Why should I load W2K??

[Murf]

Howdy Folks,

Just stopped by from over the hill at Win 98. I have Win2K Pro, and have debated/researched into why I would want to try it, except for nothing else to do.

I'm currently running W98SE and it runs great, freezes once in awhile like all O/S.

So did some research, have the drivers I need for W2K for my hardware, but not really sure I want to load it.

Thought I would load on a seperate partition (dual boot), in case I don't like it can dump it... I know if I upgrade, I can't go back without a uninstall/reinstall or format....

Is there a real advantage to W2K?? If so what.. No I don't want to go to XP...

Any thoughts to some of you convertors????

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Murf
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Note:"Murf's Garage" under Major Renovation.

[24jedi]

Sure, Brother Bill needs every last penny he can get to fight the anti-trust law suit.

Seriously though, I've been running win2k for the last year at home and work. I haven't had a system lock up yet...And my systems are not standardized..ie..different motherboards, graphic cards..etc.

If you've used nt4 much, win2k sortof gives you the best of both worlds. NT4 backend stability (for the most part) with a win98 GUI.

I am sure there are propellar-heads that can dive into much more nuts-n-bolts detail. But if your not sure you want to take the dive, get a pair of removeable hard-drive bays and two separate hard-drives. Hard-drive bays run about $15 us each and I'm sure you could find a 4gb HD somewhere. This way you don't have to go through the hassle of dual-booting.

Or...permanently attach the second hard-drive with a FAT partition and get a copy of Ghost Personal Edition. Ghost Win98 to an image file on Disk 1. Format Disk 0. Load Win2k. Ghost win2k to another image file. This way you can really bang at your box without fear of loosing anything. If you frag the box, just un-ghost the image you want to run.

I set up a developement box for one of our programmers with 2 disks. Disk 1 has several Ghost images for Win95, 98, ME, 2k, and XP.

just my 2 cents.

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The smarter I get, the dumber I feel...IGNORANCE is bliss !!!

[Murf]

Howdy from down the road.

Hum, have several spare HDD's laying around. Use NT4 at work also, it's pretty stable...The more I think of it, ya use another HDD, then if I don't like just disconnect it.... Also have Ghost, Appears W2K is more stable then "98",at least what I have read. We now have W2K on our desktops at work running on a NT4 server.. Only had one crash on my PC in the last 2 years....

Thanks

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Murf
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Note:"Murf's Garage" under Major Renovation.

[NoBoB]

Why should you consider Win2000?

I'm currently running W98SE and it runs great, freezes once in awhile like all O/S.

If "once in awhile" is a two-and-a-half years, then your Win98 install is keeping up with my Win2000

I've found Windows 2000 to be exceptionally stable (and yes, I just used the words 'Windows' and 'stable' in the same sentence). 8 of the 9 BSOD's I've had were the fault of the long-uninstalled DirectCD (the other was my fault -- but also while installing the Easy CD components). I've had runtimes in excess of 66 days twice I can remember, both of those ended because software installation required a reboot. I've tried to knock it down, but it's tough.

It's great for CD burning. It seems to know that the burning is important, and even if I play Quake3 while burning, the burn succeeds.

What's bad about it? Lemme think about that a while. I've only been running it 2 1/2 years

[Murf]

Once-in-awhile is like once a month. Burning has been a problem, just switched from Creator to Nero which seems to have solved the problem -couldn't burn above 4x with creator, just burned on the fly at 12X with Nero...

I use NETSCAPE and the freezes are in NS... Also have IE6.0 and it has froze, this generally happens when multi-tasking, just have one or two windows open no problems..

I know it could be several problems causing the freeze...hardware or software, cheap ass Microtek Scanner causes freezes..anyways thanks again NoBob, haven't seen you around at "95" or "98" in awhile. Think I will dig out one of those spare drives and try her out.....

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Murf
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Note:"Murf's Garage" under Major Renovation.

[This message has been edited by Murf (edited 05-14-2002).]

[Stoobydo]

I live by 98se, but also have a machine running XP. Not impressed by XP yet. At work we use 2K. I get support calls all the time due to the OS crapping out. Page file errors are the predominate ones. The guy that maintains the XP machines is bored.

Aside from increased security, I wouldn't waste my time or money. I predict that within the next century, Bill will provide an error free OS. Till then 98se rulz!

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I don't work here; I'm a consultant.

[John Dos]

Just remember everyone, Windows 2000 WAS the last REAL operating system that microsoft made!

I would never get XP with its "nosey" technology, hey I own my computer! Not bill gates! I install what I want!

no Anti-piracy (I think STUPID) activation code!

Hey call microsoft and get a activation code to put the same copy on your laptop! HAHAHAAHAHA won't happen!

Bye.

