I'm being given a used computer. The only catch - if I pull anything on the PC, I have to give my buddy the old parts. Not a bad deal! The machine is no screamer, but it's free! It is a K6-4 350khz w. 128MB ram. I'm not sure what size hard drive, he was guessing 10GB (it's been sitting in his basement for a few years).

I plan on putting a big 100GB drive in there and using it to backup my mp3 collection and later serve a Rio Receiver. It will basically be a file server. I MAY entertain using it as a ripper, but I won't have a dedicated monitor for it.

Oh yeah: If I decide to upgrade the motherboard and processor at a later date, will I have to re-load this thing? It wont be that big of a deal if I do, because my mp3's and other doc's will be on a seperate drive from the OS. But, I may consider getting a new motherboard and processor NOW if it will save me tons of work later. BUT, as a file server (and maybe other uses on my LAN later?) I think this will be fast enough.

So my question is: Should I install Windows 2K Professional or 98SE? I am guessing 2K would be the way to go, but wanted to see if anyone had any comments. I wanna stick with Windows here because both of those OS's are available right now and I've got enough on my plate before adding the need to learn a new OS.

For me, 2000 is the hands-down winner. That processor should work fine in 2000 but you should invest in 128MB more memory. By the way, you're talking about a K6-2, the K6-3 (K6-2+) was the last in the K6 series. If your board can handle it, I have a K6-2 500MHz chip I could part with for nearly nothing.

Greetings!

I personally think W2K Pro is more stable (in a relative sense, of course). I also think it would work better for file shares, etc.

Thanks guys! I havn't seen the thing in person yet.. so I am just going by what he told me over the phone. I will research his motherboard online once I do and find out if it can handle 500mhz. I also need to find out what is going to be required to add a hard drive... the deal I found online for a drive wants $10 for a cable and another $10 for a mounting kit... not sure if I'll need those. (and $100 for a 80gb drive)

Rob, you've got a good seller rating from me, so maybe we can do that.

and the other part of your question...
you shouldn't have to rebuild if you upgrade later...
you'll just have to be careful about the motherboard specific drivers and unload them then load new ones...but won't have to reload the whole OS

also...I agree with everyone else...
Win2K all the way...
by far the most stable OS of the two...I haven't used Win98 since I got 2000, never even thought of it...but you DEFINITELY need more memory...
(maybe dos 5.1 would be more stable )

If all you are using it for is file serving MP3s to one person then 128Mb is fine, it will be quite happy, my Win2k server running my web site, database and serving MP3s to me had only 128Mb in it until recently and performed without any problems (it now has 512Mb though, as even ECC memory is cheap now).

If you are running apps on it interactively then 128Mb won't be enough though.

yeah that's true...
my internet server at my house only has 128...
I was thinking of my machine for everyday use...

Memory is so cheap now it doesn't make sense to skimp. There was a point about a year ago when I thought memory had hit rock bottom. It was $29 for a stick of generic PC133. In one day I bought nearly 4GB worth. After that, the price proceeded to drop even more. There was a point that even Crucial sticks went below that amount by about $10. I still have some of that memory left and 128MB sticks are back up to $50. However, DDR is now more plentiful and cheaper than SDR so my hoarding of memory looks like it was a poor choice. Even though 128MB is back up, it is still cheap compared to when I spent $400 for a 128 EDO DIMM (yes, DIMM, not SIMM) a couple years ago.

Brad, I have tons of computer parts. If you want anything for that used system, check with me. At this point I am very motivated to sell anything relating to Socket7, SDR SDRAM, etc. I made a list of the stuff I have because I was going to get a booth at a computer show. Let me know if I should post it.

Rob, you can PM it to me or email. Maybe posting in the "For Sale" section would be good too.

I too am very interested. Considering I am getting this thing for free, with my only NEED being a large HD, I won't mind spending a little to get it up to snuff. I am picking it up tonight, so I'll have a better idea of what is in it.

It's at home, so I will post it here later when I get back. Thanks.

Windows 2000, wins hands down!

Win98 is ok for older PC's that can't run W2K or for laptops where boot time is important and resources are tight,

... but if it can run Win2K then use it ... you'll be glad you did!

Memeory is cheap .... might be worth spending a little and boosting your performance a lot!!!!

That was my next question... once I get this thing running, I want to send files off of my laptop (downloads and doc's etc) and put my old 20gb empeg drive into my notebook. After that (what do I need to build the disk for Windows?) I was thinking of putting Win2K Pro on my notebook....

