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75 of 81 found the following review helpful:
 Best Operating System YetFeb 17, 2000
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?
38 of 39 found the following review helpful:
Windows 2000 is incredible!Feb 19, 2000
By Jonathan Patton
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
35 of 37 found the following review helpful:
Don't Even Bother With Microsoft Windows Me!Nov 26, 2000
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.
28 of 29 found the following review helpful:
You really shouldOct 09, 2000
By Alan Mason
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).
151 of 176 found the following review helpful:
W2K more than fluff!Dec 22, 1999
By Ramon Ray
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!
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