Which Windows OS is better for retro computing?

[BillyHW]

 

Nope, the device drivers in 98 were based off NT. From the Windows 98 Wiki "Device driver access in WDM is actually implemented through a VxD device driver, NTKERN.VXD which implements several Windows NT-specific kernel support functions. NTKERN creates IRPs and sends them to WDM drivers." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_98

 

The question was also not about stability. It was asking about retro computing for windows games. Dos games are easily played using Dosbox but Windows games made during 1994-98 get abit tricky. The best way to play those is on the original Windows 95 platform. Otherwise you have to hunt down install patches to make the games work correctly. If you want an out of the box (or out of the CD) install and play experience, a retro computer running Windows 95 will play everything from that era.

 

Borrowing a few bits of code from does not constitute a basing off of. From the same Wikipedia:

 

"Windows 2000 is an operating system for use on both client and server computers. It was produced byMicrosoft and released to manufacturing on December 15, 1999^[5] and launched to retail on February 17, 2000.^[6] It is the successor to Windows NT 4.0, and is the last version of Microsoft Windows to display the "Windows NT" designation.^[7] It is succeeded by Windows XP (released in October 2001) and Windows Server 2003 (released in April 2003). During development, Windows 2000 was known as Windows NT 5.0."

 

 

That's why Millenium Edition (which is the continuation of the DOS-95-98-98SE line) is not the same thing as Windows 2000 (which is the continuation of the NT line).

With XP they merged the two lines (or just kept the NT one, rather).

Edited January 2, 2016 by BillyHW

[82-T/A]

 

Nope, the device drivers in 98 were based off NT. From the Windows 98 Wiki "Device driver access in WDM is actually implemented through a VxD device driver, NTKERN.VXD which implements several Windows NT-specific kernel support functions. NTKERN creates IRPs and sends them to WDM drivers." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_98

 

The question was also not about stability. It was asking about retro computing for windows games. Dos games are easily played using Dosbox but Windows games made during 1994-98 get abit tricky. The best way to play those is on the original Windows 95 platform. Otherwise you have to hunt down install patches to make the games work correctly. If you want an out of the box (or out of the CD) install and play experience, a retro computer running Windows 95 will play everything from that era.

 

 

Sorry man, I hate to disagree for the sake of disagreeing... but Windows 98 and Windows 98 SE were NOT based off of Windows NT. There was a distinct difference between Windows 98 SE and Windows 2000.

 

Windows 95/98/98-SE/ME are all built off the same kernel, with improvements made each successive iteration. These versions of Windows were known as "Windows 9x." ME was meant to be supported on machines that would have originally came with Windows 98, or newer machines that were less powerful but that could not support Windows 2000. ME (Millennium Edition) came out in 2000 around the same time Windows 2000 came out. It was supposed to provide the same environment look and feel as Windows 2000, but in the older DOS-based Kernel. It sucked though, since it attempted to lock DOS access. Though you could simply edit one of the bootup SYS files and change BootGUI=1 to BootGUI=0.

 

 

Windows 2000 and Windows XP share the same kernel, with the only real difference being that Windows XP had a few enhancements and a look and feel difference to the UI.

 

Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, and Windows 10 all share a similar Kernel as well.

 

 

 

For my uses, I have a Dell 325P Slimline running DOS 5.0 and Windows 3.1.

It's got a Sound Blaster 16 ASP with a Roland SCB-7 Daughterboard, and an ATI VGA-Wonder 4mb of ram. It has 16 Megs of ram total (60ns), with a 512mb SSD Disk On Module plugged into the IDE port. All my pre-1994 games get played on that system.

 

 

I then also have an Acer Altos 1000 Mini-Server with dual Pentium 333MHz / MMX processors. It runs Windows 98 SE booting in DOS mode. I have 256mbs or ram, with an 80 gig hard drive. It's got some kind of G-Force graphics AGP card with 32mb of ram on it. It also has a Sound Blaster 16 ASP, with a separate Roland SCC-1. I play all my ~1994-2000 (DOS and Windows 9x) games on it.

