Tweaking for Speed: Choosing your OS and software

Tweaking for Speed

Choosing the right software for your hardware

The most important part of having a fast system and the most common mistake in setting up a system is the choice of operating system and core software. Much confusion is created when people look at newer computers with newer software and how fast it is compared to what they have at the moment. Older systems were designed to be fast for the software of the time and software written for that hardware was designed to utilize the added speed of the hardware - hence the vicious cycle of faster hardware, faster OS, faster hardware, etc. If you choose the OS written when your hardware was new or not even made yet you will have a faster system.

Do note, this tutorial applies to Windows operating systems, as the limitation rules that apply to it do not necessarily apply to other OSs, notably the Linux/UNIX family. Many of the distributions of those OSs can be configured to run on a wide variety of hardware very efficiently.

First of all I am making the assumption you are willing to get a copy of the Windows version you need to use. The older the version the easier it is to find a copy that is free to you and still in usable condition. If you plan to do this kind of thing much, you should get in the habit of collecting older versions of OSs and software.

My suggestions:

Windows 3.1	8086 - 486 under 33 mhz 8 meg or less memory 400 meg or less hard drive (you should really consider digging up faster hardware or using a Linux distribution like an older version of Red Hat)
Windows 95 OSR2	486 over 66 mhz - Pentium grade processor up to 233 mhz 8 - 64 meg of memory 400 meg - 2 gig hard drive
Windows 98 Second Edition	233 - 500 mhz processor 64 - 256 meg of memory (top figure is more than enough) 2 gig and up hard drive
Windows 2000 Professional	500 mhz and up processor 256 meg and up memory 4 gig and up hard drive
Windows XP Professional Corporate Edition	1.2 gig and up processor 512 meg of memory, preferably DDR, and up 10 gig and up hard drive

Some other suggestions for hardware:

For hard drive space especially on older hardware, small drives that are still functional can be found pretty easily and cheaply - so having a master drive that is small to install your OS and a slave that can hold the bulk of your programs and storage is wise and actually a faster way to go.

Modern modems are as fast as they can possibly be (56k) and don't usually fully use that potential anyway. For this reason, you can get by with a 28.8k modem and a 33.6k modem is perfectly adequate. Brand new 56k software modems ("winmodems") are pretty dirt cheap anyway, so it wouldn't hurt to get one, but if you are a cheapskate like me scrounge that old 33.6k.

Network cards are also not that bad in older slower form. A 10mbps card will still do what most folks need, and if you need faster you probably should be playing with newer hardware anyway (gamer?).

What about those other versions?

You may note that I did not recommend Windows 98 (the original release), Millennium Edition, any release of NT, or XP Home. 98's original release is not any amount significantly slimmer than Second Edition, and the improvements introduced in SE were very good, and patched some of the flaws in the original. Windows Millennium Edition was an attempt to make the 9x family of Microsoft OSs work more like it's NT based offerings, and in that failed miserably. 9x's core was never made to work like NT and therefore this was a disaster, probably the worst version of OS ever made by MS. NT is a decently functional OS at the core, but is a bit harder for the average user to understand. Windows 2000 descended from it, and brought all that function to a user interface that was as comprehensible as 9x. XP Home? Why get less abilities than you can, and get an even less secure version of an OS with security issues anyway?

It is important to note that ME and 2000 are not the same, and as 2000 was released first I think MS was trying to foster the confusion when it released ME since 2000 had developed a good reputation by then. 2000 is probably the finest OS ever offered by MS, ME is probably the worst.

Other software you will need

Although the OS is the most crucial part of your software choices, some other important software makes a difference to go with it. The most critical of these are those that integrate into Windows the most:

Browsers

For 95 OSR2: Internet Explorer 4, Netscape 4.08 Navigator or 4.7x Communicator

For 98 Second Edition: Internet Explorer 5.01 SP2, Netscape 4.08 Navigator or 4.8x Communicator, Mozilla if you have the upper limit hardware for 98 SE

For 2000 Professional: Internet Explorer 5.01 SP2, Netscape 6 and up, Mozilla

Productivity Software (word processing, spread sheets, and presentation generation)

For 95 OSR2: Microsoft Office 97 at most, Wordperfect Office 6.2 (yes 8 works, but sooo slowly)

For 98 Second Edition: Microsoft Office 2000 at most, Corel Wordperfect Suite 8

For 2000 Professional: Microsoft Office 2000, Wordperfect 8-9

Media Players

For 95 OSR2: Windows Media Player 6.4x, Winamp 2.x, Quicktime 4

For 98 Second Edition: Windows Media Player 6.4x, Winamp 3, Quicktime 5

For 2000 Professional: any, see below

You may note that I do not make recommendations for XP - if you are running it you should have all it takes to run any version you want. There are some notable exceptions made here:

I recommend you do not use Internet Explorer above 5.01 SP2 as higher than that is nearly impossible to uninstall if needed and has had a large amount of security issues. Similarly I don't recommend Windows Media Player above 6.x if at all possible.

I did not specifically mention email clients, but I recommend you do not use Outlook or Outlook Express due to security issues. Netscape Communicator comes with an adequate client, as does Opera. There are also other options like Eudora that are stand alones.

Opera browsers were not mentioned as I have used the most current on older machinery and OSs with decent success. There are other pages that make suggestions about which versions might be best for older OSs and hardware, and Opera has a rich community of users and info.

I did not suggest RealPlayer versions at all because I do not recommend it at all. In my experience older versions are blocked from using current media and therefore make older versions somewhat useless. The only thing you lose without it is the support for one format, .ram . Although it is somewhat popular, there are usually other options for the same media in other formats. I also did not mention MusicMatch, as I have little experience with it - but it is a worthy Media Player. An important factor to remember if using Winamp is that versions before 2.90 do not support video formats natively, although there are plug ins for it. Although you can do without Quicktime, it is best for viewing .mov format files and other Apple based media.

Important details

For any software you use, the idea is to get a version that was created before or while your OS was current. As an example some software will simply not work on 95 OSR2 because it is considered obsolete when written. When using older software, compatibility is often a concern, however in almost all cases there are updates and patches to resolve this without updating to a newer version. Last but certainly not least is to obtain security related updates, patches, and service packs for your older software. Burning these to CDs is the best way to have them for later use.

Now that you have chosen an OS and software, move on to installing it correctly: Installing Windows

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