Customer Reviews

Microsoft Windows 2000 Server (5-Client) [Old Version]

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I'm new to networking, but have had wonderful success with this operating system on my home network. Rather intuitive for the most part.

I have a mixed environment of clients: NT 4.0, and Win2k Professional. Getting everything running was easy. The Server wizards help tremendously - - especially for newbies like myself.

I'm still learning quite a bit almost daily. I have SQL 7.0 running, my own web server (IIS), and Microsoft Exchange 5.5.

Very stable operating system. Great security. Great interface.

I'm especially fond of the support for: USB devices, plug-and-play, and Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (allows the computer to hibernate/power down devices). Another great feature is the sharing of IRQ's. That made me nervous at first, since normally devices didn't IRQ's (interrupt addresses) well in earlier versions of Windows.

One piece of advice: don't install anything that isn't certified or isn't created to run on Windows 2000 Server. Although the operating system is tolerant, an errant piece of hardware or software could create more headaches than you may be ready for.

IIS (Internet Information Services) is included - which allows you to host your own web server. ASP (Active Server Pages) - a feature of IIS allows you to program interactivity in your web pages - - bringing them to life.

Has everything you need for a small to medium size web site: Web, DNS, SMTP, FTP,etc. Speed is phenomenal. NEVER goes down!!

I upgraded to this from Windows 98, and I never had experience running a server before. From the moment I put in the CD I knew I would love this OS. It is very easy to use, and within a day I had a http and ftp server running perfectly (I had no experence setting them up before). This OS is also much more stable than Win 95/98/ME. It has only crashed on me a few times in 4 months! The only bad thing about this OS is that it can not run any DOS program, so this is not the ideal OS for old skool gamers. All in all this OS is definetly worth the price.

I have used IIS5 and ADSI for programming some tasks which were not possible with NT4. Adding users, creating their home dir and profiles programatically has become a lot easier.This has also meant easy remote administration to me. What I did not like is changing over to NTFS(5) means if I make my active partition NTFS(5), I can not multiboot. I also liked that inspite of built on NT technology Win2K server supports plug-and-play. Third party support is still low (Which I found when my LAN card was not found in HCL)

If you need a server OS then this is what you want. I install this on my servers because it is rock solid and you get high-end technology that came from those technology geniuses at DEC. This is ultra reliable and is not bloated as many consumer MS operating systems generally are.

My Dell SC420 and SC430 servers continue to perform with this OS and have taken to their upgrades over the years without issue. CPU upgrade, memory upgrade, 1TB disks and they periodically still get auto update to the OS from MS. The SC420 is about to get a SSD system drive and I'm going to love seeing it reinvigorated.

I just purchased a copy of Advanced Server 2000 to keep on the shelf. I have no need for it today whatsoever as my SC430 is already maxed out with dual core Pentium D and 4GB memory. However Server 2000 cannot use more than 4GB memory and most likely my next server upgrade will go to 8GB. Additionally, I'm sure we're not too far off from the time when Intel gives us more than quad core and you need Advanced Server for more than 4 CPU (it sees each core as a CPU) or more than 4GB memory. I bought the Advanced Server now because I don't want to find it non-existent when I'm ready to upgrade.

I've read reviews of people running Server 2000 on Intel Core i5 so I have little doubt it will be good for many more years going forward.

So far, I'm impressed with 2000's stability, although it is EXTREMELY slow. I am running it on a GHZ Athlon with 655MBpc133 so it's kinda strange that it runs so slow. I am slowly learning about the various tools that it comes with, and most of it is reletively intuitive.
I am slightly puzzled by a few features, but tutorials online are easy to find.
Personally, I am impressed by the framerate that I get in benchmarking utilities, if not in the OS.

All in all, If you are in need of an overly expensive operating system that WILL NOT DIE, It's great. Otherwise, avoid it like the plauge.