I've installed Windows 2000 Professional at home and work and have a few words on the subject. Four versions are available, the professional version designed for desktops and meant to replace Windows NT 4.0 Workstation.
I used to run NT 4.0 and Windows 98 in a dual boot configuration, playing games in 98 and everything else in NT. Since installing 2000 Professional I haven't booted into Windows 98 and plan to remove it from my computer. That's my first point: recent games I'm playing are working great in Windows 2000. I'm running Westwood's Nox and Lucas Arts Force Commander: both installed and run without a hitch. Age Of Kings and Starcraft are installed but I have yet to try them out.
Let me backtrack to my installation experience. If you've installed a version of NT before, then you'll slide through the 2000 install. Keep this in mind: 2000 is an upgrade of Windows NT, not Windows 98 and behaves as such. Having said that, I find 2000 takes a lot from Windows 9x, so a working knowledge of both really helps out.
Before I installed I downloaded drivers for my hardware, which is pretty standard fair: Creative TNT2 Ultra, Creative Sound Blaster Live Value, Linksys Etherfast 100TX, Microsoft Intellimouse Explorer, Microsoft Natural Keyboard Pro. All components had new drivers or updates for Windows 2000. My only problem came from my ADI MicroScan 6P monitor, which wasn't listed in Windows 2000 and didn't have anything on their website. I used the Windows 9x driver and everything seems fine. Windows 2000 will sometimes accept the NT or 9x driver if you can't a new or supported version. I say might because it's pretty well hit and miss; if you have an old item that you want to keep using give it a try.
Once installed Windows 2000 behaves quite well, and seems to bring the best of both worlds: Windows 9x usability and NT's stability and crash resistance. Ironically I have crashed 2000 a few times, more than NT 4.0 ever did at home. I guess it picked up a few bad habits from 9x as well.
There's a lot to like about Windows 2000. Eye candy comes into play, with fading windows and softer colours. All items in the Control Panel are accessible from the Start Menu by setting the Taskbar's advanced properties. This works for network connections for LAN or dial up as well. Little things that are very pleasing yet go mostly unnoticed.
I've installed all the applications I have running, including Office 2000, PC Anywhere, Music Match, WinZip, Paint Shop Pro, NetObjects Fusion and Adobe Acrobat. Everything works flawlessly, or as well as it worked before.
I don't know if it's some new technology, but my dial up internet access seems faster since the upgrade. Strange but true. Overall performance seems on par with Windows 98, but a little behind Windows NT. A lot of disk activity points me to the cache, but I've got 128 MB of RAM so this shouldn't be the case. A little investigating on my part is needed.
That's about it for now; give me a few more weeks and I'll give an update to my experience. For more information on Windows 2000 check out www.microsoft.com/windows2000 and www.wk2central.com and judge for yourself.
by Scott VanderPloeg
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