2K vs XP vs 2K3 4 me?

Hi folks,

I'm really hitting the wall with 98SE these days. I'm gonna have to give up on it. Thought I'd manage to migrate to Linux before 98SE was "done" but it looks like it might be another year or two. So, looking for my next MS OS

Now, my immediate gut feeling would be to use Windows 2000, the lightest weight choice, and considering my rig has been "happy" with only 256MB with 98SE, probably the only one that's going to run very nice until I get cash for a load more RAM. However, is it worth bothering to get used to? I mean, how long will it do me for, another year? two? Theoretically, anything that runs on XP should do fine on 2k but there's some stuff that "insists" on XP isn't there?

XP, oh XP how I hate thee, I'm stuck with it on my laptop, :/ it's not "growing" on me at all, fed up of fighting with it's wizards and crap whenever I want to configure something, can also see what a pig it is for RAM, even though my lappy has 512, and the lappy "feels" slower than my Duron, even though it's a 1.8G turion vs a 1.6G Duron.

Now 2K3 seems a nice possibility, a slightly debloated XP I hear, leaner and meaner with better memory management, that sounds just the thing. However, what is the latest situation with games? I heard of some refusing to install on it, do they have patches yet or are game devs basically ignoring 2k3 and if it doesn't work, they aren't going to bother fixing it, since it isn't a "consumer" OS??

So it boils down to, how long is there going to be 3rd party support for 2K? (don't give a hoot about MS "support") will 2k3 be supported fully? i.e. will it be recognised as a mainstream OS and will developers be careful to avoid "breaking" their installs on it? Or am I stuck with the "choice" of the very unlovely windows XP ?

I guess I'm looking for an OS I can use for the next 2-3 years, that makes the most out of the hardware I've got, and may make more out of upgrades, but doesn't require them to be useable.

Thanks for any pointers,

Road Warrior

Just install XP. It's a proven OS and has more support than 2k. It will also get security updates for years to come. XP will do fine with 256, but would be happier with 512. Spend the extra few bucks for another stick of ram.

For a desktop machine I would stay away from 2k3. It's a server-only OS and thus has little support for desktop applications. Some software won't even install on it. Plus it will be more expensive than 2k or XP.

On a related note: You're still running 98SE? Wow. What's stopping you from going for a linux distro?