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Best version of Windows for MMX?

sonnytiger

sonnytiger

Joined
Dec 30, 2009
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Location
Lower Sackville, NS
System Specs
System Name ThinkPad T410
Processor Intel Core i5 540M
Motherboard Lenovo 2522DM1
Cooling Stock
Memory 8GB DDR3
Video Card(s) nVidia NVS 3100M
Storage 128GB SSD
Display(s) 1440x900
Software Windows 8.1 64bit
I've got a beautiful old Pentium MMX 233 MHz with 250MB of RAM, what version of window would be most period appropriate?
 
im thinking windows 98 se
 
period appropriate, windows 98, however i installed windows 7 on an nvidia riva powered pc last week, gave up when i couldn't find networking drivers
 
You could try force Windows 7... but 2000 or XP will work well on there.
 
PHaS3 said:
You could try force Windows 7... but 2000 or XP will work well on there.
Click to expand...

i'd still go for windows 98 or 95 if i was him, anything else is going to be really slow, and don't forget if he goes to windows 95 he gets to use the best program of all time 'windows fax' :cool:
 
Me personally i have an old computer with thoes same specs and have windows 98 SE on it i have tried win XP and win 7 both of them ran really slow but win 98 SE runs nice and smooth so i would go with Win 98 SE
 
Pentium Pro: Windows 3.1 or Windows 95 C
Pentium II: Windows 95 C or Windows 98 SE
Pentium III: Windows 2000, 98 SE, ME
Pentium 4: XP

95 C is very hard but you should be able to get your hands on B.

Windows 95 B uses about 5-6 MiB of RAM whereas Windows 98 SE uses around 30-32 MiB of RAM.

If the computer has USB ports, I'd highly recommend going with Windows 98 SE because Windows 95 support of USB is sketchy at best.

Windows 95 supports up to IE 5.5. Windows 98 supports IE 6 and even older .NET Frameworks.
 
win 95 is a pain in th ass to install so i think i will go with win 98 se
 
why don't you try a modern OS like Mint with Xfce or LXDE? It should run acceptably well.
 
He wants it for a legacy gaming rig. Linux is no good for that.
 
sonnytiger said:
win 95 is a pain in th ass to install so i think i will go with win 98 se
Click to expand...
They're virtually the same. :p

If the computer has any ISA slots, I'd definitely go with Win 95.
 
I installed Windows 95c on a Pentium 1 laptop yesterday. Was damn easy. It had all the drivers built-in.
 
I liked 98 se, but for that 233mhz i would use 95. What size drive?
 
Mindweaver said:
I liked 98 se, but for that 233mhz i would use 95. What size drive?
Click to expand...

98SE would be absolutely fine on that. Plus it's a LOT better supported, even with Windows Update and the like.
 
Red_Machine said:
98SE would be absolutely fine on that. Plus it's a LOT better supported, even with Windows Update and the like.
Click to expand...

Yea, I know 233mhz is fine for 98se. I was thinking more along the lines of the rest of the hardware and driver support for the 233mhz. I bought a p 233mhz 32mb ram and a 3gb hard drive and put 95 because that was the latest and greatest at the time when that processor first came out (also my first year of college :)). I remember when I bought my first pII 400mhz, 128mb ram 2x 6gb hd's and 98 didn't come out until 3 or 4 months after the pII 400mhz processer came out. :toast:
 
Mindweaver said:
first pII 400mhz, 128mb ram 2x 6gb hd's and 98 didn't come out until 3 or 4 months after the pII 400mhz processer came out.
Click to expand...

i bet you thought that PC was really powerfull at the time :laugh:
 
cheesy999 said:
i bet you thought that PC was really powerfull at the time :laugh:
Click to expand...

Hell yea i built that one to last.. hehehe Most pc's were just coming out with 64mb.. I put 128mb. hehehe and i bought a monster 2 8mb daughter graphics card. You had to have a 2d video card installed then add in the monster 2 8mb card.. It wasn't until i bought a monster voodoo card that i had 2d and 3d on the same card... hehehe it had 2mb 2d and 4mb 3d.
 
try ReactOS on it... it's a windows clean room reverse engineered clone. I ran it on a VM with 128MB RAM allocated in VMware and it worked. Please report on how good it works.
 
I am thinking like win 95 .
 
remixedcat said:
try ReactOS on it... it's a windows clean room reverse engineered clone. I ran it on a VM with 128MB RAM allocated in VMware and it worked. Please report on how good it works.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't use ReactOS on that p 233.. ReactOS uses parts from Wine. It uses some of Wine's technology to implement the WIN32 API. You could try it, but it might run like a dog... :toast:
 
windows 2000 for sure. everything that runs on XP runs on 2K, but with a hell of a lot less resources needed.


win 2K on its own can run on 64MB of ram, FYI.
 
If it can run W98 it can run W2K0. I would do W2K0 since it has NTFS and a much better kernel. I ran a laptop with w2k0 and 256MB for many years, and it could handle Office 2K3 fine.
 
Mussels said:
windows 2000 for sure. everything that runs on XP runs on 2K, but with a hell of a lot less resources needed.


win 2K on its own can run on 64MB of ram, FYI.
Click to expand...

That would be worth trying.. but i'm assuming he only has 95, 98 and XP. If he has a copy then sure i'd try it. Hell I still have plenty of boxes running 2000 now. All of my single core cpu's are still running 2000 and a couple dual cores. But still I would put 95 on it and be done with it. You can run 2000 with 64mb, but i wouldn't run it with less than 512mb if i were going to be running multiple apps at once. :toast: I say try them all if you have the time... and see which one he likes... I still don't know what he is going to use that box for?
 
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