The minimalist approach has support advantages as well. Because of the small image size a reimage can be accomplished quickly.
For better or worse many network tools/utilities only run under win[*] requiring a windows box for many of these Win98SE fits nicely. My app load is small i.e. browser, ssh client sftp client and the inevitable Office suite. We are primarily a [*}x house here but we do need windows at times. Scott C. McGrath On Tue, 25 Nov 2003, Brian Bruns wrote: > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Vivien M." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > To: "'Daniel Karrenberg'" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Cc: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Sent: Tuesday, November 25, 2003 9:39 AM > Subject: RE: Anit-Virus help for all of us?????? > > > > > Have either of you actually followed this advice? > > > Win98SE is totally useless as a desktop OS due to the archaic GDI/USER > > resource limits. When one average consumerish app (eg: a media player) > eats > > up 10% of those resources, one window in an IM program eats up 2%, etc... > it > > does not take much to bring down an entire system. Last time I was > running > > Win98SE (which is about 3 years ago), it took about 20 minutes after > booting > > while running boring normal apps to get to a dangerously low resource > level > > (30%ish free). That machine got totally unstable needing a reboot after > > about 3 days. On the same hardware (with additional RAM), Win2K could > easily > > run 3-4 weeks and run any app I wanted just fine. > > So, some people might say I'm a power user, but the average users I know > > these days tend to multitask at least a web browser, an IM client with a > > couple open windows, some bloated media player, perhaps a P2P app, and > some > > office app. This is already stretching Win9X to its limits, and I would > > expect it to be worse (code just gets sloppier...) than it was three years > > ago... > > Yes I do follow my own advice. Back from the days when I was an OEM, I > still have a box full of win98SE cd packs/licenses for when I build people > new machines. Its what I put on them standard unless you ask for Win2k or > XP or NT4 (or any other OS for that matter, ie Linux, BSD). > > I know full well about the resource limits. Its a PITA, but as long as you > run a decent set of apps that don't suffer from resource leaks (Mozilla > without a GDI patch does this for example) that eventually use up all > GDI/USER memory, you'll be fine. I use Win98SE here all day with only one > reboot needed most days, and I run WinAMP, Putty, K-Meleon, Outlook Express, > Cygwin, mIRC, Xnews (which has a bad habit of crashing the whole system at > times), as well as AIM, Miranda IM, SST, Yahoo Messenger, and various other > tools. Thats all at once, multitasking. I know, I could reduce the clutter > by letting Miranda IM do AIM and Yahoo, but thats not the point. :-) > > Many times, resource suckage comes from those ugly faceless background > programs that run at startup. Kill as many icons as you can on the desktop > and the task bar, and clean out your startup list, and you'll free up alot > of GDI resources. > > > > > > No wonder people think Windows is unreliable. 98SE may be preferable from > a > > security-from-external-threats POV, yes, but for any type of real use, > it's > > useless. Not to mention the other quirks, like needing to reboot to change > > network settings, the lack of any local security (or even attempt at local > > security), etc. I'll take rebooting every week or two for the latest XP > > security patch any day over rebooting every day or two because Win98SE is > an > > unreliable piece of poorly designed legacy junk. > > > The way I see it, there are two uses for 98SE (or 95, 98, Me, etc) in the > > modern world: > > 1) People who use their computers as game-only machines (or who dual boot > a > > real OS for non-game purposes) > > 2) Advertising for $OTHER_OS, where $OTHER_OS can be Win2K, XP, or your > > favourite Linux distro with KDE, GNOME, etc. Anything that actually WORKS > > reliably. > > Lets not forget those people who just don't have the CPU power or memory to > support 2k or XP. > > Just because something is new and 'improved' doesn't make it better. Yes, > 9x has alot of legacy crap. Yes, 9x has various issues with resource usage. > But sometimes, its just right. > > -------------------------- > Brian Bruns > The Summit Open Source Development Group > Open Solutions For A Closed World / Anti-Spam Resources > http://www.sosdg.org > > The AHBL - http://www.ahbl.org >