Customer Reviews

Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional Upgrade w/ Encryption Coded Software [Old Version]

5 star:		(33)
4 star:		(26)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

Microsoft got it right this time with Windows 2000! If I could give it more than 5 stars I certainly would have done so. It's an eight on a scale of one to five. I have been using W2K for over a month now, and the performance and stability are great. "Plug and play" works even better than the Win9x operating systems, and setup is a breeze if you have a relatively new PC (2-3 years old or newer). Make sure you have a decent amount of memory (I recommend no less than 96 mb, 128 mb or more is even better). Certain drivers have been hard to come by (in particular 3D graphics accelerator card drivers) but that should change now that W2K is offically released. However, most of the drivers you need to get your PC going are included and automatically installed for you during setup.

If you are using Win9x or Windows NT, get out there and buy W2K. I don't think you'll be disappointed.

As far as cost goes, it's not cheap, but well worth the price of admission. Most of your applications will work just fine, so you don't need to buy all new applications. The quality of the product is comparable with its relatively high price. My experience with "free" operating systems is that you get what you pay for with them. Unless you want to spend all your time compiling your operating system and tweaking it endlessly, just buy W2K and be done with it. Your time is worth more than the upgrade cost, isn't it?

Yesterday, I purchased Windows 2000 the day it came out. I opened the box and followed the instructions. They listed everything I needed to make sure the installation was successful, in which it was.

Windows 2000 installed flawlessly! I hit "next, next, next, next" and let the program do the remaining work (approximately 45 minutes).

I want this review to prove that Windows 2000 is above and beyond of what the "media" has been saying. Let me list the good and the bad about the program:

GOOD:

1) Reliability. No freezing whatsoever even though I've put my computer through the stress test. 2) Most major pieces of software and hardware are compatible! 3) Video games are playable, even the ones that were made for Windows 3.1! 4) New graphic interface with icons, buttons, backgrounds and sounds! 5) Start up and shut down are tremendously quick. 6) The list goes on and on!

BAD:

1) Norton AntiVirus no longer works. 2) My DVD player no longer works. 3) Sound works, but there is static when sound plays at a low level. 4) These may be major errors on your behalf, but these are very small to me. These are all of the errors I've encountered!

Take it from me, a business owner and home user, it's 90x better than Windows 98. END

I'm not trying to knock Microsoft Windows Me!, but Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional is THE BEST operating system on the market. I was running Microsoft Windows 95, then Microsoft Windows 98 then finally Microsoft Windows 98 Second Edition. I was going to upgrade to Microsoft Windows Me!, but when I heard it was still using the Microsoft Windows 98 engine, I said enough! I upgraded to Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional and it was the best move I made. It has all the plug and play of Microsoft Windows 98 but it's built on NT technology. I couldn't upgrade to Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 because I have a scanner plugged into a USB port but Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional took care of all of that. I have a four year old Gateway Pentium Pro 200 machine and it's now running faster than my work laptop which is Pentium III 366MHz. Did I mention that my laptop is running Microsoft Windows 95? I will be upgrading that one very soon too! One word of caution though, MAKE SURE you check out the hardware and software compatibility list, especially the hardware one. My sound card, an Ensoniq Vivo, was not supported but I was able to use the legacy NT 4.0 driver. It took a while before I got is working, but it was worth it. Even if you are a home user, don't bother with the other ones. I used to have to reboot my machine two or three times a night in a four hour span. So far, I haven't frozen yet in over a week. The only time I have to reboot is when I occassionally add new features or software. My vote is, way to go Microsoft! What took so long to put the plug and play and NT technology together? Thanks for your time all.

You should upgrade to Win2000 if your business needs the improved stability and security that Win2000 provides, and/or you're a developer who needs to keep up to date. Win2000 manages memory much better then Win95b -- I can run many more simultaneous instances of Visual C (or whatever) in my 192MB of RAM than I could before. Taskmanager is much improved. Dr. Watson is available to log crash dumps and the faulting asm code when an app bombs. Language support is better; I can now read Chinese html files using IE directly without having to launch Netscape and a CJK viewer such as MagicWin98. COM+ is available, etc. Above all, the new API function calls you've read about in books are available. The bottom line: if you're a power user, you really should upgrade.

But there are also problems. My external SCSI RW CD drive wasn't recognized as writeable and wouldn't work until I'd installed the latest version of Adaptec's DirectCD driver. My UPS can no longer talk to the computer via COM2. I can no longer configure my AccelStar II card to get OpenGL graphics acceleration. Chessmaster6000 won't run, and AOL is busted (no internet access). In view of these problems, and the fact that the reasons for upgrading are overwhelming -- Win2000 is a great OS -- it would be very nice to be able to multiboot. The rest of this "review" describes installation and multibooting issues.

First, to qualify for the [rebate] you must have the NT3.51 or 4.0 CD's (these OSes don't have to be actually installed on your machine, just insert the CD into the drive when prompted). As proof of purchase, MS will accept the title page of the NT User's Guide in lieu of the barcode strip from the bottom of the original box. If you're upgrading from Win9x, the OS must be installed -- the Win9x installation CD will not be accepted.

The install program has two phases: booting from the CD with a DOS-like interface, then rebooting and continuing from the hard drive with a Windows interface. Although the second phase is foolproof, it's possible to go astray during the first phase due to lack of prompting. In my case, just before upgrading I'd added a new 30 GB Maxtor drive and slaved my old one (holding WinOld = Win95 OSR2) to it; this bumped up the drive letters on the slave drive, making the OS copy there stale (registry paths wrong). I then copied this to the new C: drive and booted from the Win2000 CD, selecting a clean install. It found WinOld on drive c: and chugged along, but for some reason didn't reboot properly. Instead, I got in a circle that repeated the installation. Instead of rebooting manually as I should have, I continued. This time, it couldn't find WinOld installed (because it had already been overwritten). So I inserted my WinOld installation CD, but it wouldn't accept it -- it wanted an NT CD, which fortunately I had. After inserting that, there was no prompt to replace it with the Win2000 CD, so I ended up spoiling the installation by overwriting some of the Win2000 files with NT ones. Perceiving my blunder, I inserted a boot floppy and rebooted manually, intending to start over.

But the floppy never regained control-- instead the second phase of the installation took over. This proceeded uneventfully, but when I rebooted something amazing had happened! I had a dual-boot system without even having requested one. The install program had detected WinOld on the slave drive, put the start-up code in the master boot record (shared with Win2000) on drive c:, and then enabled booting WinOld from a slave drive! I tested it and it works. If you have two drives and only want to dual boot (you don't care about LINUX or other non-MS OSes), just install your old OS on both the master and slave drives, run the Win2000 install program, doing a clean install on drive c, and you're done.

More commonly, though, you'll have just one drive and want more flexible multibooting. To be specific, suppose you want to boot LINUX and WinOld in addition to Win2000. In this case you'll need a good disk partitioning utility such as PartitionMagic (PM) from PowerQuest to create a second primary partition, plus an extended partition for LINUX (each Windows OS requires a primary partition in order to boot, but LINUX does not). Just make sure the three boot partitions start below the 8GB physical disk boundary, otherwise they won't be bootable. To install WinOld on the second primary partition, set it active using PM, reboot, and install. PM allows you to safely resize partitions without losing any data they contain, so you can keep your existing setup intact. To actually get the bootup OS menu, install BootMagic (bundled with PartitionMagic) in the WinOld directory and reboot. Note: to work under Win2000 you'll need PartitionMagic5.01 or later, and BootMagic itself must be installed under Win9X or NT3.51/4.0. This limitation will no doubt disappear with time.

Two warnings. 1) Be wary of System Commander2000 from VCOM. I tried it before I became aware of PowerQuest's BootMagic feature. The OS Wizard crashed when trying to analyze my system and I had to cycle the power. There were also problems with the partitioning, which ultimately forced me to reformat my drive. System Commander is emphatically not recommended. 2) Unless you have no doubts about the reliability of your electric power company, consider getting a UPS. Some of the disk restructuring operations can take a long time, and if the power fails while they are in progress you'll be ruined (i.e., have to reformat the drive and start again from scratch).

From Ramon Ray,

Windows 2000: Another money making grab by Microsoft?

Some of you, like I have thought in the past, may think that Windows 2000 is just another "update" to Microsoft's line of Windows operating systems. Windows 3.1, then the new face lift of Windows 95, 98 and now 2000. I was advising my clients that not RUSH to Windows 98 if they had 95, but only rush if they had 3.1. However in the case of Window 2000, I think every small business person should get Windows 2000 on their computers as soon as possible.

It can be a costly upgrade, especially if you have to upgrade (or buy a new computer) your computer hardware (more RAM, larger hard disk, faster processor) on top of purchasing Windows 2000. I'm not going to reinvent the wheel and tell you what you can easily read in PC Computing, PC World, WindowsMag.com, or other sources, but I just want to summarize the benefits of Windows2000 and explain why you need it.

BENEFITS OF WINDOWS 2000

Microsoft has worked hard to add a plethora of new features to Windows 2000. Some cosmetic surface changes and more substantive internal changes.

There's a slew of new file management features in Windows 2000, such as new "open/save" dialog boxes, easier ways to open unknown file types and etc.

You can now customize the Windows toolbars and personalize the menus. For new computer users, just give them the basics and as they advance add more - or let Windows 2000 move more frequently used menus to the top - AUTOMATICALLY.

According to the Microsoft Corporate Preview Program Guide, "In addition to having been rewritten in simpler language, error and action messages have been improved throughout to eliminate steps or to provide the user with more information on how to resolve problems.

The "Network Neighborhood" folder has also been replaced to include a more powerful "My Network Places" folder. Microsoft didn't just edit the network folder but also improved on the file searching tool.

For the mobile worker there's a complete inventory of increased mobile solutions....from better power management, to easier synchronization, "offline files and folders" for work anywhere, anytime, and anyplace, new network connection wizard, and more.

WHY YOU NEED WINDOWS 2000

Windows 2000 will allow your small business to work more productively. With less crashing, better interface, and more powerful installation options (like only install this program when it's used...so your PC is not full of program pieces that you don't use) Windows 2000 is a better tool for your small businesses. Technology will always be complex, but Windows 2000 reduces that complexity by a lot!

As someone who has excoriated Microsoft loud and long for crummy, duct-tape-&-baling-wire, *non*-"innovative" software, I must confess in all honesty that Redmond has finally produced an OS I must grudgingly admire. I installed a pre-release version back in September on my Dell desktop and my Dell laptop, and now I've "upgraded" to the final release. Bottom line: --does not crash (yikes!); --recognizes and correctly configures hardware automatically at install; --networks and plays well with friends; --very strong computer management capabilities.

Caveats: 1. Do not try to "upgrade" from Win98 or NT4.0; do a clean reformat and install. 2. If you play a lot of games or use any 16-bit app's, take a pass on Win2000.

In sum, 20 years later Microsoft may have finally produced an OS worthy of the name; now we must only hope that the 'Net makes them increasingly irrelevant, or they'll continue to be a menace to their industry and, I believe, our society.

"Still dual-booting Linux...."

I recently purchased a new computer which came with Windows 2000 Professional. I was very pleased with the operating system which is definitely more stable than Windows 98, which I used on my other computers. So, I purchased the Windows 2000 Pro upgrade to upgrade the remainder of my computers.

Agony.

The biggest problem with the upgrade was backwards compatibility. Windows 2000 did not have a driver for any of my peripherals. It did not install drivers for my printer, my scanner, my video card, my tape drive, my modem or my SCSI controller. In short, nothing but the computer worked. I had to use another computer to download a driver for my modem to start the process. Once I had my modem running, I had to search the web to download and install drivers for each of my peripherals one at a time.

But wait, there's more. Not only was it not compatible with the hardware, but also with much of the software on which I constantly rely. This meant that I had to search the web for patches and upgrades for many of my applications.

The upgrade for one computer took two days. That was about an hour to upgrade Windows and about 10-12 hours of finding and downloading drivers and patches. The process was shorter for subsequent computers because I already had the downloads.

After having endured this torment, I would have to say that with Windows XP so close at hand, I would recommend that you wait before upgrading. I don't know if XP will have the same backwards compatibility issues, but if it does, it makes sense to only go through this torture once instead of twice.

Windows 2000 is a definate improvement over NT 4.0, but unless you are using it in a "pure" Windows 2000 environment, you may not get all the features you've heard touted. Despite the increased reliace on Wizards to guide you through the steps, instalation of this OS is definately not for casual users. If you are a heavy computer game player, or have no reason to be dissatisfied with Windows 98, stay with your current operating system. If you are a real business user, or have a home network that involves more than a few shared files, go for it, you won't be dissappointed.

Beware of hardware problems. I've lost the audio drivers on my Dell system at work. For me this is no big deal as the system is used in an open office environment where we have sound cards simply because our systems came with them. We really don't need any audio playback. My home systems, several brands are represented, are all functioning just fine.

Some software can also be a problem. I had to switch from Norton AntiVirus 5.x (NAV 5) to AntiVirus 2000: Microsoft and Symantect both state NAV 5 will not work with Windows 2000... I didn't believe it, but they were right! I highly recommend that you run the Windows 2000 Evaluation Tool, available as a free download from Microsoft, before you attempt any Windows 2000 installation.

One real annoyance is the Windows Protection File (WPF). This is analogous to the Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL) found on NT 4.0 Ostensibly, the WPF is there to protect your operating system from corruption. It can do the job almost too well. I was unable to use a bootable Windows 98 disk to perform a flash BIOS upgrade after Windows 2000 was installed. Luckily, this upgrade is not essential to the operation of my system, I was just wanting to keep it current. I have not been able to fully research this issue to see if there is a way around it or if this is an isoloated instance.

Again, if you're in business, the features are worth while, especially in a pure Windows 2000 environment. On the other hand, if most of your computer time is used for surfing the Internet or game playing, you'll get more milage from Windows 98.

First of all, Microsoft didn't rush anything with this O.S. It has been built the ground up. Windows 2000 is stable, secure, and user friendly. It also see's FAT32, for all you dual booters out there, I'm sure you'll be pleased. If you are running Win 98, and don't need security or play games. Don't upgrade. Windows 2000 isn't a gaming or multmedia O.S. It's a networking O.S. It's also great with notebooks, alot of different features. Bottom line if you want a multmedia machine, stick with Win 98, and wait for Millenium. That is going to be something totally different than previous win 9x's (pure 32 bit). Otherwise if you want something better for business, security, and reliably. Move from NT to Win 2000. Make sure you check the HCL on Microsoft's Website to verify all your hardware works. Then installation is a breeze, a novic can do it. Hope you enjoy Windows 2000 as much as I have.

It is unbelievable to me that Microsoft would charge so much for an upgrade version. The full version isn't much more expensive, so it seems like they aren't giving those of us who have bought a previous version much of a break. The operating system is great, much more stable and faster than anything I've seen Microsoft put out before. Major problems that I have seen so far is with compatibility with hardware, but I'm sure those issues will be cleared up in time as new drivers are released.

Windows 2000 would ordinarily be very much deserving of 5 stars, but the outragous price tag brings that rating down. I wonder if they realize that they are actually promoting piracy of their products. Those who can't afford to, or don't want to, spend $200 could just borrow it from a friend and burn it to a blank CD that costs less than $1. Even Apple, with their historically high prices, only charge $89 for their latest OS.