Now What??? Windows 95 problem...

All of the sudden, the "back" button does nothing. I have to use 'jump' to get back where I was.

What the he77????

Fixed it. Shutdown windows, and restarted. No problem now.

Not sure what causes that, but it used to happen to me quite often. Guessing it was a memory related issue as it only happened when the machine had been running for > 3 hours.

3 Hours runtime and it causes problems????
Time to change operating systems, my friends. If you don't want to come over to "the other side" with me- I suggest Windows 2000.

Whatever you do...don't even begin to imagine considering switching to Windows ME. All I got at the moment, until I can grab a copy of Windows 2000 or even Windows 98. Unstable piece of #$%&. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/banghead.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/rant.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/banghead.gif

I considered running Linux, but I simply don't have the time to learn at the moment. Also, because I'm just your casual user, the availability of software and ease of installation is a plus for me.

Windows ME has to be the worst POS Mickey-Soft has ever produced.
Availability of software..... You have to see what installs WITH Linux.... Browsers, Office apps, Drawing programs, CAD, databases.... Games.... A Linux system is a "turn key" system. 3 CDs of software in the basic Redhat install... systems like Suse have 6CDs of software included. Leaves you wanting for very little! Want an easy pain-free way to try Linux without havinbg to mess with your hard drive at all? Try Knoppix Runs from the CD- no install needed. Detects your hardware and just runs... Amazing, easy , and a free download (you can purchase the CD if you like as well.)

http://www.knopper.net/knoppix/index-old-en.html


Sorry- here is the link to find Knoppix

[ QUOTE ]
charliek said:
Windows ME has to be the worst POS Mickey-Soft has ever produced.

[/ QUOTE ]

Since it either is or it isn't, it's either a fact or a fallacy. It's not an option for opinion. Provide the evidence.

It isn't proof by ANY means, but the Win ME box at work is pretty bad.

I've tried all manor of scans and such. It seems to be FAIRLY stable since I de-activated the screen saver.

It stands a chance to become my 'new' home 'puter. (mine is an AMD K-5 166mhz DINASOUR!). If that happens it gets the HDD WIPED! and XP Pro installed.

I did Internet technical support for 4 1/2 years....Win ME caused many people problems. In general it was those who tried "upgrading" from another Windows OS. Machines that came with Win ME seemed to fair slightly better, but not by much. One example was driver support for some software based modems. In any case, it was fairly well known in technical support circles, that Windows ME was a souce for concern. Now having said this, there are always other factors....those being EU (end user) ignornace.

Part of this equation is that people do not recognize that upgrading an operating system is not like simply installing a program. They are not prepared for an upgrade by doing proper backups and a bit of research prior to upgrading. People would have been better served by not purchasing an upgrade version....but a full version. Then wiping the hard drive and doing a clean install. Even for many who did a clean install of Windows ME found they had major problems and were ill-equipped to deal with them. They simply bought into marketing claims made by the manufacturer and got "bit". But again, Windows ME itself caused many problems for many people and us technicians discouraged people for getting it.

Mike

[ QUOTE ]
Since it either is or it isn't, it's either a fact or a fallacy. It's not an option for opinion. Provide the evidence.

[/ QUOTE ]

No "evidence" just personal experience.
I'm an "IT Guy" we have removed all ME installs due to problems.

You may also enjoy this link to the more of the "ME experience"

http://www.pcworld.com/howto/article/0,aid,44150,00.asp


I like the reference to "Tons of complaints"

[ QUOTE ]
charliek said:
I'm an "IT Guy" we have removed all ME installs due to problems.

[/ QUOTE ]

How'd it get on there in the first place? Do you also give everyone a four function calculator?

If you work in IT, then you're apparently working in an institutional or commercial environment. Since NT, 2000, and XP has been produced, working with anything based on the '95 platform in such an environment is absurd.

The Windows 3.1, 95, 98, and ME platforms aren't even operating systems. It's nothing more than a sandbox utility riding precariously on DOS.

[ QUOTE ]

How'd it get on there in the first place? Do you also give everyone a four function calculator?


[/ QUOTE ]

As client PCs- when the network was in it's infancy- before mass PC client systems were in place the system was a text-terminal system based on VAX Open VMS system. PCs began to migrate in via many paths and many vendors before the network administration tasks became centralized and centrally administered. Most of them came from local "Clone houses". A most messy affair. When I came to the IT group several years ago, we began to organize and upgrade the systems; simultaneously providing support for existing installations. As it stands today, the majority of the client systems are NT4, and are on a slow migration path to Windows 2000. And yes.... some folks have calculators too. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif


[ QUOTE ]

If you work in IT, then you're apparently working in an institutional or commercial environment. Since NT, 2000, and XP has been produced, working with anything based on the '95 platform in such an environment is absurd.


