I've heard both good and bad things about windows 2000. I was wondering whether a jump from NT 4 to 2000 is worth it and if so, what am I getting that isn't offered in NT 4.0 other than full PnP and USB support?

Too much to list. If it runs on NT4. It will run on 2000. There is no reason not to run 2000 if your already running NT4.

Wait a minute....you say there's too many improvements in 2000 to name, yet you see no reason why I should run it? Apparently, NT4 isn't fully compatible with my 824 chipset (hence the SB PCI 128 problem) and I wondered if 2000's PnP would fix that issue.

/me agrees with DosFreak.

I can't think of anything about NT4 that isn't bettered in Win2000.

You'll hear, (usually from people that aren't running it or haven't taken the time to really check it out)"It's not a gaming OS."

Well, hogwash. I can't think of a modern OS yet that runs all of the games all of the time. The fact is, Win2K runs most modern games right out of the box. And runs them just as well if not better than Win98 or whatever. And MS has been no slouch about releasing (game) compatibility updates, also.

Strange, for an OS that even Microsoft has called, "Not a gaming platform," that we've seen at least 3 (game) compatibility patch releases from them.

The other thing you hear a lot about is, "There's no driver support." And again, that's baloney. Most (but not all) modern hardware is also compatible with Win2K, and there are more and more drivers released every day. If you want to know if what you've got is compatible with Win2K, just look at the massive, frequently updated, list here in ntcompatible.

if u've got the hardware to run win2k it would be a significant improvement over nt4 thorugh its speed and features. the PnP in 2k has improved and has support for USB is definetly an improvement. i've got a SB 128bit sound card and there isn't any problems.

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2 Computers (networked)both have :

Intel SE440BX2
Pentium III 700Mhz (100)
LS-120 120 Mb (100MHz)
Fujitsu 17.3 GB Ultra DMA 66/10.2 GB Ultra DMA 66
Mitsubihi 50X IDE
Creative Vibra PCI 128bit
Matrox Millenium G400 16Mb AGP/Diamond Speedstar 8Mb AGP
Bay Netgear 10/100PCI
Medium ATX Tower case
120W Multimedia
MS INternet KB (PS2)
MS Win2000 Pro

Windows 2000 has good: usb support, pnp support, directx / new hardware support and overall win32 program support (mainly including lots and lots of games that dont run in nt4). Also, the nt4 interface looks very old and outdated where as win2000 looks very nice and sleek One thing to keep in mind is that win2000 likes lots of ram, I wouldnt recomend running it under 192.

Well, I have only 128 MB of ram, and windows 2000 pro runs faster than windows 98 (except if you have 98lite :-)).

Yeah, win2000 will run under 128mb ram, probably fine too...it depends on what you do on your computer though, once it goes past 128mb physical usage you get into swapfile zone I normally sit at 180mb idle and have 320mb total system ram, so if I start using a program that wants lots of ram there isnt really any speed decrease etc.

Are you talking about a WINNT4 server or not ?
if not, it's good to upgrade to win 2000
if you are talking about a server, maybe it's better to leave it running on nt4
coz it runs mutch faster than 2000 on the same computer
and also, the stability of nt4 is better then 2000
i use to run a winnt 4 server on a p 200 mmx
and it runs faster then on my new server PIII 450 with 2000 server on it
and there aren't running manny services on it
onley security proxy and internet sharing for 3 pc's and a little file sharing and printer
but all of this war also running on my nt4 server
my workstation is running 2000 and that realy rocks
i need the to run the 2000 server to learn and study it, coz i need it for my job, but if i didn't need it for that, i would be running nt4 server again

hope you got something about this
good luck

Well, I've upgraded to 2000. It took all my hardware and drivers and used them for the upgrade. The only thing that doesn't work is my epson stylus 440 printer which even has an updated driver for 2000 that I can download. I was amazed to say the least. To see Device Manager under NT was a thing of beauty. I sometimes have trouble remembering if I'm running 98 or NT because 2000 looks and behaves the way it does. I've heard of a 2000lite that will speed up win2000 by doing a shellswap or removing IE from windows. Everything is working here. The clash of the titans is taking place on my pc with Windows 2000 and Linux with the 2.4 kernel. It should be interesting to say the least.

Alright, another "amazed" Win2K convert!


P.S. Good luck in the OS Wars.



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"This year will go down in history. For the first time, a civilized nation has full gun registration. Our streets will be safer, our police more efficient, and the world will follow our lead into the future!" -Adolph Hitler, 1935

Here is my 2 cents...in my office, all of our salespersons are using Toshiba Notebooks. They are all using NT4 based OS. On Toshiba, setting up the older model of Xircom Realport card is a nightmare. Always take me half a day to resolve all the conflicts. I remember there's one NB, I couldn't get it working at all. The card worked perfectly fine with other NB which is running Win98. For testing purpose, I switched it W2KPRO. It detected the card right away and installed the drivers for me.

On the other hand, I am using W2K Server at home. Although I am having some troubles with games, but besides that, it never crashes, not even one single blue screen like the NT4 does.
I am not saying that NT4 isn't stable, but when you compare it with W2K, you have nothing to say but upgrade...hope the info. could help!

regards,
Mugen C




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Dream what you want to dream; go where you want to go; be what you want to be, because you have only one life and one chance to do all the things you want to do!

There are some things I liked others I didn't like. One thing I didn't like was the web integrated GUI. Another thing was how everything was internet bound. I mean it said,"connect using dial up networking" on the log in dialog and I've seen other things in the OS about the internet and staying connected all the time. I'm still having a hard time handling 2000 because it's so windows like yet so NT like. Win9.x is so unstable though. I can't believe there are businesses running win95 instead of NT. That's crazy. Also I don't think 2000 likes my Celeron as much as it would like a Pentium. At least 2000 sees your ATA/IDE devices as ATA/IDE devices instead of seeing them as SCSI devices like NT 4 does. The shadow effect on the mouse is pretty cool, but I bet it takes up more memory. Linux's 2.4 kernel is supposed to have full PnP and USB support, too, so it's right behind 2000 because the kernel is still in development.

I remember running win98 with my scanner and when I scanned something, the mouse would slow down briefly. This doesn't happen under NT/2k.

i'm running win2k on 128MB of RAM and its running really well- just don't run win2k with anything less than that

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2 Computers (networked)both have :

Intel SE440BX2
Pentium III 700Mhz (100)
LS-120 120 Mb (100MHz)
Fujitsu 17.3 GB Ultra DMA 66/10.2 GB Ultra DMA 66
Mitsubihi 50X IDE
Creative Vibra PCI 128bit
Matrox Millenium G400 16Mb AGP/Diamond Speedstar 8Mb AGP
Bay Netgear 10/100PCI
Medium ATX Tower case
120W Multimedia
MS INternet KB (PS2)
MS Win2000 Pro