I'm gonna download either Windows XP or 95. Which would you guys recommend?

[Archfiend]

I'm buying a cheap laptop for classic mapmaking and scripting. I already found the perfect one that fits my budget. Problem is, it's got Chrome OS, which I hate. So I'm gonna download either Windows XP or 95 (or maybe Vista). They all have their own appeal, visually.

 

I play exclusively on Crispy. Do all three OS's supports the latest version? And which of them would you recommend?

 

(Also, side question, does anyone know if Crispy can play maps that have custom level script? Thanks!)

[Edward850]

Windows XP and below aren't supported by any modern editing tools, probably not even Vista (Slade3 claims to support Vista, though I'm welling to bet nobody has tested recently). Windows 7 64bit is generally considered the bare minimum.

Edited October 7, 2021 by Edward850

[Azuris]

I would recommend Windows 98 SE, at is more stable than 95 and has a better native support for newer Devices (as USB).

But keeps the Look and Feel more or less.

 

You can also access Dos better than on Win ME.

 

With Windows XP you lose the DOS Support, as it is NT based.

 

I haven't checked what Systems Crispy supports, but i guess you'll have to go with an older Version.

 

Edit:

Ah! And check the Drivers you need before installing a new OS.

 

Edit:

Recommendation for "classic" Gaming, not for Editing :)

Edited October 7, 2021 by Azuris

[Archfiend]

1 minute ago, Edward850 said:

Windows XP and below aren't supported by any modern editing tools, probably not even Vista. Windows 7 64bit is generally considered the bare minimum.

Windows 7's pretty great, too. If I have to settle for it, not a big deal. Thanks.

[Archfiend]

2 minutes ago, Azuris said:

I would recommend Windows 98 SE, at is more stable than 95 and has a better native support for newer Devices (as USB).

But keeps the Look and Feel more or less.

Good to know.

2 minutes ago, Azuris said:

I haven't checked what Systems Crispy supports, but i guess you'll have to go with an older Version.

I think it at least supports Windows XP? I dunno, it just says any 64-bit Windows. Is that... a good thing? To be honest, my knowledge of computer terminology doesn't extend very far beyond just DOOM.

[Graf Zahl]

Seriously, if you want to use recently compiled software, XP or lower is just a ticking time bomb. Some developers may still care but most don't as there is virtually no market share left. So even if you got a port that still cares, don't forget that the libraries it depends on may stop caring eventually if it becomes too much of a hassle.

 

If this was solely for playing vintage 90's Windows games, I'd probably go for Windows 98 SE as that's the best version of the platform these games were initially made for and the one least likely to cause problems.

 

[Azuris]

6 minutes ago, Archfiend said:

Good to know.

I think it at least supports Windows XP? I dunno, it just says any 64-bit Windows. Is that... a good thing? To be honest, my knowledge of computer terminology doesn't extend very far beyond just DOOM.

 

Hmm than Win 98 is maybe out.

Overthinking it the OS could make Problems with the 64bit CPU, a quick search showed Examples that it works (newest i found was Win98 with an Ryzen), but i have no personal experiences with it.

 

That threat could have an Answer for an older Source Port:

https://www.doomworld.com/forum/topic/85409-win98se/

 

But it doesn't solve the Map Making Problem.

There you'll have to use also older Software.

 

btw, running a Dos based OS also means that Doom runs native and Doom 95 ^^

 

Do you have a link to the Specs of the Laptop? Maybe i can see/find something.

 

A Solution could also be to just install two Operation Systems.

A newer one for Mapping a old one for classic Gaming.

[chungy]

Even if you got an x86 Chromebook (most of them are ARM...), you probably won't have a chance at running anything older than Windows 7 on it anyway. Even for current versions of Windows it'd likely be a struggle for drivers.

[Shepardus]

1 hour ago, Archfiend said:

(Also, side question, does anyone know if Crispy can play maps that have custom level script? Thanks!)

No.

[Murdoch]

1 hour ago, Archfiend said:

it's got Chrome OS, 

 

Ok lets start there. Is it an older laptop someone managed to get chrome os on, or a literal chromebook? If the latter i would say the odds of finding the right drivers for windows 7 will be difficult to impossible. Drivers for xp or earlier? Forget it. No chance. And the os likely wont even run anyway. 

