Software Reviews

Welcome to E.T. Technology's Software Reviews. On this page I present reviews of some of my favorite (and not so favorite) computer programs or software. Ratings are out of five stars and take into consideration price, usefulness, ease of use, functionality, and consistency (how many bugs there are). If software is no longer sold, Appproximate Price will list the price at the time it was new, followed by a slash and an approximate price for it used or "in archive."

Of course, everyone puts out their opinion of MS Windows at some time or another, and I'm no exception. I'll be starting with operating systems, and first on the line will be Windows 98. Why bother to review an out-of-date operating system that's been succeeded twice by newer versions? Well, to my knowledge, it is still the most popular Microsoft operating system - just about everyone I've seen with a non-brand-new computer has Windows 98 on it, and almost every computer donated to my school has had Windows 98 as well. In addition, people like me who tinker with old computers in their spare time (I'm sure there are others out there) will probably appreciate a review of the operating system their old junkers use, for example to help decide whether to put Windows 2000 on them or not.

So, about Windows 98. To my experience, Microsoft's best-selling operating system can either work wonderfully or crash horribly, depending on the situation. For ancient-history PCs that you just want to get connected to your network or something (e.g. Pentium-200 beige boxes with 32MB of RAM), Windows 98 is a good choice because it is just as old as the computer and has well-known and well-documented setup procedures. I can get a Windows 98 computer on the internet from having no network card at all in a matter of hours (a short time in the computer world!), then have it continue to work for a long time afterward. On the other hand, once you start doing more demanding things on your computer than just Internet browsing and word processing, Windows 98 seems to slowly destabilize until after a year or two you can't boot it up and shut it down without getting at least one Blue Screen of Death. Then you have to wipe the hard drive and reinstall the OS and programs, a cumbersome and slightly dangerous task. Therefore, depending on your demands for the system you're using it on, Windows 98 may or may not be the best choice.

And now, another review that I'm sure has been done countless times before, but I will do nevertheless because it can't hurt to put my two cents in. Microsoft Windows 2000 is another operating system that is now technically obsolete, but still worth reviewing because of its continuing widespread use. As I mentioned in the previous review, this would also help people working with older computers decide which operating system to have on them, as they won't be able to run Windows XP. The primary technical difference between Windows 2000 and Windows 98, though they share the same year-it-was-released naming scheme, is that Windows 98 is based on Windows 95, while Windows 2000 is based on Windows NT. The following will probably be too technical for some people, but this means that while Windows 98 is essentially a GUI shell for MS-DOS 6.0, Windows 2000 is a "direct interface" operating system that can run independantly of a DOS base (although you can still open a DOS box while running Windows).

The upshot of this is that Windows 2000 is amazingly more reliable and stable than Windows 98 (and its technical continuation, Windows ME). You rarely encounter Blue Screens of Death, and it doesn't freeze up nearly as much even when running on old hardware. Which is another benefit - despite its supposed "minimum system requirements," Windows 2000 can run on almost any system, even a 12-year-old Gateway hunk-of-junk laptop (yes, I actually saw that working). On the other hand, Windows 2000 is not as familiar or supported as Windows 98 and I have sometimes encountered problems that, while I would know how to fix it in Windows 98, neither me nor the person who wrote the software/hardware documentation knows how to fix it in Windows 2000. Also, the Control Panel (along with some other things) have been rearranged, and it's a little more difficult to do "advanced" stuff like install drivers for already-existing hardware that has failed to work. This, of course, would get easier with experience, but my whole point with Windows 98 was that it's more familiar.

Second-to-last in my rather unnecessary Windows reviews is the concurrently-released "home version" of Windows 2000, Windows ME (Millennium Edition). In the original marketing when the new OSs were released, Windows 2000 was portrayed as the "workplace" version (hence the subtitle "Professional") and Windows ME was portrayed as the "consumer" version. However, it is my experience that Windows ME is completely unfit for any use whatsoever, and that even home users running older (Windows XP-incapable) computers should opt for Windows 2000. The differentiation in concurrent operating systems actually underscores a divisive conflict (at the time) between Microsoft engineers. To my understanding, when Bill Gates decided to develop a new operating system to succeed WIndows 98, one group of software engineers wanted to base the new operating system on Windows 95/98, while another group wanted to base it on Windows NT. As a compromise, they agreed to just make two new operating systems - one 98-based and one NT-based. Windows 2000, the Windows NT-based OS, was successful and worked well, as I described earlier. Windows ME, on the other hand, is a very buggy, very unstable operating system and probably the worst Microsoft has ever made. It is for this reason that Windows XP, when it came time for it to be developed, was based on Windows NT and the 95/98 line was discontinued.

