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Win2000 Still Performs on 8-year-old Hardware
Daniel Iversen writes "Still 95% compatible with Windows XP, The Windows 2000 OS still runs very well on very old hardware - hardware with low specs it was never even meant to run on (tech setup guide - not a review). The broad question is, does the fact that you can remain compatible with today's applications and data on hardware that is almost a decade old, impede PC sales?"
I'd think it impedes sales just about as much as making hardware that keeps working longer than six months.
The writer of this article is a little strange if he considers a P233 old hardware. Back when Windows 2000 came out (1999, kids) I was using a P233 as my primary machine.
He makes one excellent point at the end: memory. Memory is what Windows needs more than anything. Once you remove all the cuddly crap, Windows 2000 and XP runs perfectly well on a classic Pentium so long as it has 128Mb or more. Preferably 256 with XP.
I've never tried XP or 2000 on a 486, but I would be willing to bet it'd run fine (NT certainly did). Anyone else tested this?
Is it surprising that a 5-year-old operating system still runs 8-year-old hardware? That's the hardware for which the operating system was designed!
A more pertinent question, I think, would be whether 2000 still runs with full support for new hardware devices, and whether that forward-compatibility hampers new OS sales.
"DONT install an extra service pack (they can offer perfromance and reliability improvements on faster computers but on old computers with few tasks they are just a bloat). Make sure your Windows installation CD isn't already 'slipstreamed' with a service pack."
and
"How to use the computer on a daily basis...Don't apply O/S patches for security stability or other things."
This is advice from an idiot for other idiots. I'm sure the worms and other malware you invite onto this system will make great use of the "more than 10 MB RAM left for your applications."
A slashdot article that praises the durability of a microsoft product? Is the world coming to an end?
Well, you know, Unix folks are used to being able to recompile/reuse almost anything that was produced for the past 30+ years, but they take that for granted, so nobody talks about it.
And while I do appreciate that the Windows developers have been able to maintain binary compatibility with a majority of old software, nobody seems to be discussing (1) the speed impact those legacy portions of Windows OS on modern programs, (2) the poor speed of old programs run on modern Windows and (3) the security problems those legacy routines impose on modern Windows.
This said, kudos to the Windows developers who manage to maintain compatibility throughout the years, even with programs that do dirty tricks with the win32 API and, well, DOS programs. It's quite a feat, and it's probably a major reason for Windows users not ditching the hateful OS, since they don't want to lose their investment.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
I find it odd that an IT department would willingly purchase a "sizable chunk" of OS licenses for an OS that hasn't been available for license as a retail product for 15.5 months.(http://www.microsoft.com/windows/lifecycle /default.mspx)
While it's only been 3.5 months since system builders could license it it is still, by Microsoft's documentation, an unlicensable product at this point in time.
Having used 98, NT4.x, 2K, and XP at work (digital content creation) and at home since about '97 I can say that I've not noticed any appreciable performance hit in XP compared to the previous versions. Certainly not enough to warrant buying a product that lost mainstream support six weeks ago. (http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=fh ;%5Bln%5D;LifeWin)
The author of that howto claims that you should:
NOT install any service packs or patches
NOT use NTFS
NOT use a sound card
NOT use removable storage (CD, USB, etc)
NOT use windows networking
NOT use a parallel printer
NOT install many applications
NOT have more than 1 application open at a time
NOT work with big (1MB+) files
Well WTF good is that computer then? The title of the article is "Win2000 Still Performs on 8-year-old Hardware". How is this performance?
Just as secure, and you can have more functionality (e.g. sound!).
Of course, better yet, you can use Linux. I've got a 32MB laptop that runs Debian (with XFCE). A bit slow, but I can actually surf the web and so forth, and even play a game or two. And do it with actual security.
PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
Oh yeah. I recently bought a new laptop. It of course came with windows XP. After getting frusterated for a week with all the lame "wizards" for everything (discussion of how confusing XP wizards are saved for another thread), I decided to load windows 2000 on it. Within an hour or two I was able to find W2K drivers for all the hardware on the laptop and start loading. I was slightly surprised to find that some of the W2K drivers actually worked better and had more options then the XP version (was true for both the wireless card and processor speed control).
In use I found that the biggest difference was that I had to install 3rd party software on 2000 to do a few things like handle zip files and burn CDs. In all cases the 3rd party software is more powerful then the built-in XP stuff anyway. I am way more efficient in W2K with it's cleaner interface to administrative functions. All things considered, I view moving from XP to 2000 an "upgrade".
XP is to 2000 as ME is to 98SE. The former in each case being a product with more "widget" features, but less usability.