Unofficial SP 5.2 for Microsoft Windows 2000 (WIP)

[bphlpt]

What portable software app are you using? All the ones I could find are for usb and require xp...

No, what tomasz86 meant by portable apps, are simply apps that do not require an installer, if fact they are not "installed" at all. They are typically distributed in .zip format, you just expand them wherever you want them, make a link to the .exe if you want, and run the app. There are also portable apps that run in a "system", like the ones available at http://portableapps.com, but don't be thrown by the reference to USB, they can be installed to any drive you want. And most if not all of the apps listed there work with Win2K, AFAIK.

Cheers and Regards

[Tommy]

Another reason I think you don't want to install new antivirus software by brute force such as AVG is because of the drivers used. It actually uses drivers, but I'm not sure how they are utilized. It's funny because I'm not sure about the newest AVG but I believe AVG 2011 and AVG 2012 both said you needed at least Windows 2000 SP4 UUv1 installed...yet meeting those requirements later causes the installer to say that the OS is not supported. If you really know what you're doing, it is possible to brute for AVG 2012 on Windows 2000 but it's practically non-functional plus it's nearly impossible to get rid of it once it is installed.

[tomasz86]

What portable software app are you using? All the ones I could find are for usb and require xp...

No, what tomasz86 meant by portable apps, are simply apps that do not require an installer, if fact they are not "installed" at all. They are typically distributed in .zip format, you just expand them wherever you want them, make a link to the .exe if you want, and run the app. There are also portable apps that run in a "system", like the ones available at http://portableapps.com, but don't be thrown by the reference to USB, they can be installed to any drive you want. And most if not all of the apps listed there work with Win2K, AFAIK.

Cheers and Regards

That's exactly what I meant. I'm a big fan of PortableApps. With their utility you can easily manage your portable applications and update them. Apart from PortableApps, many other programs such as CCleaner or Opera also officially offer portable installations.

For me using portable versions has at least a few advantages over standard ones:

1. It's possible to store both the program files and the user data in one folder. If you want to move the application to another computer / system you just copy the folder and voilà. No need to reconfigure everything from scratch. You can easily backup applications simply by copying their folders.

2. You choose where each program is located and have full control over updates. I can't stand any applications which autoupdate themselves without giving any choice to disable it (vide Google Chrome...). When using the PortableApps installation you can easily check for updates of all your portable applications and decide whether to update them or not.

3. There are often issues with official installers such as unwanted installation of adware / spyware or blocking installation in unsupported OSes which is the case in Windows 2000. There are no such problems when using portable versions of the applications. PortableApps support Windows2000 in their installer so you can install all programs offered by them regardless of whether the specific program itself will run or not in the OS. This way you can save a lot of time and nerves that otherwise would be required to tinker with the registry and other system settings in order to trick the official installers of those programs.

Sure, I'm aware that PortableApps are not panaceum for all problems with running newer applications in Windows 2000. They greatly simplify the whole process though, and make everything a lot easier. It's really a pain in the neck (especially for an average computer user) when you need to play around with compatibility settings / modify the registry each time you want to install or update a program. That's why I'm such an advocate for using portable versions instead of standard ones. Some of the applications I use in this format are Firefox, Foxit Reader, KeePass, Notepad++, Opera, RevoUninstaller, Thunderbird, VLC and many others.

@aofarrell2 SeaMonkey is perfectly fine as a "modern" browser for Windows 2000 as it's constantly updated and uses the same engine as Firefox. You also mentioned LibreOffice and VLC. All of these are available in the PortableApps format and work in Windows 2000 out of the box (with UURollup) without any need to modify their installers, etc.

Instead of Chrome I'd suggest Maxthon. It uses the Webkit engine too but contrary to the former works 100% correctly in Windows 2000.

@Tommy Good to know When it comes to Antivirus software, I'd suggest sticking to Avast 8 for the time being as it's probably the newest one that officially supported the OS and is very likely to be provided updated virus definition updates for a long time (they still provide updated definitions for Avast 4.8 which works in Windows 9x).

[ironman14]

I currently don't use PortableApps, since I like the traditional method of launching apps from the start menu. However, the GIMP would be a good portable app to try, since the desktop version crashes upon startup.

