FreePOS runs most reliably on XP or Vista Home Basic.
Understanding The Windows XP & Vista Operating
Systems
What operating system should you install?
Here's our picks in order from BEST to WORST:
Windows Embedded (WE/POS)
Perfect for slim or thin client machines with
solid state components.
FreePOS runs 10 - 20% faster on WE/POS machines
The most reliable Microsoft OS available
Windows XP Home
(or Tablet Edition)
As a server product,
XP Home can support up to 3 workstations.
As a workstation
product, XP Home is the most cost effective
platform for FreePOS.
Windows XP
Professional
As a server product,
XP Pro can support up to 8 workstations.
As a workstation
product, XP Pro offers many extras that some
network technicians might find desireable.
Windows Vista Home
Basic
Vista Home Basic is
like a face lifted edition of "Windows XP Home"
Windows Vista (All
other editions)
The Vista family of
products requires much more RAM and hardware to
run on... so it doesn't make a lot of sense to
install it on older computers.
However, if you get a new machine, you may find
Vista is the only preloaded O/S option
available.
Vista has been
EXTREMELY buggy since it was released.
This is mostly due to driver software being
unavailable or incompatible. We recommend
waiting for Vista's first service pack before
putting Vista into operation (even as a mission
critical desktop O/S)
FreePOS runs on all
editions of Vista
Minimum hardware (we
think) you'll want:
2Gb of RAM
3Ghz CPU (dual core)
256MB Video Card
DVD drive (required
just to load Vista)
160Gb Hard disk
Summary - What To Do?
The way we look
at Windows is that "less is more".
XP is best if you want tested & reliable
operation. Vista will likely
reach this same level of reliability in
another year to eighteen months. - 08/07
