Will Win2000 pro do everything 98 does ?

[Stuckin98]

I've been using 98se for a long time and I was thinking about trying 2000 because Firefox won't update anymore. Q. Is 2000 more stable than 98 ? I would think it would do more (some programs imported of course) than 98. This is really important : ..... Do the official / unofficial updates give more stability to 2000 ? Nothing worse than a crash. Where do I get the best download with the updates and how big is the file ?

Your time is truly appreciated ..... Thanks

Alan

Edited April 15, 2011 by Stuckin98

[789]

I used 95-98 from day one until 2006, then upgraded (the new machine was just too much for 98) to 2000pro. Using win2k since. I can and do everything I used to on 98, and then some. It is more stable (don't have to re-format and re-install 3-4 times a year)

[submix8c]

There's a sticky (somewhere) for a list of all the Win2K fixes. Search that sub-forum. A link is given to another site that has everything as-of the "dropping of support".

edit (and see next post) -

look here also.

Edited April 17, 2011 by submix8c

[Kelsenellenelvian]

To "Fully" update your disk look at this:

http://www.ryanvm.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5326

It contains nearly everything you can cram into an sp2 win200 disk from MS...

P.S. 124-ish megs

Edited April 17, 2011 by Kelsenellenelvian

[Stuckin98]

Hey everybody ........Thanks for all the great suggestions / info. Now all I have to do is find a copy of 2000

[tomasz86]

http://bristols.atspace.org/windows2000/updates/

[Browncoat]

To "Fully" update your disk look at this:

http://www.ryanvm.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5326

It contains nearly everything you can cram into an sp2 win200 disk from MS...

P.S. 124-ish megs

Hhummm..... something else I've been looking for! For fresh off-line installs. Right?

So, if I understand the board, I don't need to integrate it with anything else, it will install separately on its' own

minus the Big LBA utility [which I already have on disk]. Time to burn another CD!

Edited April 22, 2011 by Browncoat

[herbalist]

I've been using 98se for a long time and I was thinking about trying 2000 because Firefox won't update anymore. Q. Is 2000 more stable than 98 ? I would think it would do more (some programs imported of course) than 98. This is really important : ..... Do the official / unofficial updates give more stability to 2000 ? Nothing worse than a crash. Where do I get the best download with the updates and how big is the file ?

Your time is truly appreciated ..... Thanks

"Will Win2000 pro do everything 98 does ?"

That's depends on what "everything" is to you and what you need. There's some very simple things that are easy for 98 but require 3rd party help on 2000, like setting different screen resolutions for different users. You mentioned Firefox compatibility. What else will you be using this unit for? How important is DOS to you? Both are going to have software compatibility problems, just not with the same apps. Both have unofficial upgrades that improve their compatibility, KDW for 2000, KEX for 98. There's no realistic way to compare them short of taking all the apps that you want to use, ones that don't run on an unmodified 98 or 2000 system, and try them on the systems with the upgrades. Chances are that you'll have mixed results. I rarely use 2000 any more so I can't comment on how well KDW works. On my systems, KEX has been absolutely amazing. The only other unofficial upgrade for 2000 I've had any experience with is the unofficial service pack 5, which didn't work for me.

On equal 9X compatible hardware, 98 will be faster. Stability is almost totally dependent on your hardware, drivers, and configuration. If we're comparing the systems with "official" upgrades only, 2000 is more stable. When you factor in the unofficial upgrades, it's not as clear which is more capable or stable. KEX and RP9 have turned my 98 unit into one of the most stable and reliable system I've ever used. Not everyone gets that lucky. With drivers for instance, 98 will often do much better when the user doesn't select the last available 98 compatible driver but installs one that's one or two versions older. I've run into this with chipset, internal graphics, and USB drivers for PCI cards. The final 98 compatible versions worked, but the previous versions worked much better. On this PC, this was especially true for the Intel 82845 graphics controller. I suspect that this is deliberate and is part of "planned obsolescence", done to persuade users that "newer is better". Windows 2000 users will probably have to deal with this too.

Long term stability for both is almost completely dependent on how you maintain them and the policy you follow when installing or removing new or updated apps. Uninstallers leave files and registry entries behind. 98 does seem more sensitive to that buildup than 2000, but it does affect both. Making system backups before installing new apps and using them instead of the uninstallers solves most of this problem on both systems. A thought out partitioning arrangement that separates the system files from everything else makes a big difference too. This PC for example is dual boot, 98SE and XP-Pro. Each OS is on it's own FAT32 partition. They both share a dedicated swap partition and a separate data partition that contains the users data, the desktops, e-mail folders, etc. Both use a ramdrive for the browser cache. While both systems benefited from this arrangement, the performance increase for 98 was more than noticeable.

