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Help choosing a new Win OS

Miretank

Miretank

Lurking
I think its time to expand my horizons, so I'm decided to reformat and put a new Windows OS. I'm about to put 2003 or XP Media Center Edition, but making a partition with XP SP2. What's the best OS between them? And the most good looking?

Thanks. :)
 
ScottJC

ScottJC

At your service, dood!
if you want to cripple your computers compatibility put linux on your machine, i suggest xp sp2.
 
T

TerraPhantm

New member
If you're willling to go through a little bit of hassle when it comes to setting it up as a workstation, I'd recommend server 2k3. It's a lot more stable then XP, and has no where near the amount of bloatware. Only problem is some software like antivirus software and partitioning software purposely make it so it can't run on a server OS. Theoretically there isn't anything preventing u from running those programs, but I don't know the work around.
 
BoggyB

BoggyB

New member
Bear in mind that 2003 is designed as a server OS, and so you may run into all sorts of problems trying to run general programs on it (for example it might not have complete DirectX support). If you want a machine to run a Windows-based web server, or you want to experiment with Windows networking, then go right ahead. If you want to play Half-life, stay away from it.

XP MCE would be a good choice if you wanted to use it *as a media centre*, or again if you wanted to experiment/learn. But again, if all you're after is a gaming rig then straight XP is the best choice.
 
smcd

smcd

Active member
my pc broke last sunday and i got a new one, it has media center 2005 on it... not a whole lot of difference between this and xp pro it seems (of course some very minor multimedia things which i find fairly useless)... and as for 2003, it's designed for a server OS and a LOT of software will not install on a server OS (antivirus, games, etc etc)
 
OP
Miretank

Miretank

Lurking
Ah, so 2003 is not a good choice for me.
About Media Edition, does it has GUI differences comparing to XP?
 
smcd

smcd

Active member
Not really, there is a "media center theme" but that's the only real difference in appearance. After I figure out how to integrate some SATA drivers into an XP CD I'll likely nuke this OEM install and use XP Pro on it
 
BoggyB

BoggyB

New member
@sethmcdoogle: If you've got a floppy drive then you can install the drivers that way. Grab the latest SATA drivers for your chipset, and in the download should be a folder or disk image containing the files to make a SATA driver disk. When installing windows, hit the key it says to use to install a RAID or SCSI driver, and then feed it that disk when it asks for it.
 
T

TerraPhantm

New member
When I was using Server 2k3, the only thing I had problems with were antivirus and partitioning programs. Everything else installed fine provided that you enabled audio, direct X, and things like that. If you don't want to do all that however, I suggest going with XP Pro. If all your hardware is compatible, go for the 64-bit version (microsoft has a free 6 month trial iirc).
 
smcd

smcd

Active member
BoggyB said:
@sethmcdoogle: If you've got a floppy drive then you can install the drivers that way. Grab the latest SATA drivers for your chipset, and in the download should be a folder or disk image containing the files to make a SATA driver disk. When installing windows, hit the key it says to use to install a RAID or SCSI driver, and then feed it that disk when it asks for it.
Click to expand...

No floppy drive :(
 
M

Master Magnus

Banned
Both media center and 2003 are crappy versions of the same crap: Windows XP. If ya have XP home or XP pro, then ya don't need to go for these two useless OS.
 
yegosimo

yegosimo

Bug Killer
i suggest windows xp 2001 edition..lol no service packs
service packs eat space on ur drive and normal xp is kind of efficient
by the way? dont u need a media center PC for using Windows MCE ??
 
Doomulation

Doomulation

?????????????????????????
Service packs cotain security upgrades and features. Plus some software requires you to have these service packs installed to even allow you to install them. Micorosoft's visual studio 2005 comes to mind.
The best thing to do is slipstream it into a windows installation and install it. That way it won't bloat windows and you'll have the latest service pack.
 
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