OSes you've had overall good or bad user experiences with?

[Aurora Borealis]

Here is where you can share your personal experiences with OSes you have used in the past or use now, and rate your overall experiences with each OS from best to worst.

These are to be just your personal experiences and KEEP IT CIVIL!! I WILL crack down on those who flame!

[Red-Machine]

1. Windows 98 - perfect for gaming, and with DOS support allows me to play everything in my collection.

2. Windows XP - brilliant for gaming, the HAL may be a bitch for older programs but if it crashes you can normally recover without a reboot, if it had DOS support it'd be no. 1.

3. Windows 95- My first proper OS.  Barely had any problems with it that I can remember, and it came with a shedload of decent games.

4. Windows ME - Not as bad as everyone says I think.  I've had no more problems with Emuui-san than I've had with Vista, less probably.  You can also recover from ME's BSODs most of the time, but with Vista it's an automatic reboot.  The only think I don't like is lack of DOS support.

5. Windows Vista - Flashy GUI.  Otherwise it's just a slower-running version of XP in my eyes that asks for confirmation for everything you do unless you turn UAC off...

6. Windows 3.1x - HATEFUL, HATEFUL OS!  Could not run a single one of the games I tried on it.  Ugly GUI and lack of sound card support.  Basically a glorified DOS GUI.

Well, there you go.  I haven't tried Windows 7 yet, so I can't rate that one.

[Smokey]

Well eehm of the WinVersions i used heres a list...

Win3.1/3.11 Love it and will always remember it fondly, was the first windows i used and i never ever had any problems with it (maybe you were trying to run 32 bit games on win3.11, Red... that doesn't work, no)... Support for my (back then) SoundBlaster 16 was allright (of course, i set it up in config.sys and autoexec.bat)... And as Red said, it was indeed a DOS shell, but it never pretended to be  a standalone OS, so i don't see the problem, all later windowses except NT-based ones are really a glorified DOS shell, because they pretend to be a standalone OS without telling about the DOS usage... As for the GUI, for it's time it was slick, i has ToyBox 2.02 and Windows and even though ToyBox had customizable icons, windows looked a bit better...

'Kay next ^_^ Windows 95, didn't like it too much, didn't dislike it either... It was of course a 32-bit supporting OS, but i remember me trying everything to get those 32-bit games to work on win3.11... for the rest, i didn't hail it as revolutionair, just a evolution, start menu was fun though...

Windows 98/98SE: Yeah, i remember that one...As stable as a crate of nitroglycerin... Crashed frequently... It did look a bit better than 95 though, because of the updated DX and the updated GFXcard, but it sure crashed alot... still i had good times with it, between the crashes...

Windows ME: even though i never had it on a PC of mine, i'll put it in, because a friend of mine had it on his PC, wich i serviced...
What a disaster ^_^... Even though it looked good and gamed well (i don't really remember the difference between the GUI of 98 and ME, so i couldn't find a reason to install it on my PC), it crashed more often and harder than my win98 PC... The number of times i had to completely reinstall that PC was enough to drive me and them insane...

Windows NT4 with Novell: What can i say, i used that at school and it did what it was supposed to do... Although i did overhear the NetAdmins being glad that they finally upgraded to 2000... Probably some sort of support issue...

Windows 2000: What a relief! it was the second decent, stable windows i ever used (except for NT4, but i didn't really use that, no games... ^_^)... I remember installing a BSOD screensaver because i was missing the crashes... Epic fun OS, good support for everything i flung at her, and at SP4 even supported the modern things like Bluetooth, WiFi, IEEE1394 and USB2, so it took me awhile before i upgraded again, i just had too much fun with this one...