[Osgeld]

Sorry man, I hate to disagree for the sake of disagreeing

 

 

I dont

 

While 98 was in no way related to NT, BUT it was during that time that hardware makers were having a bitch of a time supporting 3x 95 98 NT and now 2000 with drivers, MS started to move the windows 9x drivers to the same NT model for drivers, this is what is being referred to

 

It started with 98, mostly as a template, and went balls out with ME, which is what causes ME to be so unstable if you mix "old world" and "new world" drivers together

 

something similar happened with NT 4, 2000 and XP, and it went tits up with vista especially if you forced one of those drivers onto the new model

Edited January 2, 2016 by Osgeld

[MarkO]

ME = so bad that didn't even bother trying to fix it

 

 

Windows XP Home was a Comein'. Why bother.....

 

MarkO

[82-T/A]

 

I dont

 

While 98 was in no way related to NT, BUT it was during that time that hardware makers were having a bitch of a time supporting 3x 95 98 NT and now 2000 with drivers, MS started to move the windows 9x drivers to the same NT model for drivers, this is what is being referred to

 

It started with 98, mostly as a template, and went balls out with ME, which is what causes ME to be so unstable if you mix "old world" and "new world" drivers together

 

something similar happened with NT 4, 2000 and XP, and it went tits up with vista especially if you forced one of those drivers onto the new model

 

 

I lived through that time as well, and I don't really remember Windows 98 SE being particularly bad. In my opinion, it had been THE most stable Windows operating system to-date.

 

In the early Windows 95 days, you still used jumpers and dip switches, and had to set IRQ, DMA, and address, etc... but they offered a special version of Windows 95 (which came out later in 1996 before Windows 95 Plus) which was called Windows 95 Plug n' Play... or more technically known as OSR2. It sold in a boxed shrinkwrap version that said "Now with USB support" and also had plug and play support.

 

Windows 98 took this further and improved upon it even more, but Windows 98 SE really took all of that, and made it pretty solid.

 

 

Now, I do remember in the Windows 2000 release party, that Bill Gates got up and said... "This version of Windows has been running for almost a week, without a crash!!!" (to much applause from the crowd), but still...

 

Windows 98 SE, hands down... if you want to play those older DOS / Windows 9x games, that's the version you go with.

[Osgeld]

98 is solid, and plug n play was around even back in windows 3x days, it was better supported by 95 and fully supported by 95 OSR2, which is what I run on my pentium cause I have like 3 disks and 2 licences for it and I cant find my 98 disk and cant be bothered lol

 

plug n play was more of a bios + driver than, our 486 proudly proclaimed it in the brochure

 

for the record OMG XP, I bought it when it first came out, my machine instantly got pawned by every malware on the planet within an hour ... I didnt reinstall it until vista came out and moved to 7 as soon as I got my hands on it

Edited January 2, 2016 by Osgeld

[Asaki]

Real DOS will require a FAT partition, and Windows XP and beyond default to NTFS.

Yeah, but it isn't hard to install 2000/XP on a FAT drive.

 

Now, I do remember in the Windows 2000 release party, that Bill Gates got up and said... "This version of Windows has been running for almost a week, without a crash!!!" (to much applause from the crowd), but still...at's the version you go with.

I liked 2000 an awful lot. I only switched to XP because programs stopped supporting it =|

[82-T/A]

98 is solid, and plug n play was around even back in windows 3x days, it was better supported by 95 and fully supported by 95 OSR2, which is what I run on my pentium cause I have like 3 disks and 2 licences for it and I cant find my 98 disk and cant be bothered lol

 

plug n play was more of a bios + driver than, our 486 proudly proclaimed it in the brochure

 

 

Yeah that's true, it was "PnP" between the BIOS and the ISA cards. I could be wrong, but BUS support through the USB was handled entirely different (but they called that plug and play also). Certainly, it wasn't something that was supported through the serial ports (outside of the serial port cards themselves being PnP).

