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Windows 2000 one of the "forgotten" best MS OS


sugabeats

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Windows 2000 the "forgotten" best MS OS

 

We often hear the arguments between Windows XP vs Windows 7 as being the best MS OS. In many respects the debate is worthy of such arguments of which we will be still discussing this for a LONG time. Xp and 7 are going nowhere and will remain in my opinion #2 or#3 and #1 MS OS for a long time. Yes you heard me. A long time even after Windows 10 is released.

 

 

However, somehow Windows 2000 is often overlooked and lost when considered as being one of the best. I really think there are a couple points which would address the “why” and “how” this came to be. Arguably Windows 2000 was one of the most stable resource efficient OS when it was introduced. It was also the first NT based MS OS which was both brought to market for Businesses and personal use. Prior to 2000 it was DOS based for the personal users and NT based for the business environment.

 

Now with that being said I think the reasons for the quick demise can be summed up as follows.

 

#1. During the time of Windows 2000, say within a two year time frame either before or after give or take you essentially had four MS operating systems which all came out at or around each other. For example you had Windows 98 SE, Windows ME, Windows 2000, and of course XP. With as glut of OS the domination of marketshare was diluted.

 

#2. Windows 2000 before the release of XP was quickly taking over as the dominant OS. Windows ME was just plain bad, and 98 SE like ME was built on DOS. By this time DOS was just an architecture which could not support the incredible increase in technology. However, 2000 was cut short by XP when it was released soon after 2000.

 

#3. With the release of XP MS had no intention of really supporting it's “little brother” windows 2000. Lets face it 2000 and XP were quite similar and MS could easily provided better support and updates to 2000 very easily. Let us not forget that the UUrollup for 2000 provides many such upgrades.

 

#4. I believe that the 2000/XP era was the first signs of MS demise due to its own arrogance. They essentially showed no regard for really maintaining Windows 2000 once XP was out. We see this pattern now even greater with their arrogance by not giving the customer what “they” want and essentially killing off the previous OS.

 

 

Now one could argue that 2000 was supported for a long time of which it was seeing that extended support ended in 2010. However, 2000 which is very similar to XP was neglected in other areas particularly software and other MS programs.

 

What say you?

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I used to think “Windows 2000 Forever!” until BWC said it will only work through 2099…  I guess that will have to do.

 

According to netmarketshare.com, for December 2014 Windows 2000 “OS Desktop Share by Version” quadrupled.  (Also, Windows XP gained back its previous month’s big drop, and then some.)

 

At least things are moving in the right direction.

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I used to think “Windows 2000 Forever!” until BWC said it will only work through 2099… I guess that will have to do.

LOL. 2099 is good enough for me.

How did you get ME stable? Also, with lack of any recent support how do you keep it viable in terms of internet and software?

By using the hardware it was designed for... like a Pentium III 866 MHz, 512 MB Ram or less computer. That way. Oh and, turning off "system restore" goes a long way to improving stability. "System restore" is not be confused with "system file protection," those are two seperate things. I've just never had any problems at all with Windows ME. I had tons of problems with 98 first edition though. A lot of people didn't like Windows ME because there was no autoexec.bat startup features, and no booting to dos. But I believe without those features, it makes it harder for installation programs to muck up your configuration and corrupt your files. The ability to run DOS programs is still there. It just doesnt' have the drawbacks in my opinion of allowing so many old school programs to ruin overwrite your most critical files.

I keep it viable several ways...

for photo editing resizing i get by using PhotoFiltre 6.5.3

for photo viewing I get by using IrfanView 2.98, Xnview 1.66, FastStone 2.30, CompuPic Pro 6.23, or about a zillion other good programs

for audio playing I get by using XmPLay 3.8, 1by1 Directory Player, Trout, etc

for multimedia I get by using VLC 0.8.6f

for writing a paper I can get by using Wordpad, Abiword, or even some 15 Kb DOS word processors that print words on a pice of white paper... it's not that complicated, they just lack all of the fluffy foo foo junk.

For internet I mainly use Opera 10.63 and SeaMonkey 1.1.19 (both from 2010) and turning off javascript goes along way to improving the speed and security of internet browsing.

For email I use Gmail's basic HTML only option. It's very retro. Looks very 90's. I'm on dial up too.

For antivirus I use the latest version of ClamWin. Plus I have the last copy of F-Prot for DOS (from 2009), and a copy of AntiVir which I use as a scanner only. And a firewall. Seems to work all in all.

