3 ms·

Win2k was a very different beast from 95/98/Me. I guess it depends how long you used Me for but my 95/98/Me machines regularly had to be reinstalled from scratc

by ebbv 10y ago

Win2k was a very different beast from 95/98/Me. I guess it depends how long you used Me for but my 95/98/Me machines regularly had to be reinstalled from scratch, usually about once every year or so. Whether my gaming machines or work machines.

raverbashing 10y ago
98SE was much more stable than Me or 95 though
minxomat 10y ago
I used my ME machine for office, some gaming (with some external peripherals) and some Q(uick)BASIC programming. I never had to reinstall it, having used it for at least 3 years basically every day. The 98 PCs were used in an SMB with older printers and cash registers. They worked great. 95 never managed to run for more than a month without some catastrophe.
- tinus_hn 10y ago
  Windows 95 and 98 actually contain a bug that limits the uptime to about 50 days because the uptime is kept in milliseconds and after that time the counter overflows and the system crashes. https://sites.google.com/site/edmarkovich2/whywindows95andwindows98wouldcrashafter49.7daysofuptime https://sites.google.com/site/edmarkovich2/whywindows95andwi...
bluedino 10y ago
>> Win2k was a very different beast from 95/98/Me. Agreed. Memory protection and pre-emptive multitasking was such a huge improvement back then. Windows 2000 came out right around when I started working at a consultant/MSP, and all the power users that were using Adobe/Macromedia products were restarting their Windows 98 PC's multiple times per day. After installing Windows 2000 (and possibly adding another 32 or 64MB of RAM) they were running twice as fast and could go without a crash for a week. Mostly due to scanner driver hang-ups or losing communication with parallel Zip drives and things like that.
- Unklejoe 10y ago
  Wait, there was no memory protection in Windows 98? Did it implement virtual memory for processes? If so, it seems like memory protection would be a freebie at that point? I was also unaware that it was not a pre-emptive multitasking system.
  - bluedino 10y ago
    The new 32-bit stuff was. The problem was all the 16-bit programs and driving weren't, and large parts of Windows itself were still 16-bit.
  - userbinator 10y ago
    The first 1MB ("realmode area") has no protection and is essentially shared, for compatibility with DOS and 16-bit Windows. Win9x is preemptively multitasked, at least for actual Win32 processes, however I would not be surprised if some parts of it weren't.
    - digi_owl 10y ago
      And MS put in various exceptions to make sure programs and games kept working. IIRC, sim city had one such because it had a "use after free" bug. Something that was a nono even in DOS, but not properly enforced by the OS until 9x.
  - pwdisswordfish 10y ago
    There was, technically, but it was quite sketchy. For example, in Windows 95 the zero page was mapped to physical memory in order to workaround an ancient CPU bug... for which CPU support was later dropped anyway[0][1]; as far as I know, Windows 98 keeps doing this. Try it yourself: run debug.com and type f 0:0 1000 0 It hangs the system even in Windows Me. [0] https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20110112-00/?p=11773 https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20110112-00/?p=... [1] https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20141003-00/?p=43923 https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20141003-00/?p=...
  - to3m 10y ago
qubex 10y ago
I participated in the Windows 2000 beta programme back in '99. I remember being amazed by how stable it was and what an enormous step forward it was compared to both 95/98/98SE/Me and NT 4.0. In many ways it felt like some kind of crowning achievement.
Nr7 10y ago
Yeah, Win2k was NT based and thus much more stable than Me.

by ebbv 10y ago

raverbashing 10y ago

98SE was much more stable than Me or 95 though

minxomat 10y ago

I used my ME machine for office, some gaming (with some external peripherals) and some Q(uick)BASIC programming. I never had to reinstall it, having used it for at least 3 years basically every day. The 98 PCs were used in an SMB with older printers and cash registers. They worked great. 95 never managed to run for more than a month without some catastrophe.

tinus_hn 10y ago
Windows 95 and 98 actually contain a bug that limits the uptime to about 50 days because the uptime is kept in milliseconds and after that time the counter overflows and the system crashes. https://sites.google.com/site/edmarkovich2/whywindows95andwindows98wouldcrashafter49.7daysofuptime https://sites.google.com/site/edmarkovich2/whywindows95andwi...

bluedino 10y ago

>> Win2k was a very different beast from 95/98/Me. Agreed. Memory protection and pre-emptive multitasking was such a huge improvement back then. Windows 2000 came out right around when I started working at a consultant/MSP, and all the power users that were using Adobe/Macromedia products were restarting their Windows 98 PC's multiple times per day. After installing Windows 2000 (and possibly adding another 32 or 64MB of RAM) they were running twice as fast and could go without a crash for a week. Mostly due to scanner driver hang-ups or losing communication with parallel Zip drives and things like that.

Unklejoe 10y ago
Wait, there was no memory protection in Windows 98? Did it implement virtual memory for processes? If so, it seems like memory protection would be a freebie at that point? I was also unaware that it was not a pre-emptive multitasking system.
- bluedino 10y ago
  The new 32-bit stuff was. The problem was all the 16-bit programs and driving weren't, and large parts of Windows itself were still 16-bit.
- userbinator 10y ago
  The first 1MB ("realmode area") has no protection and is essentially shared, for compatibility with DOS and 16-bit Windows. Win9x is preemptively multitasked, at least for actual Win32 processes, however I would not be surprised if some parts of it weren't.
  - digi_owl 10y ago
    And MS put in various exceptions to make sure programs and games kept working. IIRC, sim city had one such because it had a "use after free" bug. Something that was a nono even in DOS, but not properly enforced by the OS until 9x.
- pwdisswordfish 10y ago
  There was, technically, but it was quite sketchy. For example, in Windows 95 the zero page was mapped to physical memory in order to workaround an ancient CPU bug... for which CPU support was later dropped anyway[0][1]; as far as I know, Windows 98 keeps doing this. Try it yourself: run debug.com and type f 0:0 1000 0 It hangs the system even in Windows Me. [0] https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20110112-00/?p=11773 https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20110112-00/?p=... [1] https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20141003-00/?p=43923 https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20141003-00/?p=...
- to3m 10y ago

qubex 10y ago

I participated in the Windows 2000 beta programme back in '99. I remember being amazed by how stable it was and what an enormous step forward it was compared to both 95/98/98SE/Me and NT 4.0. In many ways it felt like some kind of crowning achievement.

Nr7 10y ago

Yeah, Win2k was NT based and thus much more stable than Me.