Knowing your system is one of the most important things that you can do to make sure that your computer stays free of trouble and runs at its optimal performance level. Just like keeping an eye on the level of oil in your car or how much air is in your tires, knowing your computer system will let you prevent smaller problems from turning into larger ones.

Your operating system is another one of the most fundamental things that you need to know about. Because of the increasing power and complexity of modern personal computers, the modern operating systems have become increasingly complex and powerful as well. Because of this, the average computer owner has much more to learn and contend with than they did back in the days of DOS.

Microsoft Windows is by far the most popular operating system in the world today. Some version of it runs on almost 90% of the world's personal computers. But, like many things in computers, it comes in different versions - all of which are compatible on a fundamental level, but each of which differs in certain ways that are important to understand.

All of the Windows operating systems can be broken into two main groups - those that are based on the Windows 9X code base and those that are based on the Windows NT code base. The Windows 9X code base versions are by far the most popular with most personal users as it is designed with home and gaming use in mind and has much lower hardware requirements. The Windows NT based operating systems are more geared towards business and server applications and have much higher hardware requirements and are not always the best suited to gaming.

Windows Millennium, or Windows ME, is the newest of the Windows 9X based operating systems and is by far the most advanced in terms of its support for hardware. Much of the software required to make the latest hardware work correctly is already included with the basic installation of Widows ME - making this one the easiest operating systems to use with an AGP graphics adapter.

Windows ME requires that you install the latest version of any chipset drivers for your motherboard as well as the latest video drivers for you video card. In all it is the simplest of all the Windows operating systems to install and configure.

Windows 98, and its later incarnation of Windows 98SE is the best known and longest running version of Windows on the market. Due to the amount of testing and updating that this version has received, it is considered to be a very mature and stable operating system. Like the newer Windows ME, Windows 98 was designed with many modern features in mind, including full AGP and USB support. It is important thought that you install all the latest updates to Windows 98 to ensure that it runs with the greatest degree of stability possible. All of these updates can be found at the Microsoft Windows Update Site.

Windows 98 requires that you install the latest version of any chipset drivers for your motherboard if you are using a non-Intel or a newer Intel AGP chipset. This is the single biggest limitation of Windows 98. You will also need to download any patches and updates for the operating system from Microsoft in order to make sure that your system is as up to date as possible.

Windows 95 was the first of the Windows 9X based operating systems, and as a consequence of time lacks most of the features that are required to correctly support most of the newer hardware that is on the market today. Windows 95 went through several revisions, with the last two OEM versions receiving the lion's share of the attention. These two versions are OSR/2.1 and OSR/2.5 (OSR stands for OEM Service Release). This is a very important consideration with Windows 95 - because both of these versions were only available with the purchase of a new computer, and they contained a number of features and support that the retail version of Windows 95 did not.

Windows 95, while not an impossible operating system for AGP, is not very good at it. Most people who have Windows 95 do not have the required OSR/2.1 or OSR/2.5 versions and cannot make correct use of AGP in any case. As support for Windows 95 is quickly fading, both from Microsoft and from 3rd parties, it would be best to upgrade to a newer operating system in order to take advantage of the newer and more powerful features of toady's computers.

Windows 2000 is the latest of the Windows NT based operating systems. It goes a great way in bringing Microsoft's NT platform up to age with more modern hardware technology. It supports USB and AGP, as well as a number of other features. This makes it an excellent platform for business, but it is still rather unsuited for home or gaming use. It requires more powerful hardware in order work well and suffers from the same problem that previous versions of Windows NT did: the inability to directly access the hardware in the computer. This exists as a security and stability issue and is very good at keeping the system stable, however it does cause game performance to be hindered. Some of that has been relieved with the inclusion of Direct X for Windows 2000, however, it still performs well below a Windows 9X based operating system in terms of gaming performance.

The biggest thing to bear in mind about Windows 2000 is that it is not an operating system for general home use. It was designed, more or less, to be installed once, under a particular configuration, and never changed. If you are planning lots of hardware or software updates or installs or are planning on using lots of games then this may not be the best choice for you. In any case, if you are using a non-Intel AGP chipset based motherboard, you will want to make sure that you have the latest chipset drivers, as Windows 2000 is very sensitive to these things.

Windows NT Workstation is the lighter weight general use version of Windows NT that was intended for office, business, and educational use. It is a very secure and very stable version of Windows, but it supports none of the newer hardware features at all, making it a very poor choice for gaming or home use in general. Windows NT Workstation is best used for systems that are needed to run reliably 100% of the time and are not going to be used for any type of entertainment or gaming needs.

Windows NT Server is the heavy weight server version of Windows NT that was intended for running web servers, SQL servers, mail servers and the like. As a result, any type of gaming or entertainment use suffers dramatically. As with Windows NT Workstation, this operating system is definitely not a good choice for home or gaming needs.

Almost all of Microsoft's Windows operating systems receive regular updates (Windows 95 and Windows NT are slowly being phased out of the update planning). All of these updates can be downloaded or ordered from Microsoft. In order to ensure the highest level of stability and performance from your computer, you should always make sure that you have the most recent updates and fixes for your operating system.