Disgusted - Alternatives To Win9x

[Guest]

After using Windows based machines since windows v3, I have finally had it. Every time I finally get a machine running the way I like, some BUILT IN FAULT in windows kicks in and I either have to re-install windows, reformat my drive, spend countless hours troubleshooting or or just live with the fault. Well sometime I can live with not being able to change the default printer, or not being able to SAVE the dial-up password....or other small but irksome problems that have strange and unusual causes and solutions, BUT I cannot live without the use of a mouse. Now navigating to this site without my mouse was hard enough because long gone are the days when my keyboard shortcuts were second nature, however, I was determined to get here and say my bit. Anyone have an Intellimouse Optical? I do...I did. My third one died out on me tonight...another glorius Microsoft product. Now not only is the mouse a glorified piece of garbage, surpased in sheer marketting hype only by the packagers of the new ABSOLUTELY USELESS logitech FORCE FEEDBACK (??) mice, but it is the ONLY component on my computer that I ALWAYS have trouble installing properly when i re-install windows. All my other drivers worked fine when I, ever so foolishly, migrated to winMe, but this mouse required a pathetic driver update, incidently its the only piece of microsoft hardware i own. Anyways...i could go on bashing MircoGarbage for the rest of my bitter life, but I am looking for a better solution for an OS. Unfortunately, living in this captilist world, and with my love of games and most main stream design apps, i dont believe i have an choice in OS's....except maybe switching to win2k...another virus most of you are familiar with.

I smile today when i was reading microcrap stocks are down nearly 50 %

someone tell me what to do, or someone tell me i have too much cynicism and that win2k will be a beautifully stable solution....*sigh* my commodore 64 was probably the last stable machine i owned....and i had a defective one.....

 

[Bubba]

I feel your pain.
I have no solutions for you, I just know that sometimes it helps to vent.

 

[Kodiak]

You can play a lot of games on an Amiga 500...
Other than that... I feel your pain....🙁
Linux has a few games these days (Civilization:Call to power, Quake 3, Unreal Tournament etc).
Maybe switching to (gasp!) Apple? At least its a different OS

 

[lostinms]

I never owned a microsoft mouse. I had this Genius netmouse pro for about 2 years(knocking on wood) and I never had a problem with it.
Oh yeah and I am still using Windows 95c(osr2.5). Tried 98 when it first came out and I could never get it to work with my CDRW so I went back to 95 and been happy ever since.

 

[Guest]

all i can say is that Microsoft better damn well start fixing and upgrading their OS. I have the same problems and frustrations in ME that I did in 95. At least Linux doesn't crash every five minutes. Me runs on practically the same code 95 did. The last worthy upgrade was from Win 3.1 to 95.
I'm getting fed up.
-Pedro229

 

[lakedude]

I have a M$ optical mouse and it worked fine in win98se (in usb or PS2 mode) as soon as it was plugged in. It also works fine on Mandrake Linux (in PS2 mode only). This may be because it is being used as a two button scroll mouse instead of a multifunction programmable jillion button whatever else the stupid thing is suppose to do mouse. I never loaded any extra drivers for either OS. The optical mouse is being used on a laptop so it is taking a beating from being carried around and works great. I love it. Maybe I am just lucky?

How are you reloading your system? Using Drive Image or Ghost it should only be taking 10 minutes or so to completely reload the partition Windoze is on. Forgive me if you already know this but you should partition your drive and separate your OS and apps from your data. Then if/when you have trouble with your OS you can completely wipe it out and reload it without affecting your data.

 

[Guest]

My previous Windows ME install was off a windows 98se install. I knew that it would hinder preformance somewhat, but I was NOT expecting constant blue screens, GPF's (oh i know everyone loves those) explorer.exe crashes, and ofcourse stack overflows and a few system hangs just to spice things up a little, after ALL, NOBODY does it better than MS!
So after this post I went back to Futureshop and they replaced my mouse for me (wonderfull people, them)and since my alternatives were an UTTERLY USELESS logitich forcefeedback optical mouse, a low end Dexa optical mouse or another MS mouse, i decided to get another MS because futureshop said with their warranty they would replace it as many times as neccessary! So i though, if microsoft will pay in the end run, i hope i go trhough a mouse a day. Anyways, i got home, logged on to windows and got a crash at boot-up...i was FURIOUS, so i decided to go out and buy Win2k professional. Well by that time it was too late, so I called a friend to come over with a copy so i could test it out, if i liked it i would purchase it the next day. Would it install? Sure. Would it Run? Sure. Once. And after the initial bootup it would just go to an error during bootup. I Tried 4 times to install it, off floppy disk, off dos and variations thereoff. No Luck. So there i am, 2 am...no OS and i reallllly wanted to get online and FLAME MS on every Web Board i could find. So reluctantly and unbelievingly i reached over for my WinME CD again. And i installed it on a clean, freshly formatted drive. WOW
Installation Was Flawless.
I got online instantaneously which says a lot since I have ADSL and winME autodetected all my settings...i just had to sit back and smile. Well i have since installed all my drivers and tweaks and i can happily say it all runs extremely well.
So to wrap up, advice to ANYONE running ME and not happy.....do a clean install. It REALLY helps.
Now MS is not off the hook for all the evil they have done so far, if a company can't manufacture an OS which upgrades efficiently from a previous version of their OWN os, what good are they, but WinME is surprisingly stable at this point. 🙂.

