Best Windows OS for my 900mhz processor?

[Chu]

A business I am connected with had a PC pretty much only to run Quickbooks and e-mail. It was a P3 700Mhz /w 768 megs of memory.

From bootup to data entry in quickbooks was sixteen minutes. Admittadly the antivirus program (McAfee Corporate) took 50% of the CPU during the loading process and it would probably have been twice as fast without it, but really these computers are mostly on the scrapheap for a reason.

I wouldn't even use it as a router. Electricity is expensive enough here that the difference vanishes in a year

EDIT : Small siderant. Quickbooks 3.1 released about ten years ago was incredibly spiffy on my Win98 box. Quickbooks 2007's core functionality is almost identical, except it takes 30 seconds to load even on my C2D system. Where is all the bloat coming from?

EDIT2 : Apparently the antivirus/firewall problem on older PCs is getting to be surprisngly common. I really wonder why a company out there hasn't implemented a "tripwire" approach (with a special high-speed whitelist for commonly accessed files so it doesn't have to munge the entire database on bootup) for antivirus with the full engine only to scan modified files. It would be incredibly fast on old special-purpose systems like the quickbooks box yet sitll have almost all the power of a modern anti-virus program. Someone needs to get into that market, hopefully nod.

[Check]

Another vote for windows 2k here. I ran that on my last machine until I got this core 2 and moved on to a 64bit OS. One of the saddest days of my life was seeing that XP splash screen (I do love this 64bit stability though).

Originally Posted by Davesrose

I'm just holding out for Vista to have some service packs so I can get 64bit memory optimizations, and improved multi-threading.

64bit memory optimizers? improved multi threading?
As far as I know it doesn't change the way it handles the memory when you are running 64bit, it can just address more of it. The speed at which memory is accessed and utilized has more to do with your chipset than your OS.

And multi threading is all based on the application. If the application is coded for multi threading then it will do it, otherwise no dice.

edit:
no love for windows ME?

[gritzcolin]

I vote for 2000 pro has most of the features that XP did pre service packs. Also even though it is unsupported and has tons of holes in it it is still more secure than 98 or ME.

[Cata1yst]

Im not a fan of running older generation windows OS's...the security and vulnerabilities in older OS' just dont bide well in my book

So if you decide to go with 2k (probably the most responsive OS that will load on your setup) keep a light AV, Firewall, and Spyware system on it...and avoid banking and online transactions if you are worried about that stuff.

[Harry Tuttle]

I run xp pro sp1 with xplite on a 728mhz with 256mb of ram and it's very fast, you just have to know what to remove and configure although I have to say I see a lot more annoyances than advantages switching from 98se to xp

[Csidinim]

Originally Posted by Cata1yst

You could run OS X on there with a little tweaking (though you are going to have to PM me if you want the details)

P3 is only SSE1, not SSE2 capable so no OS X. you have to go at least P4 to run OS X. yeah, dampened some of my plans too.

[terrymx]

Originally Posted by Honken

Get nLite and put XP on it if you like XP, it can be made really light. My version uses less than 14mb of RAM on boot. It'll take a bit of work to get it like you want it though.

Otherwise I'd suggest pretty much any Linux distro.

This software is freeking awesome. I'm donating to the author. Now, until they make a version for Vista.

edit: i found out it's called vlite. This is great.

[aerowing]

win98 is good enough

[Sparky191]

Security patches and driver support is why XP.

IMO it makes no sense to run anything other than a stripped down XP. Its essentially the same as W2K but far more stable than 98 and earlier verions. It runs as fast if not faster than W2K and 98se. But the BIG thing with XP is vastly better driver support, AND Windows update to get the latest patches and fixes for security.

I've run it on machines with 192MB RAM and 400mhz CPU's. For general office stuff its fine. You just have to turn off all the crud and services you don't need.
Learning to do this is a very good thing to learn. As you should be aware services you are running and thus be aware when something unsual starts running in there. You shoud do the same on computer even if its very latest and fastest one.

Or go with Linux, but thats a whole different learning curve.

[RokabillySwagger]

I have a similar machine using 98SE and and XUbuntu (xfce interface is the only one i can get to install) both work well enough. Ubuntu is really easy and cheap (read: free) and a great way to make old hardware work again.