According to netmarketshare.com, for December 2014 Windows 2000 “OS Desktop Share by Version” quadrupled. (Also, Windows XP gained back its previous month’s big drop, and then some.)

I bet a large percentage of those increasing Windows 2000 users are IN FACT Windows 98/ME users with KernelEx installed. Because in order to get newer browsers working, you must set the compatibility mode to either XP or 2000. Therefore, the user agent is totally wrong. Every time I turn on KernelEx and browse with it, my user agent is reported as Windows 2000. I'm sure I'm not the only one that happens too. I'm positive that a lot of those people are Windows ME and 98 users :-)

I used to have a Windows 2000 computer, I liked it. But I like Windows ME better. If I had to chose an NTFS version of Windows, it would definitely be 2000 :-)

But a lot of web browsers dropped support (I belive) for Windows 2000, there it isn't a whole lot better than Windows ME in that regard. Now if you install KernelEx for Win9x, and whatever type "KernelEx" program for Windows 2000, then you'll probably get more life out of each system. I just haven't bothered with the 2000 version of KernelEx... if there is such a thing.

Edited by ZortMcGort11
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sugabeats,

no offence intended of course :), but this topic is not really "new", it has already been discussed and beaten to death several times on MSFN, quite a lot of members have similar opinions to your ones *like* ;):

http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/158823-why-you-should-avoid-buying-windows-8/page-5#entry1020941

http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/155290-windows-8-deeper-impressions/page-43#entry1013639

 

some (JFYI) even think that the mouse behaviour on 2K was far better than in XP:

http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/155923-any-way-to-cannibalize-the-windows-2000-mouse-driver/

 

jaclaz

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I'll be 110 when 2099 hits, so I'm not too worried about the date. LOL

 

I was actually ridiculed in 2005 that I was still using Windows 2000 and not Windows XP because Windows XP was still the newest and greatest! Because my new computer came with Windows XP Home Edition and I originally installed Windows 98 over it and then a few years later I installed Windows 2000 on it. I've been using Windows 2000 almost everyday since 2003-2004 just because it's really a great operating system. Because of the Kernel Extensions, it makes it very usable to me even to this day. There are only a few things that I have that don't work on it but it's not the biggest deal ever. But I plan on running Windows 2000 for as long as I possibly can alongside of Windows 98. Windows is a lost soul now and all that other junk that's come out since 7 especially is not Windows. Windows used to be simple and it got the job done. Now eye candy and piracy protection is more important than usability. Tsk tsk.

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In my view, Windows 2000 represents the point where the raw capabilities of the Windows OS peaked:  Fully 32-bit, fully stable, and with a mature API.  XP, 7, and 8 were activation-addled regressions that added little new functionality and rearranged their UIs much in the same way as one would rearrange deck chairs on the Titanic.

 

If Windows XP had actually been a functional improvement over its predecessor like Windows 95 was over 3.1, it would have been more obvious.  Software would have been written at the outset to make use of the new features, and XP-only applications would have appeared on the shelves by the end of 2002.

 

Of course, that didn't happen.  Virtually no XP-only software or peripherals existed until Windows 2000's "support" lifeline was cut off, and Microsoft pushed out compiler tools that were specifically rigged to break compatibility.  That stunt filled me with deja vu...since Microsoft did the exact same thing eight years earlier to drive a wedge between the hitherto identically-capable 95 and 98.

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What say you?

Well some clarifications, although I REALLY loved Windows 2000 Professional as well.  Just enough glitz to make it fun to use (fade menus and mouse shadows for example) but better stability and performance with a smaller footprint than its bloated successors:

 

I wouldn't say that Windows 2000 Professional was really gaining any dominance.   In 2000, ME was on all new consumer notebooks and PCs, and most consumers and businesses stuck with Windows 98 SE.  I also wouldn't say that Windows 2000 was the OS that brought the NT Kernel to the consumer masses.  That was XP.  It really should have been 2000 (as Microsoft intended it that way), but I guess not everything was ironed out just yet.  Microsoft was working on the Neptune build of 2000 (which would be akin to Windows XP Home Edition), but that never became a completed product.  The funny thing is, as more games were written for Windows XP, those became compatible with Windows 2000 as well, so it would have been more usable in the home (just not as fancy and glitzy)

 

There seems to be the thought that 2000 and XP should be supported indefinitely.  I used to share that sentiment especially in regards to 2000 and XP x64 Edition.  But having since migrated to Vista, and getting used to some of the differences that OS offers, I do feel that Windows has improved.  So I can better understand Microsoft moving on I suppose.

