Which platform is more stable? From reading some posts here and other meassageboards, Windows 98 may not be the 'most' stable and reliable platform for daytrading. It was area priorly I wasnt concerned about but now feel like I should give some serious thought to....so which is better for daytrading stability and reliability Windows NT or 2000...and why? Thanks for any feedback.
DAEtrader, Windows 2000 Professional is Windows NT 5.0. I've used it for almost a year now on multiple PCs, and I've had zero operating system related lockups and zero problems compared to Win98. The product migration at Microsoft is to NT, even for the consumer operating system. The stability issue seems to arise from the fact that Win2000 does not readily misbehave or freeze when some program acts up, some conflict is encountered, or when system resources are severely taxed. This stability is essential if your trading is serious business. The downside to Win2000 at this time is that it is a business operating system, and the home-user running entertainment media, games, certain video cards, and other consumer software or devices may find that Win2000 is not supported. If you are upgrading to Win2000, be sure that all your hardware and software is Win2000 compatible. Win2000 also has a substantial feature set for the corporate and workgroup environment that the typical home user will never need. For serious trading, the operating system choice is clearly NT.
Currently I use Win98, so Windows2000 and NT 5.0 are the same I definately did not know that. I assumed the weird lockups,or 'freezes' ,or erratic error messages were to be expected from any platform. But I'm encouraged to hear there 'is' a more stable platform than Win98. I solely use my computer for trading (receiving constant streaming quotes ,multiple realtime charts,execution platform, trading chatroom occassionally) and email. As long as Windows 2000 or Windows NT 5.0 can handle this consistently with stability and reliability I'll be much more pleased than I am currewntly w/ Windows 98. Also noted is a needed increase of RAM, which the lack of is likely hampering my systems performance. Currently have 128, intend on increase to 256. Thanks for the feedback , i welcome it all.
I notice that you guys were talking about NT4.0 and Win2000. Could you possibly tell me some of the advantages/disadvantages of both. Why should I choose Win2000 over NT4.0? Thanks!
It is true Win2000 is NT 5. The so called Win2000 pro is the update of NT 4 Workstation. The difference between 2000 and NT4 is mostly in the inside. New technology is built in to take advantage of Win2000 Servers [when you are using a pro network]. Also, Win2000 supports newer devices like USB [NT4 does not]. There are some changes in user interface, but nothing really dramatic. If you are using NT4 and it is stable and you do not need USB and you are not on a network with NT Servers, then you do not really need to update. Of course Microsoft would like you to [sure !]. For win98 users, I certainly do encourage you to upgrade. You will get more from your machine. Memory management and application's speed is much better under Win2000 or Win NT. These are things important to traders : multiple programs, speed and reliability.
It's my understanding that Win 2000 also supports multiple video cards as does Win 98. Can someone confirm this? Thanks!
It does support multiple video cards. Drivers usually come first on Win98 because of the market's size. Again, if you have win98 you should consider win2000. If you have NT4 and don't need USB there are less reasons [you already have stability and efficient memory management and real 32bits speed].