Uncreative Labs

Guest

Today I had a customer that wanted to buy an emachines computer. He said he likes emachines and that is all he will go with because they have drivers for Windows 98. He said he downgrades all his systems to windows 98 and that anyone who uses windows xp is an idiot becuase they always suseptible to threats such as worms. He sounded real smug and superior about it. I tried to explain to him that the filesystem NTFS is more secure than FAT32 in that FAT/FAT32 leaves the files open to everyone. He then stated very rudely that I am a novice who clearly knows very little of computers.

I wish I knew a little more to debate this joker. What do you guys think?

Guest

everybody is entitled to their own opinion
that said , many are dead wrong
I stick with w98se because i was dragged from dos.w 3.1,wfwg, and 95.
I do have problems with windows breaking,
I have a ghost inage of my wifes system.

I use xp at my d-i-l as that's what came with her system.
I have fixed it 3-4 times, about that same as the w98 systems here,

fix: put in the cd and usually after fdisk/ format.
once in a while, i do load windows over windows, not a great idea,
it can totally screw up DUN. but is less damaging to networked systems.
there are 5 systems here and all run 98se.
I have played with both w2000 and xp and don't see any reason to upgrade.

this does not mean i AGREE with the downgrader.

he likely had other reasons as well and a serious consideration is the systeme an older one designed and intended for 98 or xp.

he just may not LIKE xp and is unwilling to admit that.
e machines? are they really decent? are they reliable?

Joined: 02 Oct 2004 Posts: 594 Location: Western NC

It really could go either way:

http://cquirke.mvps.org/ntfs.htm

You're really taking on a lot of abuse at that job. Isn't there something else you'd rather do (like being a tech... Wink

)

Posted: Fri Oct 14, 2005 5:15 am

You should have told the guy that Windows is insecure itself. So is Linux, Unix, OS/2, DOS, etc...

It's what you DO to secure it that makes the biggest difference. I know from experience that getting on the school's network without a firewall is a big mistake. (Yep, just about done reformatting, and I don't have the firewall up and the system's infected. Start all over again.)

I really think Windows could make security a little easier by restricting programs to the type of access they need. (Marc Stiegler from HP mentioned this at Reflections Projections. I linked to the video in a previous post.) Administrators would then be able to select the types of access they wish to grant the program. Solitaire doesn't need write access to the file system, nor does it need network access. Don't make it easy for programs that don't need those abilities to work to use them.

Guest

T-R-A wrote:

It really could go either way:

http://cquirke.mvps.org/ntfs.htm

You're really taking on a lot of abuse at that job. Isn't there something else you'd rather do (like being a tech... Wink

)

I just recently got my A+ certification. But even that holds no prestige with the clientele. One lady says that A+ certification just means you know how to change an adapter card or add a harddrive. Anyone can do that. It doesn't mean you know much of anything about computers. This lady claimed to have a Masters in Computer Science.

I do some tech work btw.. so I am getting the needed experience. The job pays $12.50/hr. For that rate of pay, I will eat doo if I have to. Embarassed

Posted: Fri Oct 14, 2005 7:18 pm

XP handles memory better and is faster about 25% faster in processing seti-units on the same puter.

But w98 could be more secure if malware is written to work in XP it might not work in w98

Joined: 19 Oct 2004 Posts: 138 Location: Lynnwood,WA

Ki Mendrossen wrote:

Today I had a customer that wanted to buy an emachines computer. He said he likes emachines and that is all he will go with because they have drivers for Windows 98. He said he downgrades all his systems to windows 98 and that anyone who uses windows xp is an idiot becuase they always suseptible to threats such as worms. He sounded real smug and superior about it. I tried to explain to him that the filesystem NTFS is more secure than FAT32 in that FAT/FAT32 leaves the files open to everyone. He then stated very rudely that I am a novice who clearly knows very little of computers.

I wish I knew a little more to debate this joker. What do you guys think?

It goes both ways. On a personal use level, I consider Win98SE possibly the best. For one thing, all the programmers these days are going to be going after the NT based systems, not DOS based for the most part. As Win98 gets phased more and more out, eventually 98 would have pretty good security as most of the viruses having become "extinct".

Case in point, I just hooked a router up to 2 computers on our cable internet connection without a firewall on the router and with firewalls on both computers (identical in that they are the same thing, Norton Firewall, same version and so on). The Windows 2000 machine my room mate uses keeps blocking some De Trois Trojan virus, while my Win 98 box has not had a single threat so far. Of course, the firewall on the router has been re-enabled and I've had no problems whatsoever on either computer.

Just look at the Windows 3.x users still out there, NONE of them have to worry about viruses because everything made for 3.1 is extinct, I don't think anybody programs towards the 16 bit API anymore. And even if they did, recovery could be done using a CD-R burner or Norton Ghost.