What is the most stable Windows OS??

[ficticio]

I am soon to have my first Windows machine and am looking for some insight into what the most stable Operating System is. I have been looking at ME and XP. Processor will be 500 MHz or more and RAM, in the 512 MB range. The machine will be used mostly for web browsing and playing non stressful computer games such as casino type, Pogo, etc. with the occasional processing of 35mm home photos either digitalized or scanned then printed. I am looking to buy/build something that will be usable for the next several years. (My now computer is a Mac clone updated to G3 that dates to 1995). Thank you in advance for any advice.

George

 

[rjkrash]

XP over ME any day of the week!
The two rules for success are:
1. Never tell them everything you know.

 

[ficticio]

Thanks, rjkrash, for the reply. Your post supports what my research is leaning toward.

George

 

[dilettante]

Even NT 4.0 beats any of the 9x OSs.

The main issues are:

* How seldom do applications crash the OS, and

* How seldom does the OS crash itself.

Not much can stop a poorly-behaved application from crashing itself though.

As for the first issue, under the 9x OSs (including Me) it is easy and common for an application to bring down the OS.

Regarding the second issue, NT has gotten more solid each release (XP being NT 5.1, where Windows 2000 is NT 5.0).

I suspect the huge amounts of RAM most of us have these days helps a lot no matter which OS you use. The system does less screwing around to make sure everything can fit, and there is less paging/swapping for it to mess up.

 

[ficticio]

dilettante, good post. You taught me something about Windows NT that I needed to know. I have heard from others that NT is the best of the Window OS and that 95 and 98 were much less stable. I was not aware the 2000 and XP are NT formats. I have heard that 2000 requires a lot of memory. Of course heard is the key. Most all of my Windows experience is just that...hearsay.

Thanks again for the input.

George