Favorite Operating Systems of all time?

[zzip]

I used NT for work and appreciated the stability, but wouldn't use it at home until it supported some games. That's where Windows 2000, Me, and XP were great.

 

We are all coming at this from different directions, with wildly varying expectations for usefulness, cost, and fun out of an operating system, all informed by our individual experiences. Opinions are great!

NT was great for what it did. It just wasn't suited for everything MS claimed it was.

[VectorGamer]

NT was great for what it did. It just wasn't suited for everything MS claimed it was.

 

On NT if you had say service pack 6a installed and made a config change NT would install the files originally released with NT. You then had to reapply the service pack after any config changes. This changed with Windows 2000.

[+OLD CS1]

 

On NT if you had say service pack 6a installed and made a config change NT would install the files originally released with NT. You then had to reapply the service pack after any config changes. This changed with Windows 2000.

 

THIS was a major PITA. I kept a CD with SP6a on it on-hand at all times.

[VectorGamer]

 

THIS was a major PITA. I kept a CD with SP6a on it on-hand at all times.

 

There was a guy I worked with who thought he knew it all. He made a config change to one of the domain controllers. I said "aren't you going to reapply the service pack?" I explained to him why but "he knew better." After a day of services not being accessible (it's been a long time - I don't recall specifically) he finally reapplied the service pack and everything returned to normal.

[TheTIGuy]

No. I am truly sorry that you are so sheltered from the world that you feel that words should be censored, even when they convey honest emotional context..

 

-Thom

No, you just didn't get the joke.

[+OLD CS1]

No, you just didn't get the joke.

 

Meh, your open was cold. I must have missed it, as well. No biggie as far as I am concerned.

[fujidude]

 

Meh, your open was cold. I must have missed it, as well. No biggie as far as I am concerned.

 

I didn't see it either. We must all be humor challenged or something. That or, it was a "retroactive" joke; if you know what I mean.

[homerhomer]

Let's see some of my favorites were

 

Shout out to DOS. I forgot the last version I used.

 

Does beOS qualify? Not a favorite but super cool.

 

Window 2000 was great. It was before they went all Fisher Price with XP.

 

Slackware around 2003 was really fun to tinker with.

 

Ubuntu 4.04 was good back then they would listen to the community.

 

Sorry can't pick one they're good.

[eightbit]

You know, recently bouncing around OSes with my vintage builds I have come to a realization as to what the best Windows OS was and still is (in my opinion of course): Windows 2000.

 

Why? Well..

 

1. It is snappy fast (on the right hardware of course...I recommend a PIII)

2. Memory requirements are low (I run it with 384MB, and that is probably overkill)

3. It is no-nonsense. No eye candy, weird taskbars, no crap. Simple, yet looks great. No bloatware.

4. It is rock solid. I cannot remember ever being able to get this to crash.

5. It is based on NT and utilizes the NTFS file system

6. It has great USB flash drive and HD support out of the box (I used a 1TB USB 3.0 external Seagate drive with it today)

7. It is the last Windows OS that didn't need that stupid online activation

8. DirectX 9 can be installed on it and it works fine

9. Just about any Windows based game from the era (2000-2006) that I have tested runs great

10. You can still run DOS games with it and use VMDSound for DOS sound emulation...and it works with quite a few games

 

#10 is just an added bonus. I would be playing DOS games on my older P1 machine anyway. But, as an overall operating system from Microsoft I definitely have to say that Win2K hands down wins the prize for speed, reliability, good use of resources with less hardware/ram requirements. No wonder it was used in so many POS type situations. I remember internet jukeboxes and kodak picture makers using it. And no wonder why.

[notwhoyouthink]

The first real IBM my dad purchased came with GEOS.

Sadly, he sold it a few years ago to a flea market.

 

Heres a memory jogger for everyone: ever hear of MSBOB?

 

 

 

 

Edited December 20, 2017 by notwhoyouthink

[+OLD CS1]

The first real IBM my dad purchased came with GEOS.

Sadly, he sold it a few years ago to a flea market.

 

Heres a memory jogger for everyone: ever hear of MSBOB?

