PDA

View Full Version : [Dixonary] OT: Dealing / Systems & Software


Dodi Schultz
November 14th, 2006, 04:39 PM
Tim L writes:

>> If you are actually going to get a new computer...

Yeah, I may have to. I don't think my current one (I did really upgrade its
guts five or six years back) will run a more recent Win.

>> ...then I'd suggest going the whole hog - Win XP...

Hm. My consultant doesn't find anything later than 98 terribly stable,
especially XP.

>> ...Internet Explorer 7 or Mozilla 1.5+...

It's going to be a later version of Opera. That's the one I'm really
comfortable with, of the two older ones I use. (The other's Netscape.) Any
reason why not?

>> ...MS Word 2003 or Wordperfect 10, etc, etc.

It's my understanding that there's no technical reason that I can't stay
with my very highly customized (including at least 50 macros) WP51. Do YOU
know of any?

--Dodi

Tony Abell
November 14th, 2006, 10:54 PM
On 2006-11-14 at 17:39 Dodi Schultz wrote:

DS> Hm. My consultant doesn't find anything later than 98 terribly stable,
DS> especially XP.

What kind of credentials does this consultant have? The Windows operating
systems designed from the NT core (Windows NT, 2000, XP, 2003 Server) are
inherently more stable than the DOS-based predecessors (3.1, 95, 98) because
they make full use of modern processors' ability to let the operating system
protect itself from wayward or faulty applications. Thousands of businesses rely
on these operating systems to run for months on end under heavy load. My own
home and work computers, with dozens of apps open, run 24 hours a day connected
to the Internet, and have been rock solid as far as the Windows OS goes.

I'm not saying this to trumpet Microsoft's products. I have many objections to
their software and business practices, but the stability of the later OSes
is not among my peeves.

--
Tony

Lindsey
November 15th, 2006, 11:30 PM
>> Hm. My consultant doesn't find anything later than 98 terribly stable, especially XP. <<

I'm not sure what criteria are being used by your consultant to arrive at that conclusion, but I've been using Windows XP Pro for two years now, and I'm finding it extremely stable, and certainly inherently more stable than Windows 98. (Perhaps your consultant is measuring against XP Home? I'd definitely recommend going with the Pro version.)

I've been using Windows 2000 on my destop at work for even longer, and that, too, is extremely stable.

Windows 98 was better than Windows 95, but it's far from the gold standard of stability. It is in some ways a little more DOS-friendly, but there's really not such a HUGE difference in that regard between Windows 9x and the Windows NT derivatives.

--Lindsey