The developer preview of Windows 8 has shown to have several nice features like the ability to install and run older software. For the fun of it I installed Office 97 just to see what it looks like, and I was pleasantly surprised that Windows 8 has dedicated support for old 16bit software. The screenshot of Word 97 in Windows 8 was taken while in Word 97 (PrtScn / ctrl-v, saved to a Word 97 file, opened with Word 2003, copied to Jasc Paint Shop Pro, resized, logo added, and saved as a JPG). I just have a lot of fun tinkering with old software, especially when it's in the newest operating system. ;-)

For myself I would rather use Office 2000 or 2003 rather than 97, but new CDs of Office 97 can be purchased for under $10.00 and work well for someone wanting to learn Microsoft Office. Office 2010 shines in Windows 7 and 8 and would be the best choice, but of course the cost is quite a bit higher.

One thing that I find amusing is that Office 97 has a more modern appearance than the default user interface of open source office suites for Windows. Some of us complain a lot about Windows and Office not being as perfect as we would prefer, but we do know that there are none as good as Microsoft's.

I passed on Vista, and I hesitated for years on Windows 7, but I believe that I will likely buy Windows 8 early: it's looking good.

It is very common to hear people passionately voice their preferences of cars, sports teams, and even their schools. The differences of opinion are usually good natured, but it is human nature to want to be right in our beliefs, and we humans sometimes get a little carried away trying to convince others (and ourselves) that our opinion is the only correct opinion.

The debate between Linux and Windows can sometimes grow a bit intense, and while both operating systems have their advantages, more often than not the debates are fueled by personal preferences and not by actual measured performance. I wrote another article at First Impressions - Review and Comparison of Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Zorin Linux Part 2 that is based on actual tests – not merely opinion – and the article helps to explain some of the differences between Linux and Windows.

I have serviced quite a few computers over the years, and a sizable quantity of the computers were terribly burdened with large quantities of tool bars and other unnecessary software that consumed the memory and made the computers run very slowly. It appears likely to me (opinion) that some Linux lovers may have compared a new installation of Linux to the individuals’ previous junkware-ridden Windows, and yes, any new operating system will run faster than an operating system that is filled with junk.

In ten years of testing with half a dozen different computers, I myself have not yet seen any desktop Linux distribution run faster than Windows 2000 and XP. I have seen a couple bare-bone minimalist Linux distributions display very basic menus similarly fast as Windows 2000/XP, but the Linux systems were still excessively unstable and slow to open and run programs. Perhaps the best solution of determining whether Linux is faster than Windows is for you to install a Linux distribution on your own computer so that you can see Linux first-hand, or simply take a look at the articles and see some of the recorded speed differences between Windows and Linux.

You might enjoy downloading and installing the newest version of the Opera browser "Next". Version 12.00 is an alpha, and so surely there will be a few bugs to iron out, but the improvement of performance is stunning.

It appears that Opera Next is making good use of hardware acceleration, and on my computer the speed of response is darn near the same as a quality word processor, which is about as close to being instantaneous a program can get without actually being instantaneous. I am very impressed! Google's Chrome has become a very fast browser, especially for older computers, but I am currently of the opinion that Opera Next may be a step or two faster than Chrome now. Gotta love browser wars, the browsers just keep getting better!

I have liked Opera for years, but it never became my primary browser due to it not working well with a few websites that I had to visit regularly. In recent versions the compatibility problems have greatly eased, and the current version 12.00 may have completely overcome the smallish past problems.

The Opera Next alpha can be installed and run simultaneously as the release version, which is very cool too. Check it out: Opera version 12.00 download.

A website's topic tends to attract visitors who use similar operating systems and browsers. One of my websites attracts users of Internet Explorer® version 6 more often than any other version. Internet Explorer 6 is the highest version available in Windows® 2000, with XP required for Internet Explorer versions 7 and 8, and Windows 7 is required for Internet Explorer 9.

Windows 2000 is still a very good operating system. The only sizable drawbacks of Windows 2000 are that it cannot run some newer programs, and the text quality is not as good as the ClearType font smoothing in XP and 7. Installing the GDI++ font enhancement helps to make the text more readable in Windows 2000, and if a person does not have a need for a specific program that requires XP, then for most users there is no compelling reason to upgrade the operating system.

One of the major improvements in XP was the added XP theme. Nevertheless, not everyone liked the new XP theme (nor the new Windows 7 themes), and many of us chose to continue using the classic theme like what is in Windows 2000.

I wrote an article that describes how to modify Windows 2000 and XP themes at Windows 2000 and XP Themes. For those of us who use a computer more for business than for entertainment, the dark gray theme works well to help lessen the distractions that are more common with bright colors. Some of us are using the classic theme in Windows 7 too.

The current background for this page is a screenshot of Internet Explorer 8 with the modified dark gray XP theme. For the very first time I am now happy with the appearances of Internet Explorer!