how do you grade an OS?

**quarry206** · 01-18-2009, 02:53 PM

Often in debates about upgrades we get into the topics about OS's. And the debate fires from there. So i wondered peoples opinion on how they grade an OS on if it is good or bad.

my list:
1*Looks of the GUI
2*The ability for the avg user to jump on and figure it out
3*The ability for the OS to run at its minimum hardware requirements
4*The ability for it to work well with other OS's on a network.
5*The ability to upgrade to it from an old OS.
6*built in Safe guards
7*The avaible simple programs that work with it
8*The options to turn off and on system functions that a user might or might not want
9*The amount of shortcuts, and command shortcuts you can use
10*Its ability to deal with or update through service packs for new hardware advancements or networking changes

i'm sure there is more. those are basic though..

-XP would score high in all of those for me.
-vista scoring high in all of those but two (3,5). i like the short cuts and indexing upgrades they did. its already set to move to IPv6 when that happens
-Ubuntu scores very well with me too except with the programs that i use for work (and home) do not work with it well without losing features of the program. but once you learn to use ubuntu it is a great OS.
-As for Windows 2000 (since it was brought up in another thread).. It has major networking flaws, mainly because it went one direction and then the computer world and networking world as a whole went a different direction.

**Jakspro** · 01-18-2009, 03:26 PM

You have not mentioned Mac OS X, have you had experience with it?

**T_Own** · 01-18-2009, 06:48 PM

i've used most of the versions of OS X, starting with the 10.0, and it would be very high except that its not compatible with a lot of programs just because microsoft is stubborn. even on the slightly old mac we had (an iMac) it ran fine, did everything we needed (as kids) and never gave us problems. it was easy to add things (more ram) and to update the newer versions (til we got a windows)

but as far as windows itself, xp definitely wins in my mind. for some of those i don't take into consideration at all, namely 1,2,3, since top of the line hardware is cheap if you can build your own comp (which i do) the GUI is one of the most customizable things, even if you have to use extra programs, but i keep mine simple enough. and for #2, i figure if i can't figure out how to use an OS, then they have made something extremely wrong.

#4 doesn't really apply to me, since basically everything works together to a point, even windows 2000 computers can connect to the same networks as XP or vista for basic things.
#5 i don't upgrade often, probably mostly because new OSes are too expensive for me (19yr old, so $100 is a lot) and i like xp
#6 definitely agree with that one. especially with prebuilt computers from big names like dell (whom i hate) they throw in so much garbage that slows it down and you can't take it off without compromising the computer. just two days ago when i installed XP, it came with MSN explorer and messenger, all these things i'll never use, some terrible anti virus stuff, bad firewalls, all things they add but i don't make use of
#7 yes, since all i do is mostly browse, music/videos, and games, thats pretty simple.
#8 might kinda go into #6 as i put it, but other things in the BIOS can be turned off, not sure what you mean with that one. but things like speedstep and c1e (down clocking your cpu when its not being used all the way to save power/heat) mine clocks down from 4.0 (overclocked) to 1.2 (started at 2.5, OCed to 4, always clocks down to 1.2)
#9 i don't make all that much use of that but its something to think of. i would probably miss it because i imagine i use them subconsciously
#10 of course, for some things (new hard drive, new motherboard) you need a fresh install of the OS and all your files would be gone unless you back them up. cpu, ram, graphics card, sound card, all have no impact on the OS/software

**Tock** · 01-18-2009, 06:48 PM

I don't know what the technical capabilities of the various incarnations of Windows have been, but IMHO, Windows 3.1 and XP were reliable, and never crashed and eliminated hours of hard work. Windows 95 crashed at least twice a day on my computer, and I can count on Vista crashing about four times a week, so I rate them poorly, mostly on the inconvenience factor.

On Vista -- I installed a shiny new HP printer on my 1 year old HP computer, and after several days of working just fine, while in the middle of a spreadsheet, out of the blue Vista announced that it had to delete all the printer driver files, and did so. Vista didn't say why it had to delete them, nor did it give me the option of disallowing the action. I re-loaded all the drivers, and everything is working just fine again.

I wish I could go back in time and tell HP to put XP on my computer instead of this "devil's slime" that freezes up at the worst possible moments.
Computers were supposed to be great time-savers. Instead, I've lost countless hours unscrambling IRQ's and drivers and setting switches on motherboards and deciphering product manuals and sitting through classes for computer languages and spreadsheets and databases and printing reams of reports that didn't really need to be printed. On top of that, what we are gaining in convenience we are losing in privacy, which means that there isn't much that government computers (foreign or domestic) or teenage hackers can't discover and use to their own purposes.

I'm not convinced that we are any better off for having computers. Maybe IBM should have made 6 of them, and stopped there . . .

In any case, Vista sucks . . .

**quarry206** · 01-19-2009, 04:27 PM

i didn't list MAC OS's mainly because i was looking for an open opinion on how people view their OS, and felt percentage wise not many MAC users would be on here compared to MS..

plus trying to weigh the pros and cons of MAC to MS is really unfair both ways .. many areas even outside of my unsceinctific list i made the scores you would give MAC do not equal its quality only ability..Also the attacks on Microsoft OS's though sounding great in arguements don't really equal when comparing what that means. though people fight back and forth which one is better. IMO, for most purposes the two are apples and oranges. both fruit, but different types all together..