 

[Guest]

I gave up on Win95 and all of its' successors (Win98, Win98SE, WinME) a LONG time ago. I've been using WinNT since version 3.5 and now I run Win2k. I have been an MCSE since 1996.

IMHO, Win2k finally fulfills the promise of Windows. It is not perfect, but it runs well and all the features work including Plug 'n Pray. Once you get the drivers set up, it is stable and reliable.

I've had a number of very pleasant surprises with Win2k Pro. For example, I regularly run "Mobil 1 Rally Championship" with a Microsoft "Force Feedback Wheel", with no problems whatsoever, even though neither the game or the wheel are officially supported under Win2k.

Win2k is based on NT, so a lot of the configuration tweaks and tricks from Win9X/WinME simply don't work. This means that there is a learning curve to this OS that you will need to endure, but the benefits are worth it.

For someone in your position, I understand why you are unhappy. I can only say that Win2k "will be a beautifully stable solution" if you approach it with an open mind and you make the effort to learn how to make it work well.

I'm also very surprised that you are having so much grief with your Intellimouse Optical. These are in use in my company on a large number of desktops (about 60), all running NT 4.0 or Win2k. IT Support loves them, since they work much more reliably than any of the mechanical mice. I use one at home, and I love it since it never needs cleaning. Win2k works perfectly with it, with built-in drivers.

Hope this helps!

JS

 

[lakedude]

Glad to heat about your good luck following the clean install. Did your mouse problem turn out to be software or are you still having problems? I have never been a big M$ fan but after trying Linux I have new respect for them. While Linux is stable and powerful it is not for the lazy. Linux may be the future but is not quite ready for prime time yet. Windows does a lot for you and supports tons of hardware (esp winmodems) that Linux does not. Since Linux is free and Linux distributions are cheep you could try Linux with very little investment and see for yourself. Linux can easily be installed on seperate partition so you could have a dual boot system with both Windows and Linux.

 

[Guest]

you can talk all the crap that you want about Windows but i love that mouse never had a problem with it and banged the hell out of it ddroped it hmmm let me count 1,2,3 about a 100000000 times and it still works lol. so bash microsoft all you want but leave my mouse out of it 😉

 

[bdaley]

You might want to try Win2K, but as someone else here mentioned, there will be a learning curve to it. You'll have to download new Win 2K drivers for almost everything you own. It's also possible that some software/hardware will not work properly or at all.

For example, I was running Win2K for about 2 months and was very happy with it, until I bought a Creative DVD drive with a decoder card. There were no officially supported Win 2K drivers for the decoder card, so I downloaded some unsupported Beta drivers which absolutely sucked! The Video was horrible, if it worked at all. Also, Win2k would not allow me to read any data files off a DVD. I could see the files in Explorer, but not read them.

After trying for two days to get the DVD to work properly, I reluctantly removed Win2K and installed 98SE. The DVD player now works flawlessly.

Let's hope Whistler will take care of some of these problems, although I'm not holding my breath.

Goos luck with whatever you decide to do.

"There's no such thing as gravity, the Earth just sucks"

 

[Stereo]

get a G4 it operates on a real os, it doesnt need 2 like a pc(windows/dos)

 

[Guest]

Seen a lot of good things written about Beos, now that Microshaft have lost thier court case (Free at Last,Free at Last) we may see more development on alternate os's, The thing that worries me about Beos, if its so good, why are they giving it away?, Casio have a new mouse coming out, it prints out labels for you too.

 

[Guest]

well hey futureshop replaces my mouse everytime it dies, so it can die twice a day for all care...and im not going back to trackball mice....so as long as i dont have to pay i hope my mouse dies once an hour on the hour. I tried beos...its very stable, and all system processes run independant of the core, so, if for example Exmplorer.Exe crashes, my systray and everything else would not be effected. The only problem with BeOs (sigh and macs and unix and linux and virtually all other OS's) is software support. Its growing...sure. Its gaining more.....definately. Is it anywhere near win9x support? NO. So for now i reluctantly will stay with winME...but the SECOND there is a feasible alternative, im gone like the wind baby. 🙂

 

[carlbeck]

I just thought I would add my 2 cents on the MS Optical Intllemouse. I have used one on Win Me for over 6 Months. I used Win Me Beta before Win Me was released. My Son uses one on Win 98SE. Some time ago I suggested one for my friend who now has 2; one on Win Me and one on Win 98SE. All of these have worked very well and Guess what? They don't consistantly get jerky because dirt builds up on the rollers. I used the reguler Intllemouse before that and Dirt was my only problem. When using a MS Mouse, I never load any drivers. The Windows driver works just fine.
I would suggest that the problems you are having is caused by something else.

 

[nalaree007]

Use Win2K if you want stability, although some games don't run so hot on it. Hopefully Whistler will be better. Until then, I recommend a biannual Windows clean install. The only other alternatives you have are Linux (which has very few programs) or Mac (which are expensive and slow). I recently played UT on a $3000 Powermac G4 and it was pitifully slow (24-32 FPS). I also don't understand how Mac users can live with one mouse button.