 

 

The big problem you have with Plug and Play (ISA cards)... when you want to play DOS games that typically were played on 286-386 and early 486 systems... were that most of the games EXPECTED to be told what the IRQ and Address, and sometimes the DMA of the sound cards. Without this being defined, the games simply wouldn't run properly. Of course, most cards came with "drivers" that would be loaded, either through CONFIG.SYS or an executable that was run in the AUTOEXEC.BAT. But... that took up valuable 640k base memory, and without MEMMAKER (which Windows 95+ didn't come with), you often couldn't run games that needed the maximum space possible. So... it was a big issue if you wanted something that was fully compatible. For this purpose, for my gaming machines, I try to buy the best NON-PnP cards that I can. So like... my Sound Blaster 16 ASP loads no drivers. When I boot up in DOS, I don't have to run any drivers. All I do is set the environment variables "SET BLASTER =A220 T3, D1, I5." The newer sound cards require drivers to be loaded, but for me, no drivers required... either for my Sound Blaster, or for the Roland.

 

...but, as you say, that has nothing to do with Windows 95 or Windows 98... but fewer people had accepted Windows 95 as the dominant operating system by that point. By Windows 98 SE time-frame... many of the games actually ran in Windows, and Windows 98 SE gave full support to 95 programs, while also supporting DOS games the same-as, or better-than Windows 95 would. But really, "in my opinion," all Windows 9x systems should boot into DOS first.

 

 

 

for the record OMG XP, I bought it when it first came out, my machine instantly got pawned by every malware on the planet within an hour ... I didnt reinstall it until vista came out and moved to 7 as soon as I got my hands on it

 

Was this while visiting web sites? Or was this simply just being connected to a network?

 

 

 

Yeah, but it isn't hard to install 2000/XP on a FAT drive.

 

I liked 2000 an awful lot. I only switched to XP because programs stopped supporting it =|

 

Yeah, I liked Windows 2000 a lot too. I used that exclusively for a LONG time. I personally never really used XP at home, and went straight from 2000 to Vista.

 

Windows 8 sure didn't last very long, maybe less than Vista.

 

[Keatah]

Depends on which era of computing you're wanting to experience.

 

ADDED:

If I had to pick, it would be Win 3.11, Win98se, and XP. These would cover all the bases with regards to Windows' retro software.

Edited January 3, 2016 by Keatah

[Osgeld]

just being on network, course it was a college network

Edited January 3, 2016 by Osgeld

[82-T/A]

Depends on which era of computing you're wanting to experience.

 

ADDED:

If I had to pick, it would be Win 3.11, Win98se, and XP. These would cover all the bases with regards to Windows' retro software.

 

 

Almost the same for me...

 

DOS 5.0 / Windows 3.11

Windows 98 SE

Windows 2000

Windows 7 (the new generation for "classic" games)

 

XP can be emulated pretty good in Windows 7... but while XP and 2000 are basically the same, there are a lot of games that DEMAND 2000, for no other reason than because they were programmed poorly and expect to see Windows 2000 values in registry.

[Keatah]

Why Dos 4.0 and not 6.22 ??

Edited January 3, 2016 by Keatah

[Keatah]

Why Dos 5.0 and not 6.22 ??

[82-T/A]

Why Dos 5.0 and not 6.22 ??

 

 

DOS 5.0 is cleaner.

 

Essentially, DOS 5.0 and 6-6.22 are all the same. The key difference between 5.0 and the subsequent versions was the inclusion of tons of software that not everyone really needed or wanted. This included:

 

MSAV - Microsoft Anti-Virus (basically, a rebadged version of CPAV)

DoubleSpace

MemMaker

 

... and a few other applications that came preloaded that you didn't REALLY need.