Windows XP: I was reluctant at first and even more so when i finally installed her... I didn't like that oochie-coochie-coo GUI with support and help everywhere, neither did i like all those colours... I was raised that a computer wasn't for everyone, you had to know your stuff to do advanced software handling and configuration, and really had to know your shiz if you wanted to do hardware... And here was XP making it easier for the proletariat...
Well eventually i got over it and had to accept people were getting smarter concerning PCs and i eventually loved it, and was a member of the MEWXPZLFUDAWV Club... because i was oh so happy with my XP and refused to accept Vista... wich brings us to ->

Windows Vista... Hated it, hated her guts.... Untill i inserted that installation disc, labelled Windows Vista Ultimate x64, rebooted the PC and saw how effortlessly the installation went, cutting install-times in three...Then i saw how nice the GUI looked, wich i wasn't really impressed about, it just looked good... But then the two things that really sold me and made me use her up till this day; The epicly better support for SLI, plus DX10 wich made my games run better than ever, and the strange but evident way my uTorrent started downloading my animes at ten times the speed it would under XP...
So yeah, sorry, but i love Vista...
[edit] As for the UAC and her paranoia about installs, sure that can be annoying but it can also be shut down, and i can even imagine people  wanting such a second guessing nature in an OS, because they're not sure about what they do on their PCs... All Vista asks me now is what to do when an optical disc is inserted (or a portable HDD, or usb-stick etc) wich is good, since i don't always want autoplay to start the installer, and she askes the usual questions when i download some executible fron the net and want to run it... I can live with that, i don't see why it should be a reason not to use Vista... [/edit]

Windows 7: I have the disc here, but am too lazy to install it really... Will do when i find a usable DVD-RW and made some room for it on one of my HDDs...

Linux... even though i didn't really use Linux all that much, nor did i use a lot of different sorts of Linux for comparison (i only used; Fedora8, Ubuntu, Freespire, DSL, Mandriva, PCLOS & RIPLinux) i do have to say, that despite the lack of gaming support ( i know, WINE, but i'm a bit too lazy for that, besides i have to get a proper bootloader working to get Windows and Linux in one bootscreen) Linux works like a dream, i started out using LiveCDs and it was like nothing i ever saw before, i was used to XP, wich took an hour to install and another one to get the drivers working... Those LiveCDs just booted up and instantly recognized my hardware, although not all versions could see my Asus Wifi...So yeah, i have to say Linux is a dream to work with and i really do have to get one installed one of these days...

MacOS: well, i do have a MacBook, wich is more like a McAncient..... ^_^ i don't have the charger for it so i can't really see or judge the MacOS version on it...

[VonDaab]

Win 3.1: Oh hey, what a nice GUI... now what can I do with this thing?

...Paintbrush huh...


*exit to DOS*

C:\Games\IDgames\doom.exe...

That was over 10 years ago.

Win NT.4.0: Ehh... Used only in school for learning the "basics of computer user knowledge".

Win98: Zomg lol! games & interwebs!
The most unstable Windows I've ever used.

WinXP(current os): Hmm... looks pretty flashy, I dont see what the whole fuzz is about- HOLY SHIT!
I'M MULTITASKING PROGRAMS AND GAMING LIKE THE FIST OF THE NORTHSTAR!

Now for the other OS':

Mac OSX 10.x: This is kinda awkward... Do the people at Apple think that I'm a retard that cant operate more than one mouse button or what? Eh, whatev. It's Photoshop tiem!

Huh...?

It.... Froze.

Uhh... ookay...

Also, spinning hippieball of colors for the fail.

I got 3 years of experience of badly maintaned macs, with a shitty server mac that screwed up all the other macs all the time.

Mac OS 7, 8 and 9: Well, they were already obsolent when I got the Macs that had those. But they had a very interesting feeling and made me kinda wonder why Apples werent that popular those days.

Ubuntu: Uh... It devoured my old desktop that now is sitting under the table and I occassionally kick it to not let the dust set... And keep spiders away.

[Inseri]

Microsoft OSes :

- MS-DOS 6.22 [ Er .... DOS is DOS, white commands on a black screen, but it's very stable !!! ]
- Windows 3.11
- Windows 95 OSR 1.0 [ My "real first" OS I tried, it's a quite stable OS, the only thing I regret on it, it is the fact it doesn't support JPEG pictures for the background ]
- Windows 98 SE [ My "school official" OS, more complete than 95, but it seems for me to be more unstable than 95 ]
- Windows 2000 [ Better than 98 SE and it have almost the feature and stability of XP. The only black spot on it is the fact it is a very difficult OS to install on a VIA-based chipset Motherboard ]
- Windows XP ( Pro/ Home/ Media Center ) [ My favorite MS OS, I began with the HOME version, then with MC Version and with the PRO  version. The Media Center Version is quite bad because it use a lot of RAM and CPU time. ]
- Windows Vista ( Basic / Home / Ultimate ) [ Ah .... Vista ... too heavy for me ! The minimum RAM recommendation is 512 MB but, for me, 2 GB is the minimum for a good reactivness of the computer. ]

