of all the microsoft os's - Tech Support Forums

cdz25 · May 29th, 2003, 02:12 AM

out of all the windows os's could you give me a rating of what you think the most complicated to the easiest os to perform troubleshooting and repairs on clients pc's are?

Siliconjunkie · May 29th, 2003, 02:13 AM

XP/2000 are the easiest. Simply because of logging. After that would be NT because of logging as well, but harder to deal with. 95/98/ME it can be alot harder to pin things down in. Errors are non specific, and you just have to hunt.

Blood_Luster · May 29th, 2003, 02:16 AM

I've got to agree with SiliconJunkie, I've had the best luck with WinXP. It's got a bit of glitches(but hey, what win32 doesn't?) Next would be Windows 2000. Then Windows 98SE, then maybe NT. If you want games go windows xp, if you want a server go 2000.

Nighthawk · May 29th, 2003, 02:19 AM

Definitely XP.. You've got a bunch of logging options either on by default or that can be turned on, as well as the option to use System Restore.

SeanC · May 31st, 2003, 01:25 AM

I'm not the biggest fan of XP but I agree as well. With the logging features and MS's attempt to make it the easiest to use, it's high on the list.

Windows 1.0 is the hardest.

Hey, he said of ALL Windows.

Sean

PresterJohn · May 31st, 2003, 01:33 PM

>complicated to the easiest os to perform troubleshooting and repairs on clients pc's are

the logs are sometimes helpful many times they don't give enough.

i disagree with many of the previous posts.

i've spent over 17 years working with & trouble-shooting every version of microsoft OS under the sun and the easiest one to troubleshoot & fix (windows-wise) is win9x. [MS-DOS is the easiest hands-down but this thread is obviously meant to refer to windows versions].

the FAT file system allows access to practically any type of bootdisk and since there are no file permissions, it makes it very easy to access files, scan folders, etc. FAT offers the broadest base of compatibility with various disk utilites, data recovery, etc. now obviously, you can run XP on FAT partitions but many installations use NTFS which does make things more difficult. the acct & file permissions provided w/XP also add just more complexity to getting things to work.

just look at all the questions posted in the networking & other forums here and you'll see what i mean.

those of you who picked XP are also overlooking the HAL which the more powerful OS'es use. it makes it extremely difficult to replace system files are hardware specific, not to mention the fact that the kernel locks certain files which makes replacing them more difficult.

then you also have the infamous BSOD's that nt/w2k/xp generate...whose error codes aren't very specific in many cases.

these are just some of the reasons why i consider win9x to be the easiest to troubleshoot and fix.

cdz25 · June 1st, 2003, 01:44 PM

Thanks Prester just the answer i needed

goldenbuddha · June 1st, 2003, 01:55 PM

Actually I would say XP/2K easiest, but ME the hardest... its just too wizardy for its own good.

nukes · June 1st, 2003, 02:04 PM

Yeah, XP/2k. I wouldn't sell someone a 9x system now as XP is almost the same price as 98, and does nicely for most people. Supporting XP/2K is a better deal than a stack of W95/98 systems. If there is a problem, you can recover well, and get it shipped back out ASAP.

Maniaman · June 2nd, 2003, 01:47 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Siliconjunkie
XP/2000 are the easiest. Simply because of logging. After that would be NT because of logging as well, but harder to deal with. 95/98/ME it can be alot harder to pin things down in. Errors are non specific, and you just have to hunt.

I agree.