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?"

Comments

Sure.

[tyroney]

I'd think it impedes sales just about as much as making hardware that keeps working longer than six months.

2000? Not Surprising!

[atteSmythe]

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.

Ignorant article

[Helevius]

"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."

Re:What the heck?

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

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.

Re:Hardware, no. OS? Absolutely.

[Quarters]

What performance hit from Win98 -> XP were you expecting? Could you post the quantitative speed analysis numbers, please?

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)

Unrealistic

[crimoid]

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?

No security - cripes, just run Win98!

[Dr. Manhattan]

He runs it on FAT, and disables all file security and so forth. In practical terms, this system is no better than Windows 98. For such purposes, load up Windows 98SE, and use Win98Lite to use the (much less resource-intensive) Win95 shell on top of Win98.

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.