This said, the regular desktop Chrome works great for me on Windows 2000. Only the updater doesn't work. aofarrell2, if you are used to Chrome, I would recommend it. But if you aren't, try maxthon as tomasz86 said.

Personally I use Chrome and Firefox on Win2k. Firefox is VERY GOOD on Win2k, like seamonkey should be. Everything works, and personally I find that Mozilla-based browsers work and load even faster than Windows XP/Vista/7/8.

This are ONLY my opinions. I would listen to tomasz86 since he created UURollup in the first place. Tomasz86, if you want a portable Winamp, just extract the installer, open the folder and there you go!

PS: There is even a portable Chrome if you want to try it. Also, basically ANY browser should work on Windows 2000, except for modern IE.

Edited February 3, 2014 by ironman14

[tomasz86]

This said, the regular desktop Chrome works great for me on Windows 2000. Only the updater doesn't work. aofarrell2, if you are used to Chrome, I would recommend it. But if you aren't, try maxthon as tomasz86 said.

There are at least two things that don't work in Chrome:

1. Tooltips (such as URLs) aren't displayed at all on hover. This isn't critical but still annoying.

2. Javascript pop-up crashes the open tab. If you're unsure what I mean by this, try to delete a private message which I've just sent to you. You won't be able to do it using Chrome in Windows 2000 (unless you disable Javascript in the browser completely which I wouldn't consider a solution to the problem by no means).

Edited February 4, 2014 by tomasz86

[Tommy]

Some of the applications I use in this format are Firefox, Foxit Reader, KeePass, Notepad++, Opera, RevoUninstaller, Thunderbird, VLC and many others.

I know this isn't much to do with UURollup itself, but I must say that Thunderbird is actually a nice open source email client. I have Linux Mint installed as a dualboot with Windows 98 and I was so surprised the ease of setup Thunderbird was with my email account as opposed to Microsoft Outlook. Thunderbird did all the hard work and all I had to give was my email account details and it basically did the rest

As for the antivirus situation, I've actually been running without antivirus. I should probably get it back on here but it seems I started having a few issues with 8 on my Windows 2000 machine. As far as I know, AVG 9 is still updated as well however, there's a problem with it which I haven't completely tested yet. When you do updates back from May of last year on Win2000 UURollup, it breaks the program. You cannot scan or do anything and it spits out weird, random critical stop errors. I however have not tested it on a Windows 2000 SP4 UR1 gold machine or Windows XP-7 to see if the same happens with it or if it's UURollup/Kernel Extension that breaks it. I've reported the problem to Grisoft or whoever has AVG now but I haven't heard anything back from them. In my opinion, anything past AVG 9 is crap anyway. 9 was still lightweight enough and easy to use. Now they're more worried about making it look like crappy metro instead of functionality. I did use Avast 8 after this problem but I haven't since I reinstalled Win2000 back in November. It would probably be a good idea to install something and do a little testing since I always have preferred AVG. AVG6 rocked! Too bad they didn't go back to a small, lightweight program like that. I can see definitions taking a lot of space but is it really necessary for the program itself to be so bloated and huge?

[aofarrell2]

This said, the regular desktop Chrome works great for me on Windows 2000. Only the updater doesn't work. aofarrell2, if you are used to Chrome, I would recommend it. But if you aren't, try maxthon as tomasz86 said.

There are at least two things that don't work in Chrome:

1. Tooltips (such as URLs) aren't displayed at all on hover. This isn't critical but still annoying.

2. Javascript pop-up crashes the open tab. If you're unsure what I mean by this, try to delete a private message which I've just sent to you. You won't be able to do it using Chrome in Windows 2000 (unless you disable Javascript in the browser completely which I wouldn't consider a solution to the problem by no means).

Haven't had either of those problems to be quite honest. I've had JavaScript popups several times without crashing. Tooltips have displayed, although I'm not certain if it is all of the time. I'm using the latest Chrome version, so maybe something has changed. Google Chrome DOES eat up memory and processes though and with 512MB of RAM I cannot run more than three tabs at a time, otherwise it starts using virtual memory for ALL of the google chrome processes (weird, never had this happen on any other system), so I simply just use three tabs and no more. Note that running GC with three tabs doesnt use up all of the available physical memory, but it will still move to pagefile if you open more... Strange...

