2000Pro and XP-Pro

[Smilin]

Give me a break. It's 2004 dude. I think this topic was exhausted years ago. If you really want to pull me into a discussion, how about you tell me what is better about 2000 and I'll shoot some holes in it ok? Just don't be sore when you lose. In the meantime I'll just be a prick.

And just to make you happy here is a response to the questions in the original post:

Yes. No.

 

[Canterwood]

LOL!!!

Whateveeeerrrrrrr Kiddo!!

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: Smilin
Get with the times or get left behind.

Hmm. So is that what MS wants, when it asks "Where do you want to go today?"

"Better run with us, or get run over!"

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: Smilin
You damn whipper snappers and your fancy schmancy RDP. Back when I was your age we paid extra for PCAnywhere that wrecked the Gina.dll and left us with Winlogon issues and we liked it!!

LOL! ROTFLMAO...

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: DopeFiend

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
XP takes better advantage of SMT (Hyper threading).

Does 2000 actually work with HT? IIRC, there was some large problem with it...?

The way I understand it, which is probably very basic and possibly wrong, is that Win2k treats each virtual processor as seperate physical processors. XP just knows how to take advantage of HT better than win2k.

 

[boran]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

Originally posted by: DopeFiend

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
XP takes better advantage of SMT (Hyper threading).

Does 2000 actually work with HT? IIRC, there was some large problem with it...?

The way I understand it, which is probably very basic and possibly wrong, is that Win2k treats each virtual processor as seperate physical processors. XP just knows how to take advantage of HT better than win2k.

no you're right, win2K sees the two virtual processors as two different ones, and this can result in lower performance because in reality it is just one processor (thread sheduling etc)

in short, winXP optimises threads that will use a now unused part of the CPU, whereas win2K might shedule something to a part which is already occupied, hence it has to wait, and it is not optimally executed, hence hyperthreading can be slower than no hyperthreading on win2K.

so I stand with my point hyperthreading is the only real big reason to go with XP over 2K. (and then to XP pro, XP home is vastly inferior)

 

[Sunner]

Originally posted by: Smilin
Give me a break. It's 2004 dude. I think this topic was exhausted years ago. If you really want to pull me into a discussion, how about you tell me what is better about 2000 and I'll shoot some holes in it ok? