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.

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.