MAC OSes :

- MAC OS 7 [ I didn't use it for parameting it, I only use it for text writting ! But it is very stable ( the mac have 22 years and I NEVER reinstall the OS ! ) ]

LINUX OSes :

- Ubuntu 8.10 [ It is a very good OS, fast, stable and sure ! The only blackspot is the problem of sound drivers ( they aren't recognized in almost the case and the installation of it is not easy ) ]
- Xubuntu 8.04 [ A "light" version of Ubuntu. I use it on an old Tecra 8100 Laptop. It a good OS but not good as Ubuntu ]

OTHER OSes :

-  BeOS R5 [ a very good OS, it support the multi-CPU systems, and it have a good support of 3D features of the GPU of the time of the release of the OS ]

[svx]

MS-DOS - <3  I have a box dedicated to this still. I'll... always have a soft spot... agggh...  The first PC I owned ran DOS, but I can't remember what version.

Win 3.11 - This is what I loaded to play Space Quest.  Nothing more.

Win 95 - Hated it.  Until I learned that it could take me to DOS.  Then I played Quake nonstop.  I still play Quake nonstop.

Win 98 - Thought it was Win 95 with a more robust selection of backgrounds.  I played WinQuake.  Remember being angry and installing Win 95 again.

Win ME - It turned my background into a web page.  I was happy.  I thought that it was awesome for links to not be underlined.  But then I got angry.

SuSE - Pretty.  My first linux distro.  Ughn...  I was clueless...

Redhat - I installed it.  Too commercial.  Too annoying.  RPM files made me blisteringly angry.

Debian - Installed shortly after I tried Redhat.  I liked it.  More my style.  Used it for a good long time, until Gentoo first appeared.

Gentoo - Used to this very day.  Never will look back.  Nothing compares to my favorite operating system.

*buntu - Annoys me.  GUI's annoy me.  I need text.  A... uhn... console...  If a program configures things for me, then how can I tell what it just changed?  No, Ubuntu.  Bad.  Get away from me forever.  Take your KDE with you.

Windows XP - Used to play new games.  Rarely.  I don't like dealing with Windows.  It's obtrusive.  Foreign.  I liek Linux.  Liek.  My worst experience with it is how it requires me to locate a floppy drive that works from my pile of floppy drives that don't work, and then a floppy diskette that works from thin air so that I can install RAID drivers.  My best experience with it was when GRUB overwrote its boot sector.  Ping, XP?  PONG!  HAHAHAHA!@ Check mate!

Windows Vista - Never again.  You'll never get me to play a game from Vista again.  Or install it.  Ugn...  Obtrusive...

OS X - I turned on a computer that ran this.  "How do I open a terminal?" I asked myself.  I clicked a few times.  I clicked a few more.  I stepped away from the computer and never looked back.

I really liek Gentoo.  Liek it a lot.

Edit:

I forgot Win 2000.  I'll... tack that here...

Win 2000 - What kind of trash is that?  Where were the drivers?  WHY DON'T YOU LIEK MY SOUND CARD?!??!??

[NejinOniwa]

Here cometh my list, along with the current age of your Nejinoid so you can reflect on why I felt as I did.

Windows 3.1 (Nejin like wat, 4-5 years old): Ok...computers. Fun stuff. Click. Clicky. CLICKYYYYYY!!!!!!stupid shit isn't working for me! I'll go play with my clone. (pretty much all my 3.1 experience, lol)

Win95 (Nejin some 6 years and onward): YAY GAMES! YAY INTERNET! YAY EVERYTHING! Huh? Crashed? REBOOT! IT WORKS AGAIN! EVERYTHING IS FABULOUS!!!!!!
Descent 2, Liero, Sim City, Theme Park....damn, 95 was fun.
Also, most beautiful bootscreen ever. <3

Win98 (Nejin 9 years old): YAY GAMEswhat the fuck, why isn't it starting. Come on...come ON...DAMN YOU STUPID COMPUTER suck it. *goes off to play with clone and/or win95 computer*
This, or I was fighting with my brother over the rights to use it to play some shit like Age of Empires 2...