 

The huge improvements to DOS were made in the leap to 5.0 from 4.01... though 4.01 was intrinsically improved as well in terms of commands and stuff.

 

 

In terms of cars, think of DOS 5.0 as a Pontiac Firebird Formula. It has the big engine, all the performance options, but it's streamlined, no unnecessary options.

Then think of DOS 6.22 as a Pontiac TransAm WS6. It too has all the performance options, but then tons and tons of other crap that you don't really need.

 

 

The ONLY thing from DOS 6-6.22 that I like, is MEMMAKER... which is awesome. So... you can copy all of the components of memmaker, and copy them into a DOS 5.0 environment and it'll work just fine. You can even take the newer version of HIMEM.SYS from DOS 6.22 and move that over as well.

 

DOS 5.0 was the first OS to move the command.com into upper memory, so that improved a lot.

 

 

I don't really need to overthink this, but basically... DOS 5.0 gives you all the improvements you really need, but significantly minimize the bloat-ware.

[boxpressed]

Here's a good thread from Vogons comparing DOS versions: http://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?t=35389

[Keatah]

Got it..

 

I used DriveSpace and DoubleSpace extensively. On-the-fly compression was pretty novel to me back in the day. Perhaps even magical. Kind of like the TARDIS. Bigger on the inside. We used to write short sci-fi stories about superspace and subspace magnetic fields on frozen air-gas platters and all sorts of alien electronics.

 

I found MemMaker to be a useful verification and tutorial tool.

[The Usotsuki]

I prefer PC DOS 2000, possibly upgrading over PC DOS 5 or MS-DOS 5 or 6, over MS-DOS by itself.

[Osgeld]

Wanna talk about bloat try the CD installer of dos 7.01

[82-T/A]

Wanna talk about bloat try the CD installer of dos 7.01

 

I completely forgot about Windows 7.10.

 

I never used it, aside from that which came with Windows 98 SE... but I heard you could get it separately, but never remember it being sold individually.

 

Back in 1995/1996 when I worked for CompUSA... we had plenty of copies of DOS 6.22 and the upgrade (all on 3.5" floppies), but beyond that, Windows 95 was the only thing you could buy. We did also sell Windows NT 3.51.

 

Was that something that could be ordered on CD? I see there's an ISO... but I don't remember it ever being available separately?

[SSG]

Wow has this thread strayed...

[BillyHW]

DOS 7? I thought 6.22 was the last one.

[Osgeld]

dunno I have the CD from the ISO

 

and SSG were still talking retro OS's hehe

 

7 is neat if you only want dos and not windows, but still want FAT32 and long filenames, the windows version only has a few utilities, the full version has everything from 6.22 and about a billion 3rd party tools like music players and whatnot which you dont have to install

Edited January 4, 2016 by Osgeld

[SSG]

dunno I have the CD from the ISO

 

and SSG were still talking retro OS's hehe

 

7 is neat if you only want dos and not windows, but still want FAT32 and long filenames, the windows version only has a few utilities, the full version has everything from 6.22 and about a billion 3rd party tools like music players and whatnot which you dont have to install

 

Good point.

[The Usotsuki]

6.22 was the last official from MS. IBM forked it sometime between 5 and 6, releasing 5.02, 6.1, 6.3, 7.0 and a sub-point reversion of 7.0, mostly keeping up with Microsoft's changes. (Microsoft also kept up with IBM's changes; for example Interlnk, which first appeared in MS-DOS in version 6, had already appeared in PC DOS 5.02.)

 

MS-DOS 7.0 and 7.1 are unofficial hacks.

[Asaki]

Was that something that could be ordered on CD?

DOS 7.0 and 7.1 come integrated when you install 95 or 98, and are also used for their boot disks. If you really want to, you can hack it to install separately, and there are even hacks to get Win 3.x to run in it.

 

ME and XP can make you boot disks with 8.0 on them.