So what else can I say? Windows ME crashes often, freezes up for no reason, is difficult to configure and manage, and tends to make the computer run slower. I completely would not recommend it, and in fact in my opinion if you are running it you should attempt to change your OS as soon as possible.

And now, for my final Microsoft operating system review, I come to the most recent release. Microsoft Windows XP is the latest and greatest version of Windows and is even a slight improvement over Windows 2000. This operating system is hence the most "worth" reviewing as it is still sold in stores today and a good number of people might like to see a review before buying it to upgrade their computer. It is based on Windows NT which, in technical terms, means it is a "real" operating system that can run independently of the old MS-DOS base. This, combined with the fact that it has many operational improvements and features, convinces me that Windows XP is definitely worth reccomending.

Of course, it's one thing for me to say "this is a good operating system" and another to actually give a reason as to why you should buy it. First and formost, the primary reason why I recommend Windows XP is its stability and reliability. I have used a desktop computer running Windows XP for almostg a year now and have received exactly three "stop errors," the new and improved version of a Blue Screen of Death. On a Windows 98 computer this number would probably be more like 15, not to mention innumberable freezes and unexpected errors. Regarding said "stop errors," yes, they actually are improved over the Windows 98/ME Blue Screen of Death, because rather than a cryptic arrangement of random numbers terminating in "Press Ctrl-Alt-Del to restart your comptuer and lose all unsaved information," it says clearly at the top that there was an unrecoverable error and Windows was shut down because of it. And unlike Windows ME and earlier, Windows XP can actually recover from "stop errors" and seeing one does not start a downward spiral of Blue Screen after Blue Screen, as can happen in Windows 98.

The second major reason why I recommend Windows XP over other versions is its security. Yes, I know everyone and their brother out there with a computer badmouths Microsoft for how insecure Windows is and how unless you have a virus scanner, spyware scanner, and active firewall you're guaranteed to get shut down within a week by a malicious hacker or spyware program. But I think that Microsoft has acutally done what they promised for once and made Windows XP considerably more secure than earlier versions, just like they were saying in the pre-release literature. The biggest improvement toward this end is the upgrading of Windows Update. In previous versions of Windows, you had to manually navigate to the Windows Update web site in order to download updates, and the inexperienced (or simply forgetful) user could easily miss an important security patch until it's too late and their computer crashes. In Windows XP, however, Microsoft seems to have finally admitted that their operating systems are far from bug-free when they're released and require a good deal of fixes; Windows Update can now be set to "full automatic" and will download and install updates in the background as they are released. The user is not required to remember anything, and the computer stays updated with all the latest bug fixes and security patches, thus decreasing the possibility of an avoidable crash. In addition to the improvements in Windows Update, Windows XP is also more secure through its integrated security control center and passive firewall. Although the Windows Firewall is not nearly as good as a paid-service one like McAfee Personal Firewall Plus, it provides a basic level of protection that Windows never had before.

Another good reason for buying Windows XP is that its different editions actually mean something, unlike the frivolous "home user/professional" distinction between Windows 2000 and Windows ME. Windows XP Home Edition is the simplest, least expensive version of Windows XP that will give you basic XP functionality without having to pay for more advanced features that a non-computer-savvy person might not need. Windows XP Professional, on the other hand, is a more-expensive but more-secure version that includes features such as enhanced network connectivity, and the Windows Recovery Console, an alternate-boot option that allows you to troubleshoot why Windows won't boot up normally. And Windows XP Media Center Edition allows you to add your computer to your entertainment center (provided you have the correct A/V conversion cables) and use your computer with your TV and home stereo system.