Win2k: Mom's laptop. It was the only thing that would run Age of Mythology in my house. It was ok then. Later on it became more and more sluggish (until I recently installed Fedora on it), but it was good back then. The OS wasn't particularly interesting, as in it didn't get in the way. It was good that way, I guess.
We held onto our 95 box and our 98 piece of brick wall, until XP came along. We wouldn't have 3 computers in the house (lol why? I dunno.) so the 95 box went to grandma (so we could play with it there, haha) and we had now the crappy 98 brick for us 3 siblings to use, and the XP computer was the Work Computer, Do Not Touch, Children! (and when we got to gaming on it, I managed to break it...damn you, Kazaa. Damn you.)
Therefore the years 2000 to 2002 were the crap ages of computing in my home.

THEN we got the computer that later became ALPHA, a quite powerful XP box snatched straight from the government. (yes, this is true. lol.)
So skipping my first nightmare with that old box, XP has been a milk run for me. The problems I had with it were mostly related to the damn wireless router. It's quite funny since got 10mbit broadband in like, 2001...we got better off with the wires, but The Landlady has an impeccable sense of what Is and what Is Not stylish (white LAN cables are a clear example of the latter, so we got the wireless as soon as it came out on the market). Damnit, stop rambling, me.
Then ALPHA started getting problems that weren't related to the OS, and more to the crappy Compaq build it was...but until I started building for DELTA in 2007 (and afterwards) it remained an inseparable companion. I've slept too little, I sound like an idiot on crack. And/or aphrodisiacs. >_>
Always used Pro version btw, since we got it, the first time we DL'd and cracked it after reformatting, the second time, et cetera.
Last year I finally got my DELTA working, and since then it's been cakewalk deluxe everywhere. (when she's not overheating and crashing.)

ENOUGH ALREADY
Vista: Bhuh....bguhgh. I had a bad feeling about it all the time, but the first time I actually had to use the damn thing was in Florida, summer '07. I remember just inserting a thumb drive and it was ALL BELLS AND WHISTLES! ALARM! SOMETHING I HAVEN'T SEEN BEFORE IS IN MY USB SLOT! TAKE IT AWAY NOW, OR I'LL SHOOT YOU DEAD, FAGGOT!
Never more. Never more.

not tried win7 yet. Going to.

Now for Non-Win OS'es...

Random Ancient Mac OS (System 4, 6, 7? dunno): So I got this ancient laptop at random...and then I played around with it a bit...and then I tried inserting a floppy and tried running an .exe file.
It died on me right there. I dunno what happened with it afterwards, but it sure as hell ain't around this house anymore. >_>

OS X: SHIT, SHIT, SHIT, FLASHY, SPARKLY, PRETTY, BUT STILL SHIT.
I feel insulted. Like it thinks I'm a 6-year old retarded monkey or something.

OS 9: Usable. Not much more. Haven't used much.

Puppy Linux: <3 system-saver and general insurance shit when you fear something's not entirely right with your computer. Fear not, lil' pup is there to save the day!
(still haven't got it working with my Asus Wifi though. ;_; )

Fedora: HOW EVER CAN THIS SPARKLY-AS-NEON SIGNS OS WORK ON A DECADE-OLD LAPTOP!? Seriously, WHAT THE HELL? Is something wrong!? Oh. Sound doesn't work. Phew. I was worried there for a while.

Ubuntu: Normal. But no games. Too plain, too GNOME. Meh.
Kubuntu: NO YOU BASTARD, I WON'T INSTALL!


That's pretty much it, yeah.

[Smokey]

Well, that was more armbling about your hardware than your software... should i make a thread for that, so you can ramble a bit more...? ^_^

[Nichi]

Here we go...

MS-DOS (Most versions from 3.3 to 7.10): I have fond memories of using DOS many years ago. Hell, I still remember enough commands to get by better than most everyone my age. It may be primitive, though I still use it on occasions on one of my 5 desktop PCs.