:)

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I wouldn't say that Windows 2000 has ever been forgotten. The people that know about it and have used it before usually really like it and will always talk about it, the people that never used it way back when just think it's an old version of Windows, and the people that don't even know it exists of course have no opinion.

 

I didn't know that Windows 2000 existed until I started using the internet on a regular basis in 2007. I suppose I never knowingly saw it because it looks a lot like Windows 95 or 98, so does NT 4.0 for that matter, and I wasn't aware that existed either until around the same time frame. I knew that Windows 95, 98 and Me existed because my friends, family and schools had it on their computers.

 

I would say that the whole NT 5.x line was the best combination of reliability, stability, compatibility and featuring a sane user interface with welcome changes that Microsoft ever produced. I particularly like Windows XP because I feel that compared to Windows 2000, it's just a more improved experience.

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  • 3 months later...

I think Windows 2000 was a very sturdy OS. 15 years later, there isn't much you can't do with it.

 

Service Pack 4 really stabilized the OS and added USB 2.0 support. To run most current software you will want this update (W2KSP4_EN.EXE) along with the Update rollup (Windows2000-KB891861-v2-x86-ENU.EXE).

 

While Avast 7 [unintentionally?] dropped support for Windows 2000, Avast 8 supports Windows 2000 and is probably the most feature rich antivirus available for Windows 2000 with shields, etc.

 

I really think security is a non-issue if you use responsible computing habits. I have been using and experimenting with unsupported Windows versions for years and never got hacked or had identity theft. If you aren't responsible or careful, social engineering and  phishing attacks will compromise anyone, I don't care if you are running a current patched up-to-date OS.

 

Use common sense and you will be fine!

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Windows 2000 was actually suppose to replace both Windows NT and Windows 98, but that didn't happen. Windows 2000 replaced NT while Me replaced 98. I think that happened for the same reasons a year later that XP came out and there were lots of compatibility problems. Why do you think Application Compatibility was introduced in the first place? Windows XP was a Windows NT kernel OS and on the gold version, many programs for Windows 9x wouldn't run on it or really had to be forced to. In my opinion, it wasn't until Service Pack 1 and especially Service Pack 2 that many of these problems were ironed out and also more XP things were introduced or patches for existing software was produced. I think that's why even though Windows 2000 wasn't so widespread, even though it was and in my opinion, still is, the most stable OS there is. Windows 7 in my opinion is just a hugely patched up and poorly rearranged Windows 2000/XP OS. One of Windows 2000's downfalls is the fact it lacks a wifi connector, so you need to either rely on an adaptors client to connect to wifi or use something like BVRP Connection Lite. That's one of the big reasons many couldn't use the OS today. However, with all the unofficial updates and patches by the members of this community, it has really prolonged the life of Windows 2000 and I still use it to this day, although it's getting a bit harder in some areas. The worst part seems to be video editing and using software that utilizes DirectX10+, which luckily blackwingcat does include a DirectX10 stub in his kernel extension project which does help a lot, there are still some versions of software that using his tool, no matter how hard you force, it just will refuse to install at all saying that you need Vista or higher to run. But I myself would certainly agree with the OP, Windows 2000 had the best potential of all the Windows OSs and I think Windows 10 is still going to be garbage. I do not like all this online integration AT ALL. It was bad enough with Windows XP activation....but with so much of the web going into Windows 10, and even in 8.1....one does wonder, why is it being so forced? Out of all Windows users, how many truly utilize that sort of capability? Or are they just putting it in because they can? Is there a reason you still can't use a web browser to do all your online activities like you could in the past? Oh, so you can retain your settings on all computers with Windows 10 that you log into.....BIG DEAL! I'll stick to my non-big brother version of Windows, thank you very much. I will use Windows 2000 until I can't anymore, then it's on to Linux.

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  • 3 years later...

I agree Windows 2000 is and always will be the best MS system! I have Windows 2000 installed on my PC with the unofficial updates of BWC and writing from there.
BWC says that it will work only until 2099 but without any problem it passes to 2100 but others will think how it is only in x86 will be until 2038 due to the bug Y2K38 but in Windows based on NT the operating system is x86 or x64 the maximum year is 9999.

Edited by Win2000Fan
2100
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