Which is faster Win98SE or WinXP+SP2?

Question

My computer has 128 mb rams, PIII550 CPU and 8 gb harddisk space. I used to run Win98 beforehand and i was quite satisfied with my computer speed. Then i installed XP but my computer suffers ffom low speed.However one of my friends has P II in his computer and it is much faster.

Answer 1

Windows 98/ME and 2000 all run a lot faster than XP SP1 or SP2. The reason for this is that XP has a lot of extra stuff, like enchanced graphics and added 'fancies'.

Previous operating systems were very barebone, they did what they were supposed to and thats it. XP is designed to make things easier, prettier and more appealing. XP is quite stable compared to Win 98/ME and 2000 (blue screens, crashing) but is a lot slower.

With your specification I would HIGHLY recommend you do not use XP because it will run very slow. I recommend you upgrade your RAM, Harddrive and your CPU. Which probably mean a new system. You can buy a sufficient computer for XP for about £150-£200.

Answer 2

Win98 takes a lot less resources to run. since you only have a 550, try upping the ram to at least 256 (512 is better) and you will see a noticeable increase in performance. Also look at the amount of free space. 8 gb probably does not have much left, changing drives to a faster one (7800 rpm) with at least 40 gb will also help quite a bit.

Answer 3

You're computer doesn't have the resources to properly run XP. XP alone uses more than 128 ram to run much less all the other programs running along with it. If you upgrade to at least 512 ram you should see a bump in performance.

Answer 4

98 is probably the fastest on a basic level because XP has a lot of new features and is more of a resource hog. however, XP is more powerful, more secure and can do a lot more than 98.

consider getting some more RAM - adding another 128MB RAM should make a noticable difference.
also, download and run spybot search and destroy and defrag your HDD.

1) a bigger HDD will not make your PC faster
2) my dad's pc is the same spec as yours and runs XP ok. not great, but ok. add ram - thats the only solution really unless you get a new processor

Answer 5

What you could do is before each little thing turn off RAM checking contained in the BIOS. which means it received't ought to do a RAM count number every time the computing gadget is all started. From there on the computer disable the XP view and regulate it back to classic view contained in the administration panel. On some computing gadget's this accelerates the computing gadget drastically. get rid of all un-mandatory application from the computing gadget and get rid of as many stuff as available from operating even as the computing gadget begins. wish it helps.

Answer 6

I have P111 600mhz..originally with 128MB ram at the time when I upgraded from 98se (which was working fine) to XP ....The strain on the PC was too great, it would hardly move..XP is a much "heavier" program than 98se...I put in 512 MB ram...now it works great.
ps I do have 20GB hard drive aswell...I suggest you get a larger hard drive aswell..8GB is too small.

Answer 7

Get more RAM I would recommend at least 512Mb. You are slaughtering your hard drive with the virtual memory.

Virtual memory - part of the hard drive used as RAM when actual RAM runs low.

As hard drives are much slower than RAM the using virtual memory can drastically limit a machines speed.

Answer 8

win98SE... your computer is not designed for XP. Plus you dont have the RAM requirments for XP, thats why your computer is running so slow.

Answer 9

XP isn't designed to work well with those minimal resources.

maybe a RAM upgrade will help, but your PC is not designed for XP.

Answer 10

Depends on your computers processors speed as opposed to operating system.