I am with Slack on this one Emeric. While I may not be able to write a technical paper about the differences between 96 1/2 (95/98 splitting the difference...
)and NT, NT is what windows should have been in the beginning. The similarities stop at the GUI stuff.
I tried a 95 install once. Without ever getting past the 3rd Application install I was hanging and having to reboot. I almost paid a shrink to help me through my anxiety of using 95. Every time I booted it I had a panic attack from all the error messages.
With NT, I can go weeks without a stall, a hiccup, a burp, a blemish. I have to try really hard to get NT to crash. In fact, I have to open IE5, Outlook Express, ICQ, Photoshop LE, Goldwave, Cakewalk, and maybe a couple more app's all at the same time before my computer will hang. Try that on 95/98 (96 1/2). Bet you don't get past the 3rd app running before it stalls and you have to shut down your power to free the machine.
As far as subpar hardware, I don't think this is true. I only use quality hardware on my machine. Always have. Regardless, 95 just hangs when you try to do anything it seems.
I would consider myself a power user of a computer. I demand a lot from my machine. I don't like to wait for a certain function to get done before I start another. I just start clicking things. While in NT things may slow down a bit, it seldomly hangs. In 95, it stalls. I have had very little luck with Task Manager in 95. I ctrl-alt-delete, and it just hangs some more. In NT, I have only had one time where Task Manager failed to work.
I did not believe before I started using NT that Windows would be a very good OS. Any version. When NT was recommended to me by some other power users, I scoffed at first. But I gave it a try. I have never looked back. When was the last time you seen me post something complaining about my OS taking a dump on me? In fact, I just seen the first post ever on here a couple of days ago with any troubles with NT, and it turns out that it is really a n-tracks problem, because I had a similar situation as was described with n-tracks. So I would think n-tracks is the problem. No other software, except cheapy crap has ever had a problem on NT with me. But alot of this same software would hang 95 in a second. Bad software? Maybe. But I tend to think that a well functioning OS will work with software to it's fullest. NT does this. 95/98 don't.
Just had another long conversation with a friend tonight who is a LANS manager for a law firm that is MS main outside counsel. This guy gets MS support at the highest levels possible. The subject of 95/98 came up. He just could not bring himself to recommend either for a serious workstation. He gets to see this stuff work at a hugh variety of user levels. He seldom has problems with the NT users. He spends most of his day dealing with the 95 computers in the office. He won't even install 98 because he has recieved nothing but bad reports about it.
With all the post's on this BBS, as well as many ICQ chat's I have had with people, the common denominator seems to be the 95/98 OS. Every person I have chatted with who is using NT never has a complaint. We usually have a good laugh about our past bad experiences with 95.
You will never know the difference until you see the difference.
I knew not one damn thing about installing OS when I first installed NT on a computer. I put the disk in, booted the computer, and clicked on YES, and CONTINUE. Bam!!! Done. It worked great. Didn't have to go through a bunch of crap to get it going. It didn't start crashing when I started installing applications. The only time I ever had trouble with a NT install is when I started fiddleing around with it. Started trying to do things that it didn't recommend. Half the time the only way I could get 95 to even run was to fiddle with it. Do you call that easier? More reliable? More user friendly? I call it a scam!!!
I will defend NT as a superior PC OS. There is not one OS available for a PC that can even touch it.
Peace.
Ed
d.s
