Windows 98 and XP superior products?

Hey all,

You can call me Skate Ball Tyson if you want, or just Tyson for short. I'm a long time user of Windows, dating back to the era of that old school Dig Dug, Pacman, Galaxian, Pole Position floppy disk your dad brought home if he were in IT. I'm also an extreme enthusiast for programming, and all technology & sciences.

Does anybody else agree that Windows XP is definetly better? I'm getting extreme panic attacks at the fact that I don't seem to see anyone else out there that realizes this. Am I the last survivor? What the heck is going on? What is this that's being designed now?

The problem is, that the Art industry, Language industry, among others, are all at a big downward spiral as of 2019, and it reflects in all of the corporate IT sector. Graphic designers just AREN'T following standard tried-and-true principles of UI's (seriously, these UI's cannot have been made with serious intent), and user experience.

Yes, I'm not a buffoon, I know that it's not the engineers that are to blame, it's someone in top management. What the heck is going on? Where is Bill Gates? Why is the Operating System taking several several Gigabytes to even get running at a basic level, with a relatively blank C drive? When last I checked, the first rule of Engineering, is to get things as EFFICIENT AS POSSIBLE. We don't bloody maximize all our tech out and crank up the electric generators, we all know what happened the last time that occurred. If Person A has a 10 Tera or Zeta byte hard drive, that's fine, but I'd be more interested in seeing what Person B can do to get his or her files down to nanobytes in size. Seriously, what is going on here?

I spent at least 3 weeks trying to clean up my desktop of all this garbage, like this "Grid" stuff, these annoying other things I can't even explain. Why are mistakes still being made 30 years later for a product that was already perfect to begin with? I fail to see why "Social Connecting" via Cyberality is more important for a freaking LOCAL operating system, than improving algorithms. I've yet to see one work of a good programmer here. Bill Gates made the name of Microsoft what it was, the ultimate godfathers of the virtuoelectral world. So why is the MS-DOS kernel being reduced to what it is today? An extremely laggy machine that right out of the box NEEDS to have at LEAST 4GB of RAM to even get booted up in time (if at all, half the time the damn thing doesn't even start).

I also don't like that the whole demeanor of the client to machine relationship seems to be like I'm 5 years old. Why do you feel that because there's lay-people out there that don't know how to use the computer, that you have to talk to them like they're juvenile? Even children are smart (well, we were), and you can try to actually identify to us at a realistic level by not saying:

"Hi."

"We've got some updates for you."

HI? Why are you saying "Hi" to me? You do know that you can cause panic in senior citizens with that? It causes me anxiety too myself. The Start menu button is annoying to click because there's nothing really to click, I keep trying to click half the time but miss it. The damn Search algorithm HARD-EMBEDDED INTO THE START MENU IS LAGGY LIKE HELL. WHY? Could a person not use Merlin the Wizard, or the Search Puppy? They were perfectly fine, and only existant when I opened Windows Explorer.

Also, I don't get why the thing has to keep automatically shutting down for no reason. Why are updates that mandatory? Isn't the product good when I first buy it? I'm not sure what the idea is...but people don't like to know that what they paid for is so messed up that you HAVE TO make me update it. My living room is a place that is entirely my own, and if I don't want a signal coming in to force my metal parts to do whatever the hell it is required in an update, I have the right to that. You cannot force an update on me.

Also, I understand for advertisements and such, data collecting is necessary in cases. But to this extent, that you guys are logging key strokes.....seriously? Statistics on what f***ing applications I use? Yes, I know. It's not you guys. It's the damn management, and some deal they struck with someone. Why is this happening? And are you not rich enough that you can't say no to them? I share all my Assembly algorithms with people for free, homeless kids even and they love it. You don't see me complaining for a buck.

Why does half the old software not work? DO NOT look up to modern Playstation for reference, of offering no backwards compatibility. People DO NOT like to spend 5 times on a product they ALREADY BLOODY HAVE. Issues with SecuROM and such are unnacceptable.

Also, anyone wanna fill me in as to why there's 2 (TWO) Program Files folders? Come on man, does that not smell like bad code? If you need to flipping duplicate the Programs folder to accomodate 64 bit processor designed applications versus 32 bit, I don't think you're really in a position to be releasing 64-bit technology to the market...don't you think? Not to sound too insulting, I know you guys are human and are mostly from the retro disco generation like my grandkids are. But seriously man, they teach this in schools, they're tried and true methods.

Also, why do none of the graphics have any shadows? This new trend that Apple has started of all buttons or any nodes having no borders or shadows is RIDICULOUS. It gets very annoying, and causes anxiety in many people I know. There's no bloody depth, and the result is you can't tell what's what. The flipping Next and Cancel buttons are NOT in the proper place, things are NOT centered, things are LAGGY, and generally doing ANYTHING takes 10 times as much time.