 

If you are serious about vintage software your best chance is either virtual machines or hunting down hardware of the era thats in working order still.

[Gibbon]

1 hour ago, chungy said:

Even if you got an x86 Chromebook (most of them are ARM...), you probably won't have a chance at running anything older than Windows 7 on it anyway. Even for current versions of Windows it'd likely be a struggle for drivers.

This.  Windows 98 on a chromebook would be a disaster.  It will most likely be expecting drivers that Windows 98 simply won't have.  You can't just take brand new hardware and slap a 22 year old OS on it and expect it to work.  Windows 98 never had an X64 release (that I know of) so there could be a lot of issues waiting.

 

I would buy a 20 year old computer to run a 20 year old OS on to be honest.

[Maes]

Well, with Windows 9x/plain DOS he does have a reasonable chance of running it as a vanilla Wintel system from the 1990s, if the laptop is x86-based and has a BIOS.

 

Chipset-specific drivers weren't really a thing back then, specific VGA drivers were also a luxury etc.

It's not like Windows 9x won't function without them, you'll just get diminished performance (e.g. perhaps no DMA for disk I/O, no ability to use Direct X for graphics etc.), so in essence you might ended up with a very plain, vanilla DOS/Windows system, like many of us had back in the day. Functional for most stuff, but not at the peak of its performance.

 

Stuff like USB/network/sound may be unobtainium (you can't really plug-in a period-correct PCMCIA card...), unless you can hack e.g. existing AC97 or Ralink drivers into working, assuming the onboard hardware is based on those chipsets.

Edited October 7, 2021 by Maes

[Murdoch]

I did a little more digging. XP is apparently possible in some cases if you use a 64 bit build but as I suspected, drivers are near impossible to locate. I sincerely doubt 98 or earlier would even work. You would have to make sure it was a 32 bit CPU, burn an ISO to a flash drive, boot it and see what happened. 

[Shepardus]

Is the idea to just have something that's not ChromeOS and can run Crispy Doom and a map editor, or is there some reason you specifically need an ancient version of Windows? If it's the former, you'd have better luck with Linux than Windows XP or earlier.

[ducon]

Why not Linux or ReactOS?

[pcorf]

Two of my PC's has XP installed on it, it is very useful indeed. I have 5 PC's (2x XP, 1x Win 7, 1x Win 8, 1x Win 10)

Edited October 7, 2021 by pcorf

[mrthejoshmon]

I found XP most agreeable when testing certain things, the last build of Doombuilder 2 works on it for example.

 

I'd recommend XP or 95 for maybe playing old incompatible games that refuse to run on modern hardware rather than making it a base of operations, however if this is the only choice you have then again I'd say XP.

[Loud Silence]

19 minutes ago, mrthejoshmon said:

I found XP most agreeable when testing certain things, the last build of Doombuilder 2 works on it for example.

 

I'd recommend XP or 95 for maybe playing old incompatible games that refuse to run on modern hardware rather than making it a base of operations, however if this is the only choice you have then again I'd say XP.

Windows 10 is friendly to old hardware and games too. I use laptop from early 2011 with Windows 10 Pro x64, it runs old games very well, supports low resolutions in fullscreen. For example vanilla Quake 2 in OpenGL, Might & Magic VIII in HW accelerated mode, retail version of Half-Life etc. does not care it's Windows 10 instead of XP.

[Nikku4211]

6 hours ago, Archfiend said:

Windows 7's pretty great, too. If I have to settle for it, not a big deal. Thanks.

Windows 7's UI is so nostalgic and refreshing. The Aura theme it shares with Vista is my favourite Windows aesthetic.

[Woolie Wool]

I think it should also be noted that older versions of Windows are completely insecure and going on the internet under Windows XP (to say nothing of 98, which doesn't even have a multi-user model) is like driving through a war zone with a million dollars in your trunk, and a giant neon sign on the roof reading "MILLION DOLLARS IN TRUNK".

 

The fact is that legacy Windows versions are toys, and nothing more. It might be a shame that that is the case, but it is what it is.

Edited October 7, 2021 by Woolie Wool

[mrthejoshmon]

8 minutes ago, Loud Silence said:

Windows 10 is friendly to old hardware and games too. I use laptop from early 2011 with Windows 10 Pro x64, it runs old games very well, supports low resolutions in fullscreen. For example vanilla Quake 2 in OpenGL, Might & Magic VIII in HW accelerated mode, retail version of Half-Life etc. does not care it's Windows 10 instead of XP.

