At the recomendation of many people on this forum and after several years experience with its excellent reliability, Windows 2000.
At the recomendation of many people on this forum and after several years experience with its excellent reliability, Windows 2000.
There is also the limitation that you can't download IE7 or 8 unless you are using a legal real copy of Windows.
But as mentioned, IE is part of the OS and Explorer uses it, and for that it is a good idea to keep it up to date. Also Windows Update normally works better with the latest version, as does the rest of the M$ network.
If you haven't played a classic game in years, it's never too late to start!
Not necessarily! It's very easy to patch IE setup to 'bypass' the checks for a legit version of Windows.
It's quite a bit harder to do the same for Media Player though.
On some older browsers, parts of the Microsoft site won't even appear.
I've noticed on my old PC (an original Pentium) running Windows 95 and IE 5.5 (latest possible IE on Win95), some parts of the Microsoft web site refuse to even load .... you get forwarded to a page saying 'Thankyou for your interest ..... this site is designed for Microsoft Internet Explorer version 6.0 or late ..... download the lastest version here' and a link to the latest IE version.
As far as I'm concerned, the only reason not to update to latest IE is for specific testing with an older version (for instance, if IE7 or IE8 cause problems with your software) or if you're on Windows 2000 or earlier.
I though google kept everything? Probably for advertising purposes. I believe that is what they do/did with GMail.
When I installed this copy of Windows 2000 a couple of years ago, the first thing I did was go into IE5 and use it to download Opera 9. As I use Opera 99.9% of the time, IE5 has barely been touched.
Hadn't realised that IE updates more than just the browser, but it does make sense that it also updates Windows Explorer now that you mention it. But then again, I don't use Windows Explorer either.
I do keep Windows up to date otherwise, but not on automatic updates. I check the updates roughly once a month and get the critical ones, and scan the recommended ones for anything I could need. There's a lot there I haven't bothered with, and my system works perfectly fine as far as I can tell.
Do you actually have a Start Menu and/or desktop icons?
If you do, you're using Windows Explorer!
Windows Explorer is more than just the link in the Start Menu.
The Start button, the Desktop Icons, the Systray/notification area, the My Documents window .... even the common dialog box that appears when you go File -> Open in your favourite applications ..... it's all Windows Explorer!
Teho is referring to using Directory Opus instead of Windows Explorer, but as you say, using any part of Windows will mean you are still using Explorer to some extent. Although DOpus can take over a large majority of it if you wish.
If you haven't played a classic game in years, it's never too late to start!
Cool, didn't realise there was a Windows version of Directory Opus.
I may have to give that a try (I'm right royaly fed up with Windows, so any way to make it better is a help)
Agreed!
Windows 2000 is the BEST version of Windows ever .... in the sense that it's the most reliable, anyway.