Realistically, you're choosing between 2 systems that are no longer officially supported. Your reasons for selecting and/or choosing between these 2 does factor in to the decision. Is this choice because of hardware limitations? Are you actually "stuck in 98" or using it by choice? Is it because you prefer the straight-forward simplicity of the older systems? Is it a dislike or distrust of the newer systems? Does replacing perfectly good hardware (and software) just because MS says it's obsolete leave a bad taste in your mouth? Is it all of the above, like it is for me? You're going to have some compatibility problems with both OS choices. Even with the unofficial support, this will gradually get worse with both. On my 98 unit for instance, Seamonkey is my default browser. Without KEX, I'd be limited to 1.X versions. With KEX, the 2.0 versions work, as does the first 2.1 beta version. The next 2 beta versions are not working properly for reasons I have not yet looked into. The first 2.1 beta might be the last version I can use. Time will tell. You have to decide how important using the most current version of an application (Firefox at the moment) is to you, and why it's important. If always using the newest versions of applications is that important to you, you'll eventually have to switch to a newer operating systems.

It seems to me that 98 doesn't satisfy your needs and you're not sure if 2000 will. Instead of choosing, why not set up a dual boot and have both? Dual boot has a lot of advantages, including being able to use one system to service the other. Even though I'm very much a 98 user, there are some things I need that 98 can't do, but XP will. This goes both ways. Neither entirely fills my needs, but the 2 together do. Just a thought.

Rick

[Stuckin98]

Thanks Rick ....... Lots of good questions and answers I was able to follow. My problems revolve around my slow 28K rural dial up. A local computer tech thought that using XP would make my computer run slower on line. What do you think ? Everthing is faster, larger (bloated) and it chews up a lot of my time waiting for pages to load. I could get high speed, but everyone wants AT LEAST $40 per month. I'm on social security. Hard to make ends meet. Must be millions of people like me. Can't understand why some enterprising company can't offer a 150K wireless service for $25. I'd be in heaven.

You asked about DOS. I do need to use it for some optical test programs (telescope mirrors). These programs were never redone for windows so I use a separate computer with an Epson dot matrix printer attached. I'm not constantly running out to buy ink. What a ripoff. Anyway, I just hit the F8 key as Win98 boots up. I also use this separate ( off line ) computer for music files and recording. The local library has high speed. Thank goodness for Flash drives.

I like the idea of a dual boot for the on line PC, but would rather wait till they perfect Ubuntu if XP runs too slow. There's some talk about running Mac on a PC, but I haven't had the time to really check it out. I believe both these operating systems are more streamlined. If not let me know. I do enjoy the simplicity of 98se. Stability ? Vcom Fix It helps. Last: What I'd really like to say about Microsoft, would get me thrown off this forum.

Thanks again

[herbalist]

With 28K dialup, the web is going to be slow no matter what OS you use. Ubuntu won't make any difference. No matter what OS you use, the contents of a web page are going to come through that line at the same speed. When I had 56K dialup (usually connected between 33K and 45K with a 1 hour time limit) several things helped. Not using Internet Explorer was at the top of that list. A download manager (Star Downloader) that could handle pausing, redials, and reboots was a lifesaver. With dialup, downloading and browsing at the same time was impossible. When I found something I wanted, I'd start the download, pause it almost immediately, then let it complete during the night. It took several nights, but I managed to download an entire Knoppix LiveCD through dialup with 98 and Star Downloader.

Strange as it might sound, a software firewall, (Kerio 2.1.5 at the time) can help speed up the web slightly. I set it to block all of the OS components from having internet access, including windows explorer. That kept OS components and services from using the limited bandwidth. Yes, the gain is small, but with dialup, it's noticeable. This is much simpler to do with 98 where windows explorer is the only real bandwidth thief. On 2000, there's internet services that can be shut down or blocked by a firewall. It's doable but a little more involved.

DSLreports has a java based tweak tester that will check several IP parameters on your system. After the check, it will suggest setting changes that help match your PC to the connection speed you have so you can get the most efficient use of it. The page after the test has a link to a small utility for this task. There's also links to speed tests there. With dialup, I'd suggest using the java based speed tests before and after you tweak your system.

http://www.dslreports.com/tweaks

Most of these settings are in the registry. I strongly suggest making a registry backup first or using a utility like TestRun to create a test registry. The original site is long gone but the Wayback Machine has the site, here. If they don't have the file itself, I do. It takes all of the risk out of working with the registry on a 9X system. On windows 2000, ERUNT will do the same job.

