Win98SE was probably the best iteration of the Win9x series. Win98, WinME, not so good. But Win98SE? Gold.
Win2K I also prefer over XP. Win2K = NT5, WinXP = NT5.1, Vista = NT6. Yeah, that's the actual version numbers, open a command prompt and type "ver" to see for yourself.
The problem with Win2K, and the reason I recently rebuilt my system from Win2K Server to WinXP Pro, is that Win2K is end of life from Microsoft. Sure, you still get some critical updates from time to time, but GAMES and DRIVERS do not support Win2K anymore.
I ran into this when I discovered that the new ATI video cards did not have drivers that would work on Win2K. I contacted ATI about this and was told that since Win2K was EOL, no drivers would ever be made for that platform for their new 2x00 series cards. A quick check:
http://ati.amd.com/support/driver.htmlLook at the models available when you select Win2K and then Radeon. Then look how many are available when you select WinXP and then Radeon.
Newer games also don't work, as mentioned. I believe Enemy Territory: QuakeWars would not install for me. And Unreal Tournament 3. And I think Stranglehold and a few others, maybe World in Conflict
Win2K is great if you want to browse the web, play older games, and use productivity software--except for Adobe CS2 Suite or later, as that requires WinXP. And I guess the latest Office 2007 doesn't work with 2K, either:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/word/HA101668651033.aspxYeah, you will get significant slowdowns from installing anti-virus programs. I used to not care, either. But then again, I found that I wanted to browse to more sites than
www.aol.com and run more programs than what I'd find on download.com.
On my old Win98SE system, when I thought I didn't need anti-virus, I had 80k+ copies of Nimda and Sircam. I only decided to look when I noticed all these random .eml files littering my drive and my system starting to have problems.
Ok, but that was a while ago. I just reinstalled a fresh WinXP machine, behind NAT, and installed all XP patches. Then I started browsing the web without anti-virus. Took about a day until I was hosed. I used Kaspersky online scanner and it told me to just reformat and reinstall. I was infected so bad that whatever I had would BLOCK any attempt to install Spybot, an anti-malware program. Literally it would force a shutdown of the installer. Hardcore.
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So what's my point here? I love Win2K, but if someone is going to recommend it at this point, realize that it is end of life, no new drivers will likely be made for it for newer hardware, no new office productivity apps from larger companies will support it, and no new top-shelf games will support it. If I weren't a gamer, I'd still be on Win2K. But... I can't be, anymore.
If you're going to pretend that you don't need an anti-virus scanner and that hiding behind NAT will keep you safe, you need to realize that not everyone will have your same luck. You CAN get away with this, but you probably aren't visiting "interesting" parts of the web nor are you running "interesting" programs as well. If you don't, then yes, you'll probably be relatively safe. If you want to get your hands into everything you can, like me, then you'll want an anti-virus scanner going. Sure, it will slow you down. But far better than having to reformat and reinstall everything.
Everyone has an opinion about what you do and do not need to do with Windows. You will have less pain if you over-protect than if you under-protect and get jacked up. I used to believe that I didn't need anti-virus. But I'm no longer that ignorant.
