A
Worst OS in history?
- Thread starter john titor
- Start date
ME
The very definition of failure.
The very definition of failure.
A
Amaris
Guest
I remember there were huge peripheral issues with XP when it arrived, and I stuck with 95 for a fair while for that reason, but I quite like XP now, having installed various SPs. And I don't mind Vista except for one thing - I think its Search functionality is bloody awful, and hope this is rectified in 7.
As for worst OS, I temporarily had to use at different times DOS 4 and ME, and yes, neither of those experiences were great. I had to learn Unix at college and hated it, it was very user-unfriendly, but I really admired the damn speed of the thing.
As for worst OS, I temporarily had to use at different times DOS 4 and ME, and yes, neither of those experiences were great. I had to learn Unix at college and hated it, it was very user-unfriendly, but I really admired the damn speed of the thing.
"Shit, we haven't had a consumer version in a couple years!"
"Egads! What do we do?"
"Um... hey, can we rip some features out of 2000 and bolt them onto the 9x line?"
"I dunno... that might be a little unstable. That stuff was coded for the NT kernel. No telling how it'll work on top of that DOS-based junkpile."
"Fuck it! We need a good fourth quarter! Make it so!"
And so, Mistake Edition was born.
I had people telling me ME was the "improved" version of 2000. No. Just... no.
I've used DOS 6, Win 3.1, 95, 98 (SE), 2000, XP and Vista so far on the Microsoft side. Also OpenSUSE 8.1 and 11 and various versions of Ubuntu.
Of these, I have to say Windows 95 was easily the worst. For a long time, I had Windows 95 on my PC for those games that really needed it, but generally booted into DOS (7.0/7.1).
Vista had annoyances early on and still does in some areas, but I only switched to Vista with SP1 already out. Also, some of those remaining issues (eg networking) that are better in 7, don't really influence my experience much if at all.
Of these, I have to say Windows 95 was easily the worst. For a long time, I had Windows 95 on my PC for those games that really needed it, but generally booted into DOS (7.0/7.1).
Vista had annoyances early on and still does in some areas, but I only switched to Vista with SP1 already out. Also, some of those remaining issues (eg networking) that are better in 7, don't really influence my experience much if at all.
I was lucky enough never to touch the original 95. I got to use OSR2, which was reasonably stable--and had USB support! Wonders!!
beast me why Microsoft never made OSR2 available to retail customers.
Probably because they wanted to make OEMs happy without cannibalizing future Win98 sales.
Nope. I don't think that flies.
Why not? People may not see a reason to buy Win98 if they can get 95 OSR2 cheaper.
The last OSR version was released in late 1997. 98 came out in the summer of 1998. We're talking about a lag of six, seven months here. Definitely enough time for Microsoft to see OSR2 sales cut into 98 sales. Letting it only go out to OEMs ensures Microsoft could cut it off any time they wanted. Selling it at retail means it's out of their control, unless they severely limit the number of units.
To be fair, they gave up on this whole thing when 98 came around, though. You could buy SE as a standalone package, and all subsequent versions of Windows have just had free Service Packs rather than OEM-only upgrades.
There were 3 OSR versions - 2.1 and 2.5 released August 1997. The initial OSR2 came out August 26th 1996.
Windows 98 was released on June 25th 1998 - 22 months later after the ORS2.
Windows 95 had a service pack - releaseed Feb 14th 1996.
OSR2.5 came out November of 1997. 2.1 came out in August. The point still stands--MS had another consumer version coming out and it's easier to control previous versions at the OEM side than at the retail side.
but the big changes were made when OSR2 first came in 1996. I'm sure you're aware enough of the way versioning numbers are worked.
The biggest change with OSR2 was the introduction of FAT32 which got around some major partition size headachs as hard disk sizes were increased and support for MMX (multi-media extensions).
2.1 added AGP and USB support. 2.5 added support for the Pentium Pro and later chips using the P6 architecture. So pretty much nothing in there would of been enough to impact any upcoming sales of Windows 98.
When win98 came out it offered, DVD support, better USB support, revisions to the interface, IE5, introduced ICS and changes to the driver model.
Well, I don't know why they didn't sell it standalone, and neither do you! I'm just taking my best guess here and you don't have a good counter-explanation, as far as I can tell. Unless it's "Microsoft is dumb," but that's neither here nor there. 
I've used Vista for I guess three years now. Never had a problem with it.