No matter what OS you use, your biggest internet speed improvement will come from blocking ads and all of the extra garbage that's on web pages these days. Flash content is the biggest culprit by far. I'm pretty sure that the flashblock extension for Firefox is still being actively developed, as is the ad-block extension. If you prefer, a blocking hosts file that includes the common adservers, Google's garbage, etc helps trim down the pages.

If you really want to clean out the web pages and are willing to take the time to learn it, Proxomitron is the ultimate web content filter, limited only by your ability to configure it. It's a small "unzip and go" app (the installer versions do the same thing, plus a few shortcuts). The version you'd want is Naoko 4.5, the last one. It works like a local proxy and modifies web pages according to the filters being used. After unzipping or installing it, you change your browsers proxy settings to point to 127.0.0.1, port 8080. That will route the browsers traffic through it. Proxomitron itself is no longer being developed, the author died some time ago. Several individuals still maintain filtersets for it, or you can study the included filters and learn to make your own. The premade filtersets aren't bad and will remove a lot of the junk from web pages. It comes with some fairly good help files, but to really get the most out of it, you'll want to learn to write your own, which will mean learning some HTML and javascript. The better you understand web languages, the more effective it gets, almost without limit. I've used it for years and know how and why it works, but I'm nowhere near mastering its abilities. How far you go with it is completely up to you. The Proxomitron app itself is one of those rare, timeless designs that won't become obsolete as long as someone writes filters for it. It'll be effective until the internet itself changes or operating systems no longer allow you to specify proxy settings. If only more software was designed like that.

If you decide to try Proxomitron and want to study more of the filters, I have several of the older sets here. One in particular, JDlist from 2003 has some very good ideas in it. FYI, individual filters from different sets can be combined. BTW, brace yourself the first time you open Proxomitron's interface. The default color scheme will pop your eyes out!

[submix8c]

OK, explains the rationale behind the "upgrade" question. Herbalist is relatively correct on most (all?) points (I read it quickly). One advantage that comes to mind (2K vs 98) is the disabling of unwanted/unneeded services (unlike 98 - doable but in the Registry). A lite but mean A-V is also needed as well as a lite but mean Firewall (I might also suggest, in addition to above, the last FREE Outpost Firewall -works on either OS - search for it on MSFN and you'll find some helpful tips as well).

Odd that you can only get 28K - Could you tell us what kind of Modem is in that box? Maybe it's an ancient USR/3COM that just don't hack it (cheap one-time purchase of a v90/92 modem). I have several 28.8/33.6's just lying around (yuck) and two REAL ISA-slot v90(56k) Modems. Wish I could help ya out, but we're not allowed (against the rules). Don't bother with eBay or CraigsList since they are cheap even at Best Buy.

Start->Control Panel->System->Device Manager (under Modems)

(forgot... if it's a REAL modem, sometimes a 33.6 can be "upgraded" to 56. also, the right drivers? "softmodems" usually have ability to "soft-upgrade".)

Edited April 24, 2011 by submix8c

[herbalist]

In addition to the modem, what hardware are we dealing with here? It's entirely possible that the 28K limit is due to an old rural phone service. There's one around here that's still like that. It's only been in the last couple years that you weren't stuck using a party line. Five miles from town, DSL isn't even available.

Regarding an AV with that connection speed, any AV you choose has to be configurable regarding when and how often it updates. If I used an AV with that dialup, I'd insist on one update per day at most, and it would have to be able to do it when I'm asleep. For a 98 unit, there might not be one any more. Not sure how much better the selection is for 2000. It's been a long time since I used an AV or put one on Win 2000. If you have other auto-updating software, it might help to check on when they update and if that can be restricted or scheduled as well.

[submix8c]

Windows Defender? (free AV, if you can find the download on MS - it "transmogrified" into MS Security Essentials with no Legacy OS Support)

[technoid]

I also use dialup (56k). I also have 10-15 Mbps fiber optic but I only have that available at my other home but I am not there most of the week (work/home situation). But I've actually been on dialup for the longest time, since the mid 1980's and only got broadband (the fiber optic) for the first time in late 2007. Anyway, some other things on the dialup to think about, if you haven't already:

1. Check modem port settings and be sure that "Use FIFO buffers" is checked and that Receive Buffer and Transmit are all the way on High, if available for your internal modem and PC.