My new laptops hard drive just failed after all of that hard work getting Windows 2000 on it... Grrr, now I'm waiting for my new HD to show up so I can repeat the whole process again.

Also another note, integrating USP5.1 and the UURollouts using nLive works perfect.

AntiVirus programs have become very big and bloated. That is why I went back to ClamWin, as I've never gotten a virus with it on a PC, and using AVG I've gotten viruses before and I wasn't happy, since I was paying for it...

[ironman14]

I tried deleting the message with Chrome 32, and the browser did not crash.The pages became unresponsive though.

[tomasz86]

I tried deleting the message with Chrome 32, and the browser did not crash.The pages became unresponsive though.

This is what I mean by crashing. The whole browser is still open but the tab where the popup was displayed simply freezes. All scripts and extensions stop working. Eventually, it's equal with a crash as you need to restart the tab in order to be able to do anything.

[ironman14]

@Tomasz86 I see your point. I just realized today that I wasn't running the latest version of BWC's chrome tool, a newer version just came out. I hope that he can fix the chrome JavaScript issue, if it wasn't fixed in crm2k70.

However, it just may be easier to use the portable Chrome, since that doesn't need a special installer. I do use the regular Firefox, and that seems to work great.

Edited February 8, 2014 by ironman14

[tomasz86]

Unfortunately blackwingcat hasn't been able to fix the Javascript problem It's a known bug and has been present since the very beginning. You can check this post and the further ones:

http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/159004-uxthemedll/?p=1018200

where this particular issue was discussed.

The reason is unknown yet, so it is difficult.

The problem occurs since version 0.4, when it shows Javascript dialog.

I see. I suppose that there's no easy fix for this, right?

[Zettoz]

Not sure if I am reading incorrectly or doing it completely wrong. But these patches are supposed to get .net framework 4.0 to work on windows 2000 profession correct? I cannot seem to get it to work whatsoever.

[Tommy]

Not sure if I am reading incorrectly or doing it completely wrong. But these patches are supposed to get .net framework 4.0 to work on windows 2000 profession correct? I cannot seem to get it to work whatsoever.

Hi Zettoz, have you tried using these packages for .NET Framework installation: https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0Bw_nt4aAJIoPZTZTRDhqMGRUblU&tid=0Bw_nt4aAJIoPWWNBay13dTlXOWs#list

You cannot use the Microsoft distributed ones that I know of on Windows 2000, tomasz86 has these specially crafted to install and run on Windows 2000, and they do work, I've used .NET 4 applications on Windows 2000 using these updates and they run flawlessly. Good luck! Oh, and you'll need 7Zip or WinRAR to open these packs. The plus part is it installs every single .NET Framework package all in one, so no need to do them all separately!

Edited February 19, 2014 by Tommy

[aofarrell2]

Hey Guys,

Just a quick update of how my Windows 2000 is running, this time on my new laptop with 2GB RAM and a Intel Core 2 Duo 1.6Ghz.

Windows 2000 recognizes and uses BOTH cores!

Also, I have been having great success running the Windows XP drivers using UURollup V11 and UURollup 2 Stable and USP5.1. My laptop was designed for XP so I've been very happy to get the XP drivers working in Win2K!

[Tommy]

Hey Guys,

Just a quick update of how my Windows 2000 is running, this time on my new laptop with 2GB RAM and a Intel Core 2 Duo 1.6Ghz.

Windows 2000 recognizes and uses BOTH cores!

Also, I have been having great success running the Windows XP drivers using UURollup V11 and UURollup 2 Stable and USP5.1. My laptop was designed for XP so I've been very happy to get the XP drivers working in Win2K!

Glad to hear it! Windows 2000 is great when it comes to using dual core processors. Blackwingcat runs even i5 processors I believe. Sometimes you can get lucky and run XP only drivers for Windows 2000. Usually anything Windows XP Service Pack 2 and below for drivers works on Win 2000. It seems like anything that requires XP SP3 has issues and I'm not sure what it is. Either way, I'm glad you're running great. I helped my girlfriend get Windows XP on her Dell Inspiron 660 machine which was designed for Windows 7 which was pretty iffy for the system build but I bet it could even run Windows 2000 without a hitch. I've been focusing a bit more on Windows 98 lately but my main machine still runs 2000. It's a great system!