MY notebook is a PIII 700mhz, 128mb ram. I could upgrade the ram to 256 for like $30. Would this handle Win 2K alright? Or should I stick with 98SE? I use my notebook about 60+ hours a week.

Yes, I would put 2000 on the laptop. It should work fine with 128MB, but if you can upgrade do it. Too bad I recently sold a 512MB laptop DIMM on eBay.

Sounds like you've got enough guts in your laptop to run Win2K but be warned:

Some laptops don't like running Win2K - It just won't install!

To be honest it's much better than Win98 but it will also be much slower loading up on boot! Is this an issue with your laptop?

I've personally got Win2K on all my computers (except servers and laptop) - I downgraded to Win98 on my laptop because it was faster loading and I only use the laptop occasionally at the weekends for short times so fast loading is quite important to me!

My advice ... try both ... there's no harm in trying it!

I would use 2000 on there, it should be fine...
go with the memory if you can...
btw: I have an old crappy NEC laptop 133mhz with a bad floppy drive connection on the motherboard and I put a Win2000 cd in and found out it could install from cd, so I did...it has 40megs of ram...it was SLOW, but I had it in my dorm room (about 2 years ago) and it stayed running with out crashing for about 4 months with people using it jump on the internet real quick (well not quick....but faster then going back to there room I guess) and you guy even used it all the time to type papers since he didn't have a computer...but anyways...it stayed running with no crashes for a couple of months before the semester was over and I had to power it off to pack I up...it was slower than crap and I have recently put Red Hat on it, but I have never had a windows computer stay on and running with no crashes that long...just my personal experience and preference of 2K I guess...but I think I'll be putting it on any windows computer I can run it on for a while coming...

WooHoo! Hp has 2000 specific BIOS drivers for my notebook! Here.

HP N 3390.

great...sounds like it should work...
I personally would prefer 2000 on there...
I don't have real issue with the boot times I can handle waiting a bit...

I've seen everyone recommend 2000 in this thread because it is more stable and a better OS all around, which I agree with.

But I have exactly one caveat to say about it: Do you plan on playing a lot of games, especially old ones, on this PC? If so, install '98.

oh...that's true...didn't think of that...sorry...
but only games that are pretty outdated anyways...
the only thing I still wanted to play that I can't is close combat...

Games... hmm... Here is what I play: Unreal 1, Doom (no plans to play again), Diablo (no plans to play again) and maybe a nintendo emulator... that's about it.

Good point though!

Will Unreal work? I've spent a lot of time making a map that we play at work.

Is 2000 slower overall?

don't know about Unreal...
slower? hmmm...
I don't think so, as long as you throw in more memory
I really think any performance loss is totally over shadowed by the stablity

Is there anyway that I can simply copy over my address book and calander from Outlook? OR do I have to do an export (which shouldn't be too hard)?

are you doing an upgrade or a clean install?
if you upgrade then it should bring all you programs over fine...but I think most people will suggest doing a clean install, in which case you will need to do an export

In outlook express you can just copy the files over. With outlook you should export. It is not hard, just make sure you export everything at one time into one file by exporting to a Personal Folder File. To get everything into one file, the options should look like this (select export from "Personal Folders" and check "include subfolders"):

Awesome! It worked fine! I don't use it for email oddly enough... just contacts.

What do I have to do to my old empeg 20GB IBM drive to get it to work with a Microsoft machine? Will the Windows2000 disc have a format utility?

If you're just using it as a server (which I'm assuming since you say you won't have a monitor for it), run a Unix. Anything you can get will run about 10 times faster than Windows. Plus, you'll be able to control it without having to hook a monitor back up to it. You can even get the console to run over the serial port so that you don't even need a video card at all (unless your motherboard requires one to boot or you need to change the BIOS in the future).

Plus you get to learn something new.

I'd recommend FreeBSD for this application, but Linux or OpenBSD would be okay. NetBSD would be a close third.

Boot into dos and execute the file in the attached zip. BE VERY CAREFUL with this file. If you use winzip DO NOT double click the file inside the zip. Extract it directly to a floppy and only execute it in DOS. Executing it will instantly kill the filesystem on whatever drive is attched. After that you can boot off the W2K cd and format it in either NTFS or FAT32. This is the easiest way, just be aware of the risk of executing this file.

To make a DOS boot floppy go to a DOS or Win9x machine and type the following:
FORMAT A: /Q /S

That was my next question... I know that with some of the work computers here, our admin can remotely view and control another windows box. Once I get this set up, it would be nice to tap into the server and view what would be on it's screen.

The server does have a video card..

So... 2 floppies right? The first is a dos boot floppy and the second has the kill program on it?

Thank you SO much for your help on this!