Best operating system for home use

[alkscd]

I have three operating systems to pick from windows 98 SE, ME and windows 2000 professional. What is the best one to use. I use my compute for home use

[Rick Hall]

Windows XP if your PC can handle it else WIndows 98

[RJ]

Well, maybe it would be easier if you define your "home use". If you mean word processing, internet surfing and some (not dos-based) games then I'd say Windows 2000, because it's the most stable Windows (proven! XP claims to be stable, but it's not proven yet because it's fairly new). Unfortunately it's more expensive than the "home Windows versions" like Win98 and WinME.

WinME is just like Win98, just with newer programs on it and the bugfixes of Win98. So if the decision is between Win98 and ME I say ME.

When I read your post I get the impression that you already have the CDs, just want to know which one to install. In this case take Win2K.

RJ

[Mr N8]

Between the 3 choices given, I would say 98se. WindowsME "fixed' the bugs, but still crashes much more than win98se ever does. If you are willing to familiarize yourself with win2k, then I say go for it. It has a little bit more limited gaming support, but I have found that that trend is going away. I run 1 machine at home with win2k, and my other dual boots between win98 and Mandrake 8.1. MY favorite? Mandrake! However I wouldn't recommend running Linux until you do some real research on it. I dual boot, so I can set up Age of Empires, and Quake 3 on my LAN.

Enough rambling, for stability, go with Win2k. For cost, go with win98.

Nate

[audiyoda]

I wouldn't go with XP until the bugs are worked out -- usually that means 1 Service Release, but that's already happened (SR-1 is out for Intel PIII, AMD K7 and AMD K6 based systems -- and that doesn't mean the bugs are all worked out).

So I'd go with my other plan -- wait 6 months for all driver-related issues to be taken care of.

-Craig

[Nuclear Krusader]

Between 98 Second Edition and ME you better go for 98 SE, a friend o' mine bought ME and can no longer play some games. I don't know which was the problem exactly, but his experience kept me from upgrading. I run 98 "first edition" and will be upgrading to 2K soon.

My advice is to go the 2K route. I was reading that it's faster than XP!! And, XP may have bugs that will take time to correct. If you really want WinXP wait until the first Service Pack comes out.