What are all your thoughts? People seem to think we always have to just charge forward in life, and not ever look back. That's a classic mistake.

Remember, a man who does not embrace his past can never have a future.

I have an old, slow as hell, Acer Aspire One (Atom processor, 1GB RAM) that runs w10 albeit very very slow. I have installed XP into it and I was amazed at the huge difference in speed, not just because of ram limitations, but because under w10 ecosystem there are too many processes running at the same time and a lot of bloated dirt going around. Having an antivirus running all the time doesn't help either.

PS. I am not joking. I love w10 but Total Commander opens faster on XP than on my i7 5960-x

How can you possibly find virtue in Windows 98?
That one was a crash site. An abortion. A horror.

As for XP ... it was good. But not better than 10.

You say that "... the Art industry, Language industry, among others, are all at a big downward spiral as of 2019 ..."
I did not know that. Where did you learn that? Can you substantiate this?

"... Graphic designers just AREN'T following standard tried-and-true principles of UI's (seriously, these UI's cannot have been made with serious intent), and user experience."
I don't see that. How do you know this?

"I know that it's not the engineers that are to blame, it's someone in top management."
Inventing stories does not inspire confidence in your post."

"Where is Bill Gates?"
He retired. I would too if I was worth 50 billion dollars.

"Why is the Operating System taking several several Gigabytes to even get running at a basic level ..."
Who cares?
RAM is about 100,000x cheaper than it was 30 years ago.
Disk storage is about 3,000,000x cheaper than it was 40 years ago.

"When last I checked, the first rule of Engineering, is to get things as EFFICIENT AS POSSIBLE."
Nope. The first rules are to make it work properly and safely.

"I spent at least 3 weeks trying to clean up my desktop of all this garbage ..."
I've spent about zero time cleaning up.

"... godfathers of the virtuoelectral world"
I'm saving that phrase for later. It's a zinger!

"Why are you saying "Hi" to me? ... It causes me anxiety ..."
Ten Forums cannot help you with that. See a psychiatrist.

"... why do none of the graphics have any shadows? ... It causes anxiety in many people I know."
I guess lots of people need to see a shrink.

"Remember, a man who does not embrace his past can never have a future."
A man who lives by the cliche dies by the cliche. :)

SUMMARY: Another big rant. Yawn.

Hi folks

Actually I found Win XP 64 bit very good but not too many people used that -- and I thought W23K (Windows 2003) server probably the best and most stable Windows ever -- I disabled some functions on W2K3 server so it ran beautifully as a DESKTOP rather than having a lot of server only things in it.

I still can run these as VM's though -- time moves on and these OS'es aren't fit for purpose as Real Machines on modern hardware -- how would you run native UHD 4K graphic large monitors on Windows 98 !!!!!!. Security, huge HDD's and SSD's and so much else has improved that there's about as much use in using these old OS'es for daily work as an Abacus is for doing a big corporations payroll.

By all means run legacy games / programs etc on these OS'es --can be fun -- I even run Hercules Emulator to load up an IBM MVS OS (old mainframe system) on a laptop -- does work !!!!! but their time as useful productive OS'es is well and truely over.

Cheers
jimbo

eLPuSHeR said:

I have an old, slow as hell, Acer Aspire One (Atom processor, 1GB RAM) that runs w10 albeit very very slow. I have installed XP into it and I was amazed at the huge difference in speed, not just because of ram limitations, but because under w10 ecosystem there are too many processes running at the same time and a lot of bloated dirt going around. Having an antivirus running all the time doesn't help either.

PS. I am not joking. I love w10 but Total Commander opens faster on XP than on my i7 5960-x

Yeah man, they can't even be bothered to call them the correct term, "Processes", they call them this "Details" gimmick, or "Tasks" are being referred to as something else instead now and Processes are called Tasks. The Task Manager is EXTREMELY unintuitive, and never gets the job done.

And you're darn right, gaming is definetly Windows XP and 98 all the way. If companies had properly made DirectX 10 and up (a gaming software to enhance graphics), then we wouldn't have needed to upgrade to Windows Vista or 7. I believe Bill Gates was actually even outraged at Vista, and the later Windows OS'es, no?

- - - Updated - - -

jimbo45 said:

Hi folks

Actually I found Win XP 64 bit very good but not too many people used that -- and I thought W23K (Windows 2003) server probably the best and most stable Windows ever -- I disabled some functions on W2K3 server so it ran beautifully as a DESKTOP rather than having a lot of server only things in it.

I still can run these as VM's though -- time moves on and these OS'es aren't fit for purpose as Real Machines on modern hardware -- how would you run native UHD 4K graphic large monitors on Windows 98 !!!!!!. Security, huge HDD's and SSD's and so much else has improved that there's about as much use in using these old OS'es for daily work as an Abacus is for doing a big corporations payroll.

