W2K Professional Versus Windows XP Professional

PCGUY · Post by **PCGUY** » Wed Mar 10, 2004 8:01 pm

I have been using W2K professional for a while and quite happy with the OS. I am now building a new PC and wondering to go to XP Professional? But many advice to stay with W2K Professional. I would welcome comments and suggestions on the topic

PorBleemo · Post by **PorBleemo** » Wed Mar 10, 2004 8:05 pm

XP is almost 2k with a candy-coating. It has some minor improvements but if you don't mind the grey boxy look (which is what I like) I would stay with 2k. Plus it uses somewhat less resources then XP.

al bundy · Post by **al bundy** » Thu Mar 11, 2004 12:53 am

I recommend staying with Win2K Pro.

ColdFlame · Post by **ColdFlame** » Thu Mar 11, 2004 1:39 am

All these replies are really meaningless and do not express any real reasoning.

XP is the desktop OS of choice from MS, if you don't like XP or MS then use Linux. Those are your options.

Kalel83 · Post by **Kalel83** » Thu Mar 11, 2004 1:51 am

I've been using xp for quite while i I would have to say that since everyone in the fourm like modding their pc, Xp is the obvious choice. I went to it and never looked back. In terms of updates, ms will point more attention in a more recent os, ie xp. i might be out of date on this but dosn't 2000 use an older version of directX. i'd say xp soley for product updates and future compatibility. 2000 is geared around a corp enviroment, xp is geared to both. But if anything else you'd save 80 or so dollars by not upgrading...

AS for less resources, take the time and disable irrelevant services and xp will catch up. The're plenty of safe guides that help.

1398342003 · Post by **1398342003** » Thu Mar 11, 2004 2:06 am

ColdFlame wrote:All these replies are really meaningless and do not express any real reasoning.

XP is the desktop OS of choice from MS, if you don't like XP or MS then use Linux. Those are your options.

^That sounds like bad reasoning to me. That's basically saying that version 2 is better than version 1, simply because it's newer.

Personally I have not used Win 2K, but XP is very good, though I recommend that you stay with 2K unless you need to upgrade.

axhind · Post by **axhind** » Thu Mar 11, 2004 2:52 am

I've been using XP for a couple of years, and I like it. It does have a lot of eyecandy when you've just installed it, but with some minor tweaks you can turn them off and have the same layout as 2k. And if you go a bit further and if you're willing to spend some time on it you can speed it up even more by disabling a lot of unnecessary services. Personally I think that Blackviper's guide (http://www.blackviper.com/) is the best out there.

rp · Post by rp » Thu Mar 11, 2004 5:31 am

The only thing that I miss in W2k is having Movie Maker 2.0 (so I need the WMV format once in a while... sue me!

)

But besides that, I see no reason what so ever to choose XP over W2k... I'm not replacing W2k until its at the same point in its life cycle that W98 is now.

PCGUY · Post by **PCGUY** » Thu Mar 11, 2004 5:57 am

People have spoken

I will stick with W2K Professional. Thanks for all your feedback

Mario · Post by **Mario** » Thu Mar 11, 2004 12:37 pm

I have used w2k for 3 years. I was forced to upgrade to XPPro to use hyperthreading. I have never seen any difference except from hyperthreading support and faster boot. Both make the PC snappier and nicer to use. So I stick with XP.
If you don't care about boot time and do not have hyperthreading I can't see much difference.

Dr.CrackEnHore · Post by **Dr.CrackEnHore** » Thu Mar 11, 2004 12:58 pm

I would not pay to upgrade from 2000 to XP.

But if I were in a store trying to choose between the two it would be a definite choice for XP.

As for XP using extra resources you would barely be able to tell the difference, especially if you are running a processor greater than 2.0ghz.

POLIST8 · Post by **POLIST8** » Thu Mar 11, 2004 1:32 pm

I'm just glad I finally got Win2000 at work. NT4 was killing me.

But for everything else it's XP. Everybody designs their gaming software for it, and it has been an absolutely rock solid OS.