 

 

 

 

 

Oh, yeah... I have this installed in a VM for fun. Rather than fire the person responsible for this horrible piece of software, Bill married her!

[Flojomojo]

!!! wow!

looks like Melinda wasn't "responsible" for this (other than serving on the marketing team), but still!!

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Bob

[+OLD CS1]

!!! wow!

looks like Melinda wasn't "responsible" for this (other than serving on the marketing team), but still!!

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Bob

 

Well, blow me down. I remember she had something to do with it, and I seriously doubted a girl could be a programmer (ducks and runs.)

[Flojomojo]

The project manager was named Karen, which is a very manly name, right?

 

Seems like they had good intentions ...

http://www.technologizer.com/2010/03/29/bob-and-beyond-a-microsoft-insider-remembers/

 

I think the "onboarding experience" is important to consumer tech, and both Microsoft and Apple have come a very long way. "ToolTips" are very much the descendent to Bob. But back then, I guess a silly smiley avatar to try to guess what you were trying to do was the best they could do.

[+OLD CS1]

Well, I certainly cannot hate on them. Twas a different time then.

[thetick1]

My Favorites at the time I used them as desktops sorted by time:

 

AIX

OS/2 with Windows 3.1

Windows 95

BeOS

Mac OS X

Linux

Windows 7

[tschak909]

Actually, I'm missing truly modeless environments, so much, that I want something like this, back:

 

 

This is from 1968.

 

And it kicks the ever loving shit out of every diagramming system currently extant.

 

For all the "innovation" that the tech world heralds, so much of it literally gets swept away for political reasons. I've seen so many things that were years ahead of their time, wiped away because they were rail roaded by solutions "just good enough"

 

-Thom

Edited December 21, 2017 by tschak909

[+x=usr(1536)]

BeOS

 

It really, Really, REALLY makes me happy to see BeOS keep popping up. There was so much potential there, and it did things that even now other OSes haven't caught up to. Sure, it had its shortcomings, but in many ways it still has no equal.

 

So nice. Shame it didn't get another three years of life; it really would have been something incredibly spectacular by then.

Edited December 22, 2017 by x=usr(1536)

[fujidude]

 

It really, Really, REALLY makes me happy to see BeOS keep popping up. There was so much potential there, and it did things that even now other OSes haven't caught up to. Sure, it had its shortcomings, but in many ways it still has no equal.

 

So nice. Shame it didn't get another three years of life; it really would have been something incredibly spectacular by then.

 

And how serious were those shortcomings? I'm betting that if folks are completely honest, they'll admit they were fairly significant. Hopefully any killer advantages it had find their way into more popular OS's.

[+x=usr(1536)]

 

And how serious were those shortcomings? I'm betting that if folks are completely honest, they'll admit they were fairly significant. Hopefully any killer advantages it had find their way into more popular OS's.

 

With respect to BeOS, the two major shortcomings were:

 

1. No true multiuser support. There were bits and pieces of it in various parts of the OS, but it wasn't a comprehensive multiuser environment like you'd find in Linux. To be fair, it wasn't intended to be multiuser from the outset, but it was something that would need to be changed.
2. The networking stack. The stock one as shipped through R5 was proprietary to BeOS and didn't have the greatest performance (or, in some cases, compatibility). This was fixed with the development of the BSD-based BONE (BeOS Networking Environment) stack, which (IIRC) could be applied to an R5 system. It was intended to be an integrated part of R5.1, but the company tanked before that officially saw the light of day. It was floating around out there a few years ago, however.

There are other things I can think of, such as improved USB device and 802.11 support. Those were in the pipeline, but the company's demise meant that they never saw the light of day.

[MrMaddog]

Heres a memory jogger for everyone: ever hear of MSBOB?

 

 

 

You know what's funny? Tandy had already made an easy-to-use interface for Windows called WinMate, which was based on DeskMate but wasn't as condosending as Bob was.

[fujidude]

I heard they discontinued Bob because he shot himself in the head; right there in that cheesy ass "room."

[MrMaddog]

I heard they discontinued Bob because he shot himself in the head; right there in that cheesy ass "room."

