Windows (i.e. computers #3) Windows (i.e. computers #3)

Reading my previous posts, you might wonder why I have four different versions of Windows lying around, and have multibooted two of my machines (#D, #F) to allow booting between them.

So, here is what I have (and may ultimately have) on each of the four computers:
#D(old desktop) - Win NT (4.0), 98, and 2K
#E(laptop) - Win XP
#F(new desktop) - Win XP(temp), 98, 2K (+Linux?)
#G(new server) - Win 2K (+98 and/or Linux?)

So, why use all these different operating systems:

Win NT - stable as a rock, and has a working PDF writer. Unfortunately, does not have plug and play or FAT32 support. Also, NTFS support does not support the size of disks that 2K and XP does.

Win 98 - installs from DOS, has plug and play. Can share a partition with any NT varient (at least NT (FAT) and 2K (FAT, FAT32)). Supports FAT32, but not NTFS. Also, older library of drivers than 2K. Finally, it is built on 3.x, instead of NT, and, thus, has DOS bolted underneath. This means stability problems. It is much easier to crash the OS.

Win 2K - Supports FAT32, big disk NTFS, and plug and play. Also, since this is the Professional version, has a lot of security enhancements. More stable than XP and 98, less than NT 4.

Win XP - Piece of junk, but came with the laptop (#E). Because of this, it is the OS that continually gets reinstalled whenever I have hardware problems. Some nice features, but, overall, inferior to 2K. Also, doesn't have NetBEUI or NetBIOS support directly, but only over TCP/IP.

Linux - possibly better for running as a server.

My OS of choice is Win 2K, Professional Edition. One reason is that when you access a 2K machine from another such, you don't need a userid or password. You do with both 98 and XP. Also, it runs NetBEUI, so computer to computer is much faster and easier. Indeed, I typically have to search for the XP machine whenever I want to access it from another, and, visa versa.

Because it is the Professional Edition, I also have much finer control over security. Almost infinately fine. You can give one user access to some files, and another gets access to other files. Figure this will be handy when bringing up my server on the Internet.