Quote:I'd never fall back to win98se --> 512mb ram would not be supported (due there's an upper support limit in win9x at 384mb, only games would make use of more ram), bad usb support, bad sse & 3dnow! support etc...
therefore i've the choice between win2k, winxp and winme..well, winme sucks, too (same bad ram support as win98se).
at last: win9x is kind of too unprofessional to me, 'cause i get no real system tools (like the administration tools in win2k/xp).
First of all, Win98SE does work very well with 512 Mb of RAM. I've tested this before, and there are no problems.
5 things:
1) Win 2000 use more than 64Mb (also using a swap with 20Mb at least) after booting, Win98 can run with no swap at all, and leave you as much memory as you need.
2)Also, you can't choose in Win 2000 or XP how much memory is used for disk cache, and the swap is...
3)Many video cams, and printers, and other USB stuff like that work perfectly under Win98 SE.
4)If you are so keen in beliving about the huge benefit of Win 2k/XP and 3DNow!/SSE, why you get the same time for those actions that trully rely on them (Video processing and 3DMark 2001 SE)?
5)Most of the time, you don't really need your computer as a server or a workstation at home, and even inside a company there are software sollutions available for Win98 that do just as well as those on Win2k. Not including that overall, the price tag is lower for Win98+these tools than Win2k... Only for new computers it is worth, as you anyway get Win2k/XP installed shipped with it.