Both are great in my opinion - I guess I just go with the latest and greatest (and turn the stupid blue scheme off to conserve more RAM).

NullObject · Post by **NullObject** » Thu Mar 11, 2004 1:50 pm

XP and 2000 use the same OS kernels, their intended audience is different. MS wanted all their operating systems based off of the same kernels, because its a lot easier to maintain a single code base and the applications coming from that base will be more stable, which are based off of the NT kernels, and MS wanted to get away from DOS. So they developed a common kernel that would support both a corporate oriented operating system, 2000, and a consumer oriented operating system, XP. Under the GUI and some OS specific extensions, you have the same kernels running.

Corporations want OSs that they can configure, deploy and lock down for a variety of reasons, but most importantly minimize support costs/issues and security. I know secure MS product is an oxymoron, but that's a whole other issue.

Nonpower users tend to want eye candy and gee whiz stuff, which is why there are reports of XP being slower. As noted above, this can be disabled. Also XP has a certification process and if hardware isn't certified for XP, it will warn you and discourage you from installing it. This may happen with software too, I don't remember.

Anyways, one isn't inherently better than the other, it depends on your needs and what you want/expect out of a OS & interface.

I used to use 2000 pro, I now use XP pro on everything. I'm the only developer in my office that uses XP pro though, everyone else stayed on 2000. I have been avoiding 2003, but I will set up a test environment for 2003...someday.

NullObject · Post by **NullObject** » Thu Mar 11, 2004 1:53 pm

POLIST8 wrote:But for everything else it's XP. Everybody designs their gaming software for it, and it has been an absolutely rock solid OS.

This post reminded me of why I moved to XP from 2000, games. Somewhere back in the dusty crevices of my limited mind that though had been forming when I wrote my last post, but I couldn't remember if that was the actual reason I switched OSs. Thanks for mentioning that detail POLIST8

mrzed · Post by **mrzed** » Thu Mar 11, 2004 2:26 pm

I'm actually pretty firmly in the XP camp. You can make it almost as light if you turn off the eye candy, it is better for gaming (not that I do much of that these days).

I just installed 2000 on an extra drive the other day to test out stuff with. Same computer, but there was one small annoyance that reminded me why newer sometimes is better. With XP, I just load the OS, then get all my updates right away. With 2000, I load the OS, can't connect, realise there are no drivers for my network card (a Dlink, so not exactly a rarity), reboot to XP, dowload the drivers, reboot to 2000, install them, then continue installing.

Sure, it's a minor thing, but simply having more built in support for more hardware is a nice convenience. It's not like I'm giving up stability or performance to get it.

PCGUY · Post by **PCGUY** » Thu Mar 11, 2004 3:21 pm

Radeoman,

w2k DOES NOT support HT AFAIK

PCGUY · Post by **PCGUY** » Thu Mar 11, 2004 4:11 pm

Radeonman,

Per INTEL http://www.intel.com/support/platform/h ... ipp_htm+os and I quote:

"The following desktop operating systems are not recommended for use with Hyper-Threading Technology. If you are using one of the following desktop operating systems, it is advised that you should disable Hyper-Threading Technology in the system BIOS Setup program:

* Microsoft Windows 2000 (all versions)
* Microsoft Windows NT* 4.0
* Microsoft Windows Me
* Microsoft Windows 98
* Microsoft Windows 98 SE
"

mfeingol · Post by **mfeingol** » Thu Mar 11, 2004 4:40 pm

Time for a contrarian.

XP is the 2K codebase evolved over a couple of years. It is generally comparable or superior in terms of speed and stability to W2K, with the added advantage that ISVs and IHVs care more about how their products perform on XP than on 2K.

XP has some really nice features that 2K doesn't (Remote Desktop and ClearType come to mind). 2K has virtually nothing that XP doesn't have. XP can be made to look and feel just like 2K, if the new default UI is an issue.

Bottom line: if you have W2K, keep W2K unless there are features in XP that you must have, or you can upgrade cheaply. If the price is the same and you're wondering what to install on a new system, XP is the obvious choice.