[Vince Tucker]

2000 is pretty much to best OS MicroSquash has done in a long time. (DOS 5.0 being my favorite prior to it!)
I’d like to say that once you make the leap, you’ll never look back, and that is mostly true.
98% of the time I use 2000 for everything, but there is that rare time I like to go back and play some older games like Mecwarrior2, that still require 9x to operate.
Set yourself up with dual boot, and enjoy 2000. Keep the old buggy stuff around for those rare times you might want it.
(In my carrier, I’ve passed through CPM, TRSDOS, IBMDOS, DRDOS, MSDOS, WIN3x, Win9x, WinNT, and Win2k. The Win9x OS is by far the worst written OS I have had the displeasure of working on.)
V

[Messiah 4 Linux]

I would scrap 95/98/Me for W2k any day of the week. W2k is the real MS operating system.

Of course if you really want to rock, get Suse 8.0 Pro. This will give you plenty to do!

Then I will salute you!

M4L

[juliemass]

I just recently loaded W2000 as a dual boot option on my W98 pc and I am having great fun with it. For me the advantage of 2000 over 98 is the way system resources are managed. Under 98 I would always get bogged down and receive "low resource" warnings (even after I mercilessly cleaned out my start-up) in the course of doing my daily work, which involves running several applications and at the same time having as many as 20 browsers open. Right now as I write this, I am in 2000 with 30 browsers open along with all my usual apps, and things are really zipping along. No sluggishness, no bogging down, no screen freezes, no warnings, no re-boots. Now I can just concentrate on my work. This is like heaven!

jm

[baquila]

juliemass said it - that's one of the essential differences between the 95/98/Me track and the NT/2000 track. The former has terrible memory leaks (leading to slow downs and lock-ups) and is also a nightmare for networking because of the high maintenance to keeping them running smooth. 2000 is much more stable and far better suited for networking because of the added features and security inherent using NTFS. If you really want the best of all it's XP. I would bet $100 that anyone who says otherwise has never put one solid, honest month of effort into learning XP. Nobody seems to like XP at first - there are a number of differences from the 98 family. But once you really learn it inside out you'll see it has everything 2000 has and much more - including the stability and low maintenance. 2000 and XP are quite similar- learn either one well and you'll never look back. Just my 2 cents

[Sarrkazztic]

Murf....long time....how ya doing....I am a devoted user of Win2k Pro also....I was totally loyal to 98se and had it tweaked to the hilt...but had to test 2000 and it is awesome....my favorite of all the windows versions so far....and I have them all....2000 is more stable as you have read...the only things I have found that I dont like...there are a few ultisoft slot machine games that I like to play and they will not work under 2000 or XP no matter what I have tried...only 98...so I keep a small 98 partition just for those instances.....I also use NTI cdmaker and can burn at 24x on the fly....even using 12x cdrs without making a single coaster.....you have extra hard drives..hook it up..you have nothing to lose and everything to gain

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[Murf]

Well, 1st bad experience. Loaded set up a dual boot, got it loaded and running, already had the drivers I would need for my hardware.

Ran it for a couple of minutes, rebooted and selected Win 98 and crash BIG TIME. Fooled with it for 6 hours, could not get Win 98 running, so ended up formatting. BTW: I had 2K on a seperate partition (but there was data on that partition).

I'm patience so will pull out another HDD and do a clean install see what happens..

Thanks for the comments, not discouraged yet will try W2K...

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Murf
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Note:"Murf's Garage" under Major Renovation.

[baquila]

Hey Murf, that's the spirit - don't give up! I just loaded up a server with three partitions - win98se/2.5 gigs fat 32- winn2kpro/6gigs NTFS - win2k advanced server/6gigs NTFS. I have dual 40 gig drives so I'm going to load winxp pro on a fourth partition - maybe 8 gigs NTFS. All four of these are on the first physical drive. I use the second physical drive - a dynamic disk - One simple volume (for now) NTFS as the data storage disk I share over the network. I did all clean installs on freshly formatted partitions and did them in the order I mentioned. The win98 partition serves me 2 purposes. For one, I keep my swap file there . For two, when I'm feeling spoiled I'll aggravate myself by booting to 98se
It never lasts more than about 10 minutes and that's all I can stand

Seriously, I would make your setup as simple as you possibly can. And by all means do a clean install of win2k on a freshly formatted partition. I have an incredibly stable and reliable setup. You can even use a second hard drive as data storage and put your OS's on small partitions on the first drive like I did. Don't forget - NEVER try to install win98 after installing win2k - it will ruin your ntldr and ntdetect.com files and you won't be able to boot until you put a fresh copy of those in. Put win 98 on first on the first partition. Win 2k on next on the second partition. Use a second physical hard drive for storing big files. Just format all your drives as FAT 32 for now. With the disk managing utility in win2k you can easily convert over to NTFS in a matter of seconds. That way win98 can read all of your drives. There are advantages to NTFS but that will come after you swear off 98 forever ( and you will!) Hope this helps
Brett

[jsave123]

I'll throw in a big thumbs up for Windows 2000 Professional. I play games(had one mahjong game that didn't want to cooperate) and do a lot of burning(had to switch burning software because Roxio didn't want to recognize a perfectly good cd burner) and that's the only issues I have had. Windows 98---I'll keep my copy around just as a reminder:mad

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