 

 

 

The public's reaction...

Edited December 28, 2017 by MrMaddog

[thetick1]

 

With respect to BeOS, the two major shortcomings were:

 

1. No true multiuser support. There were bits and pieces of it in various parts of the OS, but it wasn't a comprehensive multiuser environment like you'd find in Linux. To be fair, it wasn't intended to be multiuser from the outset, but it was something that would need to be changed.
2. The networking stack. The stock one as shipped through R5 was proprietary to BeOS and didn't have the greatest performance (or, in some cases, compatibility). This was fixed with the development of the BSD-based BONE (BeOS Networking Environment) stack, which (IIRC) could be applied to an R5 system. It was intended to be an integrated part of R5.1, but the company tanked before that officially saw the light of day. It was floating around out there a few years ago, however.

There are other things I can think of, such as improved USB device and 802.11 support. Those were in the pipeline, but the company's demise meant that they never saw the light of day.

And the biggest shortcoming:

 

No major companies (ie cash, marketing and lawyers) promoted/backed BeOS. BeOS was betting on next generation Apple OS. When that did pan out MS killed BeOS by scaring PC vendors threatening to jack up rates on Windows if BeOS was offered as a boot option.

 

Anyway my brother still runs a local radio with Tune Tracker. He has an over 2 decade old BeOS PC and spares / parts that STILL runs the radio station to this day. Much much cheaper and less issues than even current Windows solutions: http://tunetrackersystems.com-- currently sold with HaikuOS .

Edited January 2, 2018 by thetick1

[+x=usr(1536)]

And the biggest shortcoming:

 

No major companies (ie cash, marketing and lawyers) promoted/backed BeOS. BeOS was betting on next generation Apple OS. When that did pan out MS killed BeOS by scaring PC vendors threatening to jack up rates on Windows if BeOS was offered as a boot option.

Well... Yes and no. Those were definitely contributing factors, but not the whole story. To add some detail to those points:

 

BeOS did pretty well in the retail market, with R4.5 (IIRC; may have been R4) outselling boxed copies of RedHat for a couple of quarters. Agreed re: not having the level of promotion others did, but it was receiving very favorable press which in many ways was almost better.

 

The next-generation Apple OS: what nuked that was Jean-Louis Gassée overestimating how much Apple was willing to pay for the company. By buying NeXT, they got Steve Jobs into the deal and for less money. Spend half as much and get the guy back who actually knows how to run the company? It was a no-brainer.

 

Strangely enough, that leads into why Be ported the OS to x86, and why Microsoft later strongarmed hardware manufacturers into keeping Be out of the bundled-OS marketplace: after the NeXT acquisition, Apple suddenly weren't interested in cooperating with Be as regards technical information necessary to port the PPC version of BeOS to the G3 architecture. Be went to x86 as a result, and... Despite (or, depending on how you look at it, because of) massively increased interest in and uptake of the OS as a result, they still got screwed.

 

The one that really sunk them, though, was the focus shift from BeOS to BeIA.

 

For anyone unfamiliar: BeIA was the Internet Appliance platform derived from (but not binary-compatible with) BeOS. They basically bet the farm on Internet Appliances being the next big thing, and it was a bad bet. Development on BeOS pretty much stopped as soon as the Compaq Clipper and Sony eVilla were in the picture and being actively developed for, so the parent OS was effectively dead (which also explains - in part - why R5.1 never saw official release). However, once it became apparent that nobody wanted a $99 email and web browsing terminal that forced you to subscribe to at least a year's dialup service at inflated cost in order to use it, the writing was on the wall. It did not take long for this to happen.

 

Anyway my brother still runs a local radio with Tune Tracker. He has an over 2 decade old BeOS PC and spares / parts that STILL runs the radio station to this day. Much much cheaper and less issues than even current Windows solutions: http://tunetrackersystems.com-- currently sold with HaikuOS .

TuneTracker is a pretty damn awesome piece of software. But if there's one thing in BeOS that I really, Really, REALLY miss, it's Replicants. Being able to basically shove data from any application to any other application completely seamlessly was so damn useful at times.