Past-proof PC?

[Niku-Sama]

I've never run into any old software problems on 10

[Tanooki]

I ran into a few, but it was stuff that already was a little bit touchy about win7/8 and they just wouldn't load up at all in 10. It's older stuff though, which seemed to apply here being a past proof PC. I'm talking 90s stuff like Sim City 2000 for windows for example.

[Guntz]

In case anyone cares to know, I tried WinME on the Thinkpad X40 and the Intel Graphics driver couldn't properly allocate system memory for video use, so I've gone with good old Windows XP instead, works very well as expected.

[Gamevet]

I've never run into any old software problems on 10

My capture device doesn't work with Windows 10. Luckily, I kept Windows 7 on my C2Q rig.

In case anyone cares to know, I tried WinME on the Thinkpad X40 and the Intel Graphics driver couldn't properly allocate system memory for video use, so I've gone with good old Windows XP instead, works very well as expected.

You can't go wrong with Windows XP for older hardware and software. It's the perfect operating system for a dual-boot setup.

[Guntz]

Yes, XP SP2 is fantastic, but not on every system. You shouldn't use Windows XP on anything less than a Pentium M (overclocked P3) or a Pentium D (dual core P4). It's just too heavy on original Pentium 3 and 4 CPUs.

XP Service Pack 3 is an entirely different beast, the extra 4 years of updates over SP2 makes it even slower on legacy systems. Don't use it on anything less than a Core 2 Duo.

The only other downside to XP is its Win9x support isn't perfect. Sometimes it's nice to install Windows ME and get full access to Win9x, Win3.1 and MS-DOS support legitimately. Though if you can only pick one OS for your Pentium M laptop or low end C2D desktop, XP is an excellent choice.

One other bit of wisdom. If you have an older PC running WinNT of some variety, ALWAYS max out the RAM. It's so cheap now. Insufficient RAM was a common factor is sluggishness back in the day. If using Win9x of some variety, don't go more than 768MB RAM unless you have that rare RAM patch for Win98SE.