Is an older version of windows the way to go?

[the3eyedblindman]

I am planning on playing alot of old pc games on my cab, like golden tee golf, nfl blitz, the house of the deads, and mortal kombat 4. It seems like these run on every version of windows except XP, it just seems like you can do alot of things on older versions of windows you cant do on XP, because they are dos based. Should i just go ahead and use an older windows? If so which one, and where do u get old windows disks?

[paigeoliver]

Just use windows 98 SE (unless you don't need USB, in which case use 95 OSR2. If you know more than 2 people you can probably ask around and find a copy.

[the3eyedblindman]

If i dont need usb? Id still like to be able to use usb even if im not gonna, just incase i ever needed too. So 98 SE is the best?

[crashwg]

Yup 98SE is the way to go!

[danny_galaga]

just as soon as i find an onscreen keyboard for it win98 se is perfect    one might even say brilliant...

[Robopede]

E-bay.

[danny_galaga]

actually when i bought a copy of xp pro for my pc i noticed they were still selling win98se, for more than xp home!! i guess it still has some value for older computers or maybe cheap servers (since win98se attracts less viruses than xp, that would give it value).

[Hoe]

Windows 95 OSR2.x does support USB, it's just not impressive.

Microsoft Knowledge Base Article - 247969

[shadowdrak]

Win98se is my favorite version of windows(except for some weird driver issues that occaisonally pop up).  It isn't as stable as XP, but for especially older games, It is all I would recommend.  The nice thing is, people are still supporting the older versions of windows.  If you are using a well-known chipset, it shouldn't be too hard to find recent video drivers.  I personally have experience issues with USB gamepads in 98, but for mame that shouldn't be necessary.

[paigeoliver]

For all practical purposes OSR 2 does not support USB. IIRC it supports almost nothing but USB chipsets and hubs and doesn't really support any actual devices. I remember reading the list of supported devices a long time ago and being amazed that it didn't actually support, well, anything.

If you don't need USB support but you DO want to use windows then Windows 95 OSR2 with no internet explorer (and nothing else installed either) is rock stable, and boots fast and uses very little ram.

[Edgedamage]

If using WIN98. Use this method and you will never have to use the cd when you install new hardware.

http://home.pacbell.net/dbk4297/preinstall.html

[patrickl]

I liked Win95 SR2. I tried several Win98 flavors after that and have had nothing but trouble with them. I switched to NT (now W2k and XP) and I really like the way that OS familly is much more stable. If you have a reasonably new PC I'd suggest you go for a new OS like W2K or XP. For an older PC indeed the mentioned older versions will probably be better (they don't have the power to run these newer OS versions adequately)

[TheBourneID]

If you haven't tried it already, you may be able to run the games on WinXP, but in Win98 mode.  Right-click the executable and choose "Run in mode" or something like that, and choose a different OS version.  It just may work, and you won't have to reload your system.