered down the various loose nails MS always leaves... but for that 48hr overflow crash thing, which I'm told MS knew about from the start but never intended to fix.

I still get the general vibe that 2k is "better" than XP though. a pity MS has long since stopped supporting anything earlier than (yuck!) vista.

of course, your mileage may vary compared to me; I'm a cantankerous bugger who is still on the fence about working with win7 because the more stupid, pointless changes he sees that can't normally be undone keep him struggling with the idea of putting up with it. I'm one of those picky grouches who doesn't like "change for the sake of change".

ZT-repairseek, on 09 December 2010 - 09:17 AM, said:

I was a very late adopter of XP. Ran 2k till the wheels fell off. And was finally seduced by the eye candy not available on 2k or earlier.
MS will continue to support XP w\SP3 until 2014 I believe.

Vista has been pretty much compared to ME. Basically a failure. Despite the time it took to release it, it was still rushed to market. Win7 is what Vista was supposed to be. Basically Win7 = Vista with SP XX.

ZT-repairseek, on 09 December 2010 - 09:17 AM, said:

It was not change for the sake of change. It was change for the sake of the $$$$. If a company fails to create\release new product(s) they cease to make money. If the cease to make an income they close the doors, shudder the windows and disappear into history.
MS has no intentions of going away.

No way is Win98 better than XP. You can say Win98 is all you need and it works fine for you but there is no way you can say it is a better OS. Win98 is actually just a shell over DOS, not even a real multi-tasking OS. It's FAT32 file system can't handle today's hard drives, it has poor USB support, is very limited in how much RAM it can access, no current hardware manufacturers provide drivers for it, it can't run a modern browser, etc...

Why are we discussing Win98 vs XP anyway? XP is also an antiquated OS which has been supplanted by Win 7. I personally like Win 7 and hate it when I have to go back and use one of my Win XP or Win 2000 machines.

strolln, on 09 December 2010 - 09:56 AM, said:

Why not?

There are +\- to all OS`s. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

If Win98 suits an individuals needs then so be it. Though keeping it running\maintained\protected and functional for Internet use is becoming more and more difficult.

PolaBar, on 09 December 2010 - 08:55 AM, said:

Well in the 9 years that I used Win98SE I never had it crash once. I used to do a format anf rebuild every 9 months that wasn't because I had to but probably developed a niggling fault I couldn't over come plus everything starts of clean again.

I write programmes in VB and if you had multi Form apps 60+ (a Form is like having 60 NotePads open at the same time) it used to show an out of memory error not in Windows but VB. At that time it had 256kb 2 128kb chips. I bought 2 256kb and added 1 of the original 128kb so I had a total of 639kb which Windows recognised. I never had out of memory again. I also made my Memory Checker app which checks available memory and system resources, which I uploaded here a couple of years ago. Obviously memory has increased alot since I made it so its ok for 2GB or less but it was orginally made for Win9x so you can't have that much on there. On the newer WinNT it did show an Runtime error 6 Overflow error which I've since corrected.

ThunderZ, on 09 December 2010 - 09:47 AM, said:

Although with the internal version number of 7 being "6.1" to vista's "6.0", we wonder just how much is really different; with vista, and then again with 7, I remember some MS guy implying they were starting over to make a better product. vista, on the other hand, to my knowledge is still full of older windows leftovers, and 7... well, as you said, it's like vista with one hell of a service pack.

ThunderZ, on 09 December 2010 - 09:47 AM, said:

that's not really what I meant. I was talking about various things that got changed within win7; case in point, the removal of the perfectly good "classic" start menu for that... bloated thing they came up with. at least in vista you can switch off the attempt to reinvent the wheel, in that case.
I get cranky when someone changes something "because it doesn't look new enough". It's the sort of behaviour that saw my father's wife trying to buy a new livingroom set every couple months, and generally flatlining his paycheck, back before he ended up working for MS.


I've taken a lot of heat for my feelings that an OS does not need to be "pretty" or anything like that; ideally I shouldn't be paying attention to the OS, in my mind, so why should it be decorated all over the place at the expense of performance? Yet some have called me soulless for preferring that if I want to look at pretty pictures, I'll go look at pretty pictures instead of staring all glassy-eyed at the GUI. I like my eyecandy, just not in places I don't need it to be. would you custom engrave the engine of a car? I wouldn't.

Keithuk, on 09 December 2010 - 07:49 AM, said:

I think what Keith said is exactly right.

I have 5 PCs (don't ask) - 1 Windows 98SE, 3 XP & 1 Vista.

I enjoy using the one running Windows 98 the most. It's only a P3 with a 10GB HD and 256MB of RAM,
but it's amazing what it will still do. It does what I want it to do, with very little fuss and no
continuous 'Disk Thrashing' in the background.

So to answer your question Cathy, yes I agree, Windows 98 is much better than Windows XP in various ways.

This post has been edited by presario: 10 December 2010 - 11:25 AM

Windows XP is built on NT technology and is just an upgrade to windows 2000. They are identical at the roots but only the layout and visual styles are different

I loved 98!
In many ways it was the best thing that Microsoft ever made

It was stable as a rock, simple, small, quick and never crashed (well almost never).
Older games worked well with it.

Microsoft took what they learned with 95 and expounded on it

I cuss every new version of Windows when they come out. Nothing is where it used to be and things dont work the same.
Im getting old and dont like change much anymore

Eyesee, on 13 December 2010 - 07:23 PM, said:

Thats what I hate about the newer Windows system. There are supposed to improve on things not make them worse. I mean the beauty of Windows is that commands and function should be interchangeable but they are left out on Vista and Win7. After WinXP they removed the option to add different button to the Windows Explorer menubar icons, copy, cut, paste, properties etc. Now you have to use the common short-cuts Ctrl+X, Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V and Alt+Enter.