[/ QUOTE ]

Commercial- And yes, it is quite absurd. We actually had a few '486 machines and Pentium 75's with a "upgrade chip" from Evergreen Technologies.
Some of the software that is still in use is quite old, and it has been quite a challenge to bring it to the Windows 2000 level. Plans are in place to bring in a new business software system that should streamline this mess of incompatible software.


[ QUOTE ]

The Windows 3.1, 95, 98, and ME platforms aren't even operating systems. It's nothing more than a sandbox utility riding precari


[/ QUOTE ]


You sound like one of those Unix/Linux snobs /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

If it wasn't for the age of the VMS system, there would be no reason to replace it. Stability..... can't beat it in a business environment.

Unknown source:

Windows:
32-Bit patch for a
16-bit GUI shell running on top of an
8-bit operating system written for a
4-bit processor by a
2-bit company who cannot stand
1 bit of competition

/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/yellowlaugh.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumbsup.gif

Dan

I have found in my experience, that Operating System stability, is largely dependent on hardware stability. OEM Consumer grade systems are hardly paragons of stability, since these get the lowest grade of parts and barely adequate power supplies. (I'm talking about PCs here)

Getting stable hardware in a home built system, can be a challenge at times, though I have never had a problem (yet). The only computer that plagued me with Blue Screens Of Death, was the CTX notebook I used to have. Gee, that is an OEM system! (One can't just home build a notebook).

The machine I'm currently using is a home built PC- Tyan motherboard, Voodoo 3 Video- RAM from Crucial Beefy 350w PS Extra case fans in a full tower case... had it running Windows 98 for a while- used to crash at least once a day-
Then it ran Slackware Linux- ran for weeks without problems.. then I switched to Redhat- still runs for weeks at a time.... I shut it down when I want to.. not because I *have to*.
I agree- fault tolerant systems designed to be servers are *much* more stable, but the OS makes a big difference.

Charliek, I wasn't even thinking about server grade hardware. Consumer grade = home, not business/enterprise, which gets better hardware. Servers get the top grade of hardware, since stability is critical.

Quality Control (I used to work in QC) uses a random statistical sampling per production run. It is a decent indicator of the overall quality of the run. nothing more than that. Less than perfect stuff gets through QC all the time.

Now there is an additional factor in PCs: quirks! 2 identical systems will have different quirks. This is one place QC factors in. Even though the parts may be from identical production runs, flakey parts may be in one of the PCs, while not in the other.

I have run win98se on this hardware for days on end with no OS crashes, and only shut down or rebooted when I wanted to. Sure, I got the occasional application crash, but, I get that in Linux also. That is the application's error, not the OS.

Had a lot of luck with XP Home (Only thing that causes problems is the 3D screensavers, which for some totally obscure reason seem to like to crash my graphics controller seemingly at random...hasn't happened since first reinstall (A year since I got it preinstalled on this system), plug & play FINALLY seems to work like it's meant to in XP as well, which given the wacky selection of onboard hardware on this motherboard is kinda surprising.

Other stable OS's I've got here.

RiscOS 3.11 - in this case running on an Acorn A3000. (or to give it its full title "Brittish Broadcasting Corporation Archemedes 3000" - circa 1993. (Harddrive? Who needs a harddrive? We're talking fully GUI based OS here that's quite content with the OS in ROM, 2Mb of RAM, and a floppy drive...and an 11MHz ARM processor! To this day, I have never crashed that thing....and being ROM based means that a virus would be hard put to take down the system, harddrive data is pretty safe as well, I mean, how many people are gonna write such thing to attack an ADFS volume these days?!?

AmigaOS/Workbench 3.0. (1992/3 I believe...but I could well be wrong. Think that you either love Amigas or hate them, the former in my case, which is why I've got an absolutely mint condition Revision 1A A1200 here...which gets used for all useful things, and playing classic games...like Lemmings...which has a lot to answer for in terms of late submitted homework and college coursework! Occasionally it's been known to crash, but generally it's the web browser in my case, and that's an Alpha release...so doesn't really count. Has never lost a document on me though, unlike the PC.

Out of those three, which do I prefer, and what do I use them for?

Prefer: Amiga. Used for gaming, word processing/spreadsheets/databases/presentations etc, also using ProTracker to make music...which I am very bad at, but enjoy anyway...insane interface in that program though!

Most useful: Presently, due to compatability and present day requirements of the college computers - and the lack of a decent Amiga based web browser - has to be XP. PC gets used as a jukebox, net access terminal, and for more modern games.

Most unique: Has to be RiscOS.