2. How old is the phone wiring in your house? If it still uses the old 4-wire "POTS", that can contribute to the dialup slowness. Normally you can connect up to 40-44 kbps on a POTS.

3. Check with your phone service company, maybe they can help "clean" your line (i.e. the line from your house to them), perhaps help filter out line noise, make it DATA line capable (if that still exists), etc. No idea if you have to pay. Or they could add on a new line with newer wiring for your home so you don't use the POTS, if not already done so.

4. A TCP optimizer program (like SG TCP Optimizer.exe by Speedguide.net, etc) might help umm, optimize, your dialup/TCP settings. You have to be careful with these though, you need to know what you're doing.

5. Use a program that monitors your dialup download/upload. Kinda helps you get an idea how fast/slow you're going. I was using VitalSigns NetMedic years ago, though not installed at the moment. It was a great utility, imho.

6. Of course be sure to update your modem drivers, as aforementioned. A fast CPU, fast video and more RAM also helps "speed" up dialup, not necessarily the connection rate, but how fast data is going through your PC.

7. I use the K-Meleon browser (version 1.5.4) on 98SE. It is pretty streamlined and less bloaty than Firefox and Opera (and more updated than IE6). For a quicker dialup session, I can block popups, images, image animation, flash, advertisement, java, JS, etc. Normally I block those first 5. Images have the most bandwidth and the most on a normal website, so I turn it off and will only turn it on (toggle images with F9 key) if I need to look at a graphic, etc.

I too am still using 98(SE) and 2kPro, though I'm still learning on all required (wanted) updates for 2kPro. I have read that the unofficial SP5 is unstable because it uses beta files. I have never seen that one at RyanVM, so that is intriguing. I am only up to SP4, and have not used MS auto-updates nor UR1 yet (might be one reason why current versions of VLC Videolan doesn't work!). I am actually use the 2kPro for my home theater PC (Pentium III system connected via DVI to a projector, and 5.1 surround) and it works great. Nice to see movies, TV and Windows desktop on a 100 inch diagonal screen. I think it's pretty stable. I chose 2kPro because 98SE was limiting for this HTPC setup. I did not choose XP only because I would have to buy another copy of it (and new activation key, etc).

For my 98SE, I am using Soporific's Autopatcher. Nice work there, makes 98SE more stable and up to date as possible. Also using the aforementioned RP9.

I also use Win 7, Win 3.11, Win ME, MSDOS and XP-Home (which is my main O/S, 98SE is 2nd). And still use my Commodore 64's too.

Windows Defender? (free AV, if you can find the download on MS - it "transmogrified" into MS Security Essentials with no Legacy OS Support)

Defender is still there I believe, just has not been updated since 2006-2007, unless you do move on to Security Essentials. I installed Defender on a client's XP laptop last month. Seems fine, but again, no new updates, afaik.

Edited April 27, 2011 by technoid

[Sfor]

I'm planning to install a Windows 2000 along with Windows 98. So, I do have a few questions about how Windows 2000 SP4 Professional can get along with large hard drives and FAT32 partitions.

In case of Windows 98 the demads are quite simple. It is safe to install it on a partition smaller than 128GB, then some patching will be necesary, before it will be safe to use partitions above LBA48 limit. It is a good idea to keep FAT32 partitions below 1GB in size, as well.

But, what about Windows 2000? I know the SP3 is necesary. There is also a LBA48 registry key to be turned on. In any case:

- Is it necesary to install Windows 2000 SP4 on a partition below LBA48 limit? Perhaps the problem was fixed in the installer of the Windows 2000 SP4.

- Is it safe to use huge FAT32 partitions? Currently I do have a couple of 600-999GB FAT32 partitions filled with data.

In my case the HDD hardware is a bit extreme. I do have one 2TB and one 1.5TB hard drives installed. The plan is to install a Winndows 2000 SP4 Professional on the first partition of the second HDD (about 200GB). So, should I decrease the size of the targeted partition, before installing the Windows 2000, then turn the registry LBA48 support on, then resize the partition back to 200GB?

Also, I've been observing some differences in HTTP file download speeds between Windows 98 and 2000. Apparently, I'm unable to get the full connection speed from Windows 98 unless using more than just one connection. On the same computer from the same server I'm getting a full connection transfer speed with just one HTTP connection. The conclusion could be, the Windows 98 is not as fast as Windows 2000 with TCP traffic by adding some significant delay in packet processing.

Edited July 24, 2011 by Sfor