By all means run legacy games / programs etc on these OS'es --can be fun -- I even run Hercules Emulator to load up an IBM MVS OS (old mainframe system) on a laptop -- does work !!!!! but their time as useful productive OS'es is well and truely over.

Cheers
jimbo

Well I sure as hell wouldn't want to Game on a Windows 10, I sure as hell wouldn't want to run a Server on a Windows 10 (XP and Linux are great for that), I don't think I'd really use it for anything besides needing to know it for "being-up-to-date" purposes.

margrave55 said:

How can you possibly find virtue in Windows 98?

margrave55 said:

That one was a crash site. An abortion. A horror.

As for XP ... it was good. But not better than 10.

You say that "... the Art industry, Language industry, among others, are all at a big downward spiral as of 2019 ..."
I did not know that. Where did you learn that? Can you substantiate this?

"... Graphic designers just AREN'T following standard tried-and-true principles of UI's (seriously, these UI's cannot have been made with serious intent), and user experience."
I don't see that. How do you know this?

"I know that it's not the engineers that are to blame, it's someone in top management."
Inventing stories does not inspire confidence in your post."

"Where is Bill Gates?"
He retired. I would too if I was worth 50 billion dollars.

"Why is the Operating System taking several several Gigabytes to even get running at a basic level ..."
Who cares?
RAM is about 100,000x cheaper than it was 30 years ago.
Disk storage is about 3,000,000x cheaper than it was 40 years ago.

"When last I checked, the first rule of Engineering, is to get things as EFFICIENT AS POSSIBLE."
Nope. The first rules are to make it work properly and safely.

"I spent at least 3 weeks trying to clean up my desktop of all this garbage ..."
I've spent about zero time cleaning up.

"... godfathers of the virtuoelectral world"
I'm saving that phrase for later. It's a zinger!

"Why are you saying "Hi" to me? ... It causes me anxiety ..."
Ten Forums cannot help you with that. See a psychiatrist.

"... why do none of the graphics have any shadows? ... It causes anxiety in many people I know."
I guess lots of people need to see a shrink.

"Remember, a man who does not embrace his past can never have a future."
A man who lives by the cliche dies by the cliche. :)

SUMMARY: Another big rant. Yawn.

Well, I'm not sure if you're supposed to be the one tasked with answering customer support issues, but generally we prefer that our problems and questions with your product are not met with a direct attacking, hostile/aggressive attitude that you are displaying here....I understand Businesses are all ran by Humans(?) at the end of the day, and you can't be expected to carry down tradition from 30 years before your time.

But I'd appreciate you not try to attack me at every line prettty much......you don't really seem intent on listening or taking any criticism. It doesn't matter what your "mech part prices" are today wherever you buy them, that's what Global Warming contributors always say. The same people who condone Smart technology say this exact same thing (I will make a post on this as well). I stand by what I said, that if you can't get a high-tier advanced application, be it an OS, or a game, etc., running on an old Windows 98 machine, you're NOT a good Scientist. You have to be able to take the most basic forms of a product and be able to get advanced things running on it. Come on man. F***in 2019 here, it's not 1950 anymore. We're not idiots, we're supposed to be moving forward here.

Tyson, it seems that you have really hit a nerve here.

But your fondness of the OSes of yesterday are also largly a very subjective thing, wouldn't you agree?

Like so many things in life, some people are going to fall on one side of the issue, and some on another. Some people love classic cars, others prefer modern designs. Some prefer Picasso, others prefer Jackson Polluck. Some thrive on order, some on chaos.

Clearly, there are times where the majority of people are in agreement on our love or hatred of certain features or design elements. I would hope that we voice our opinions as you are doing, but not just in a forum such as this, but through mechanisms such as Windows Insider Feedback, where we can take our opinions directly to Microsoft.

At least with Windows, there are a large number of areas where we can customize things to better fit our individual needs. Some of these customizations are available within the OS itself, many are provided by third partys, and as a community we all help each other to best achieve the results we want within the boundries available.

I'll simply note that for me, personally, a large part of the enjoyment I get out of modern computing is simply the experience of configuring my own environment to best satisfy my needs, and then putting plans in place to maintain, enhance, and personalize my little corner of the world to provide a productive and enjoyable experience.

<sigh>

Here comes the part where I have to control what my fingers type I have some rather strong opinions on some of the specific topics you bring up, but all I will say on the topics in general is this:

If we as a community can help you to achieve the best experience possible given the limits of what is available to us, please feel free to seek assistance here by seeking advice on specific topics. You will find a lot of people happy to help!

Opinions are fine too - I have plenty of my own - just be careful of jumping to general conclusions. For example, some of the problems you note are non-existant for me, even on my 10+ year old system.

Wishing you a good day!