Some old games yes, however as an example anything using DDraw would like to argue against you or anything using outdated DRM discs like SecuROM.

 

Most digital copies you can get are compatible, as they should be, but if you want to play a physical copy of most games from the late 90s or early 2000s natively the chances are you're going to need third party software and endless tweaking to get it running.

[NieMaMordy]

I recently played doom retro on windows xp, and apart from some minor issues, it runs like gold. It is gonna get complevel21 support sometime in the future, so if you want to create maps for that, xp may be a better choice.

[LexiMax]

Could you please post your budget and the laptop that you already picked out?

 

It's hard to tell if you can even install Windows on your Chromebook, or if there is an alternative at your price point that comes with Windows out of the box.

[Archfiend]

5 hours ago, Shepardus said:

No.

Damn it. Thanks. At this point, maybe I should just use whatever port plays the most like Crispy and can still support custom level script. If anyone has any suggestions, please let me know.

1 hour ago, Shepardus said:

Is the idea to just have something that's not ChromeOS and can run Crispy Doom and a map editor, or is there some reason you specifically need an ancient version of Windows? If it's the former, you'd have better luck with Linux than Windows XP or earlier.

Nah, I just don't like Chrome OS and I remembered watching some tutorial videos (for either ZScript or ACS) where they used Windows XP and it looked really convenient and easy to use. I'll consider Linux, thanks.

1 hour ago, mrthejoshmon said:

I found XP most agreeable when testing certain things, the last build of Doombuilder 2 works on it for example.

I learned to use DBX with tutorial videos for DB2, so that would probably be fine.

1 hour ago, Loud Silence said:

Windows 10 is friendly to old hardware and games too. I use laptop from early 2011 with Windows 10 Pro x64, it runs old games very well, supports low resolutions in fullscreen. For example vanilla Quake 2 in OpenGL, Might & Magic VIII in HW accelerated mode, retail version of Half-Life etc. does not care it's Windows 10 instead of XP.

I don't really like Windows 10.

5 minutes ago, AlexMax said:

Could you please post your budget and the laptop that you already picked out?

 

It's hard to tell if you can even install Windows on your Chromebook, or if there is an alternative at your price point that comes with Windows out of the box.

$300 max. Lenovo IdeaPad 1 (14). Haven't bought it yet, though, so if you've got a better suggestion, or if this is incompatible with something, please tell me.

[CBM]

1 hour ago, ducon said:

Why not Linux or ReactOS?

well how compatible is ReactOS and how good is it at running win95/98/98se games and software?

 

asking because I have a ton of older computers that would love to run win98se or something similar (but most of them only has xp drivers and therefore runs a custom version of windows xp)

[ducon]

51 minutes ago, CBM said:

well how compatible is ReactOS and how good is it at running win95/98/98se games and software?

 

Honestly, I don’t know.

[TheNoob_Gamer]

1 hour ago, Archfiend said:

whatever port plays the most like Crispy and can still support custom level script.

Crispy doesn't support custom level script, far as I can tell. You might have confused this script thing with Crispy's Extended Dehacked capabilities. If you are switching on Linux, rest assured as many Doom ports also support Linux natively (being backported to Windows from the original Linux Doom source code).

That includes Crispy Doom itself.

[Mayomancer]

Can you even install those on newer hardware? Even more so on a chromebook?

 

You're probably better off trying to find a used XP or Windows 7 laptop if you want something like that. Or run windows 95/98/xp on a VM.

[Naarok0fkor]

You're going to slow down the entire web if you don't use something more recent...

[magicsofa]

1 hour ago, Archfiend said:

$300 max. Lenovo IdeaPad 1 (14). Haven't bought it yet, though, so if you've got a better suggestion, or if this is incompatible with something, please tell me.

 

Don't those come with Windows 10?

 

If you got one with ChromeOS it is possible that you could change it out for windoze, but I read that the actual Chromebooks are a huge pain to switch because they have some whacky new BIOS that Google felt the need to cook up. So I'd be very cautious about that!

 

Edited October 7, 2021 by magicsofa