Windows 1.01: I seriously used this once just for the fun of it. After years of experience with Windows 3.x and newer, using 1.01 was like learning to ride a bike all over again; it didn't help the process it has a tendency to crash more often than Windows ME. It's best ignored in favor of pure DOS or a newer version of Windows.

Windows 2.07: Infinitely better than 1.0. It was a lot more stable (That's not saying much, though), and had more software available than what came with it out of the box (There was Microsoft Word...and not much else).

OS/2 2.11: I love OS/2. It's very stable, wasn't too tough for me to figure out, and it had Windows 3.x and MS-DOS compatibility to boot. I believe IBM said it best when they said that "It's a better DOS than DOS, and a better Windows than Windows".

Windows for Workgroups 3.11: This is what came with the PC my parents bought back in 1996 (For the low price of $2,000 before sales tax and shipping). I used it on occasions, though outside of stuff like Solitaire, Minesweeper, and Chip's Challenge (Damn I love that game), most of my games had to be run in DOS; hence why I used DOS more often.

Windows 95 (All versions): This was the first OS I used regularly (Before I even started using DOS). While it ran like crap on the old family PC (That's because of low RAM and the fact my mom overloaded the RAM with stuff we didn't need at all; super high resolution screen saver that drains RAM in seconds, a scheduler for our tape backup drive we never used because it was "too complicated", a dangerously outdated version of Norton Anti-Virus, etc.), it ran best when I had it on my own PC (No pointless stuff dragging performance down).

Windows NT Workstation 4.0: I've always hated NT 4.0 mainly for the fact multimedia support was limited (And a pain to setup) and the only games that would run where stuff that was designed for Windows 3.11. That, and the self-checkout at the local Wal-Mart runs on this, making me hate it more.

Macintosh System 7.5: This is my first experience with a Mac, and after years of using Windows 95, the change was quite jarring. However, I got used to it and found it to be a great OS. This is one of those reasons why I want a Macintosh (If I had room for one, that is...)

Windows 98SE: It's a great OS (With some bug fixes from Windows 95), though outside of using it for older Windows and DOS games, I don't use it for much anymore.

Red Hat Linux 5.2: Unusable; even more so than NT 4.0. Let's just leave it at that...

Windows ME: Most hate it, but I though it wasn't too bad (Better than 1.0 at least). In fact, I used to have my PC setup to dual-boot between it and Windows 2000 (ME for compatibility with the file transfer software I used on my laptop, 2000 for everything else).

Windows 2000 Professional: This is easily the best thing to ever happen to Windows NT; it had great multimedia support along with being a reliable OS for business use (Also, 2k-tan is hotter than NT-tan if you ask me). I use it on 3 out of the 5 PCs I own.

Windows XP (Both standard versions): I like XP, even though it's really just 2000 with a few minor changes. I run it on the most powerful of my 5 PCs

Ubuntu 8.04.1: A far more pleasant experience than Red Hat Linux was. It was very easy to use, had a great GUI, and ran just as good as Windows 2000 giving the PC I run it on has enough RAM and a fast enough processor to fully support it.

Windows Vista (Home Premium): It's not too bad if you take the time to change some of the default settings, but I prefer Windows 2000 and XP over it.

[Smokey]

o_O wait, was that a (mildly) positive opinion on Vista?

YAY! Not everyone hates her!!! ^_^

[Aurora Borealis]

Wow... And is that a positive review of Macintosh System 7.5?!

Really. I've used System 7.5 on three different Macs and they crashed a lot. T__T
---

And my experiences:

Macintosh System 6.0.8: This is the fastest and one of the most stable OSes I've ever used and an excellent user experience! ;010

Macintosh System 7.0.1: I tried out this OS under Mini vMac just a few days ago and it works very well! Sure, it's considerably slower than System 6.0.8 (having twice the system requirements and running under Mini vMac which emulates a Mac Plus, the most low-end Mac that can System 7) but that's only at bootup and 7.0.1 still boots up in less than 10 seconds! The drawback though is that some of my apps that run under System 6 don't work in System 7

Macintosh System 7.5: The first OS I've ever used (in 1994) and by far the worst one I've ever used! It crashed and froze up a lot and even gave me the dreaded Sad Mac icon and that was enough to almost scare me off of computers for good! Yet I played a lot of games on this OS and I have fond memories of it,  when it wasn't crashing! Nostalgia is bittersweet. -__-

Mac OS 8: I didn't use it very much because I mainly used it back in the computer lab at grade school but alas that wasn't very often. I like the Platinum GUI. I used this OS mainly to play educational games and type stories. It's stable so my experiences were good at least.

