Slavakion

My PC in my vacation place turned out to be infected with W32.Blebla.B.worm and Kaspersky crashed before it finished cleaning it. So sysrnj.exe is gone, I can't run any programs, and according to one website it's pretty arduous hand-cleaning this worm. So I was wondering if you had any suggestions for an OS.

The only specs I know are that it's either 6 or 700 mhz, and limited RAM (~256). Should I go with 95, 98, 98 SE, ME, or 2000? The PC will only be used for email and a few non-intensive games.

Lasereth

What's wrong with Windows XP? It'll run fine on that PC.

-Lasereth

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glytch

Out of those choices, I'd say go with 2000, but like Lasereth said, what's wrong with XP?

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Pragma

In this day and age, as long as your computer is capable of running Windows XP Professional, there's no reason whatsoever not to use it. A 600 or 700MHz computer with 256MB RAM shouldn't have issues running XP.

If you want, you can always change the UI to look like the Win2000 UI and turn off the fancy "window faders" kind of things in the display control panel to improve performance.

9x/ME are absolutely out of the question - you don't want to use them.

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Slavakion

Hmm... I thought XP needed more ram, or it would be really sluggish. Eh... can't hurt to try. Next time, I'll bring XP and 2000.

sailor

2000 or XP. Preferably XP. If you turn off all the visual goodies in XP, it should run just fine on that box.

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RaDiAn

JFYI I run a P2 400 (256ram)Ati 32meg video with XP Pro and it runs just fine. My wife uses it for email & printing & a couple of old games....

glytch

XP will run just fine with 256mb of memory. You only really start to get sluggish at under 128mb, in my experiences.

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Confederate

i had a 450 mhz machine with 128 ram, and I was running XP with all the pretty stuff turned off, ran it without a problem.

Slavakion

That's good. XP will be great for the stability. I was worried because that pc had been upgraded from 95 to 98, and slowed down a little. But something must have just gotten whacked when that happened.

Holo

It'll run XP but I'm a hater so I'll say 2000. You could run 2003 even with enough services chopped...it's as fast as XP and it's more stable and less n00bish to me.

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SiN

My first computer ws a 500 mHz Celeron with 256, and I ran XP well enough. (with as much 'fluff' disabled as possible of course).

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bendsley

Screw Windows............why don't you give Linux a try. Not very many viruses out there attacking Linux.

Slavakion

I won't be using it that much, and it's a family computer. So linux probably isn't the best option. Nobody in my family (me included) has experience in linux. Otherwise I would, because open source kicks ass.

Fallon

Being someone who is a Linux user, I'd suggest that we don't have this attitude. Some day, we'll be getting attacked enough so it's a false sense of security in my opinion.
If you get bored or have a good connection, dl Knoppix or Damn Small Linux and then put it in the CD-ROM and try it that way. I wouldn't suggest a complete switch.

Slavakion

I actually have the latest Knoppix, but haven't had much time to fool with it. i'm still trying to figure out how to make it play nice with my wireless Netgear card.

Cynthetiq

well it didn't take too long for someone to make this recommendation...

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Fallon

I cringe whenever I see a thread about Windows because I wait for it. kinda makes the rest of us seem like bad people, not saying what you said has no merit bendsley, but there's a better way to suggest it, not Windows sucks, use Linux.

Polyphobic

2000 is a good OS. XP is a good os. Linux are also good operating systems. However, for your average home user XP and 2000 are your best choices. Out of those I would agree XP is the better choice.
I use both Unix flavored OSs and windows. Bashing one over the other doesn't make sense to me since I flip flop back and forth.

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Prince

2000 or XP, definitely. Anything below that and...well, you'll know when it happens.

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sargorn

Stick with 2000 over XP. It will take a little longer to boot up, but performance on lowend machines vs. XP is much better.

Polyphobic

It really depends. If you shut off the eye candy in XP it works just as well. They are basically the same core OS with more visual crap in XP. We run both at my work on slow workstations for testing and each works just fine. Anyhow, you can't go wrong with either OS. Pick which one is the cheapest.

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rubicon

I've got Windows 2000 running on a Pentium III 600 MHz and it blows. It works fine but it's slow. XP would probably be worse.

Linux might be an option. You've got all the software you need unless you want to run MS Access.

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Pragma

I run XP on a Pentium 1 200MHz machine (with 128MB RAM) - with the visuals turned off, it runs perfectly well. It's a little slow at times, but I don't expect it to be fast - I expect it to work.

Linux will work, but when you start chucking in things like Gnome/KDE, it'll again require a higher end machine.

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Jolt

The semi-obvious answer is to use whichever one is already licensed on the computer, since you already have the restore media for it.

That being said, it's certainly fast enough to handle XP. The Microsoft requirements and others' recommendations generally list CPU speed, memory, and disk space, and stop there. If you have a slow hard disk (or worse yet a slow controller), or an ancient graphics card, you aren't going to enjoy running a more modern OS version.

It can be presumed that this machine has a Duron/Athlon/P!!!/Celeron CPU. Popular motherboard chipsets from that vintage include i440bx (udma33, discrete graphics, aging), i810 (udma100, integrated graphics, decent), i815 (udma100, integrated, speedy), SiS 620 (udma 66, integrated, constipated), and Via Apollo (udma 66, integrated, decent).

Obviously happier hardware will make for a happier experience.

Slavakion

The problem is that I haven't found the win 95 disk yet. I have the 98 CD, but it's an upgrade, so I don't know how well it'll work. Can't hurt to try, but I think I'll probably go with XP.