Mac OS 9: My experiences with Mac OS 9 have mostly been very good except for the fact that a lot of the applications I have that work with System 6 and/or System 7 don't seem to work. But then again I mainly use Mac OS 9 just to play Sim City 2000 and Sim Tower anyways!

Mac OSX 10.1: Meh. It was the first version of OSX I've used but didn't use it for very long since the family computer at the time was soon upgraded to 10.2. It was unremarkable overall.

Mac OSX 10.2: So-so. It was stable and more usable than OSX 10.1 but I felt it still paled in comparison to Mac OS 9. :-/

Mac OSX 10.3: Now this was more like it! The first version of Mac OSX that reintroduced labels, introduced Exposé, looked more elegant and was just simply more usable than 10.0-10.2. Too bad that my experiences with this OS were mostly pretty bad though because of the hardware I was using with this OS. My first Mac to run OSX 10.3 was a low-end Mac with not enough RAM to run it well and the other an overclocked Mac that just wasn't very stable. :-/

I did use a faster and better-equipped Mac running OSX 10.3 in computer graphics class last year and its performance was so much better!

Mac OSX 10.4: My current main OS, runs almost flawlessly for me and is one of the best OSes I've used in terms of personal user experience!*

*Except for this one terrible week when it kernel panicked on me several times a day. I still have no idea what the heck caused it but those were the only times OSX 10.4 kernel panicked on me.

Mac OSX 10.5: I used to have it on my current computer (a PPC Mac Mini) and its performance was as great as that of OSX 10.4 and I really like the new GUI and the 3D dock! Unfortunately there were major compatibility issues I just couldn't overlook- it doesn't work with Photoshop 7 or my scanner and it was for those reasons I switched back to OSX 10.4.
---

I don't really have much to say about Windows because I barely use it, except for Windows XP Professional which I use at school, mainly for internet surfing during my open hours.

Windows 2000: I only used Windows 2000 at school for basic school tasks but it did not screw up for me even once!

Windows XP: Pretty good. Stable and reliable for the most part.

Windows Vista: I can't really say anything about Vista since I've only used it twice.

[NejinOniwa]

Oh, Aurora...

...why so Mac?

[Smokey]

Well, since we have a Mac evangelist here; I have bought a Blue and White PowerMac G3 today (a steal for only â,¬17,50) and since i get a (i think OS9) error (file folder icon switching between the smiley and a question mark) i am going to reinstall a McOS on her... Question is, what do you recommend? I am hovering between OS9 and OSX Tiger (Tiger is the newest OSX supporting my G3, since it has an upgraded HDD [80GB] and 256MB RAM, still the 16MB ATI Rage 128, though)...

So what's your verdict? Make me a happy Mac user, please... ^_^

Added after 16 minutes:

Ooh, completely forgot to ask; I've loked around on several support sites/threads/articles but i'm still not sure if my G3 supports my "standard" 101-key Windows keyboard... (kinda important, since it's the only USB keyboard i got... I bought the Mac without monitor, mouse or keyboard...)

[Aurora Borealis]

The Mac I used before this one was a blue+white PowerMac G3 with 256 MB RAM so I can relate to that! But unlike my G3, yours has a good hard drive! Mine had a crappy main hard drive which I never could get to upgrading so my computer ran out of memory quickly because there wasn't enough space to use virtual memory even when I transferred files onto my other hard drive.

With those configurations, go with Mac OS9. But if you have have any important apps that require OSX, go with an earlier version of OSX.  It would NOT run well on Tiger with only 256 MB RAM!


Sorry, I can't help you with that last question though.

[Smokey]

Sonata it is, then...

...Wait, MacOS 9 is called Sonata, right? ^_^

Added after 47 seconds:

And about the keyboard, i'll just have to find out then by trying... ^_^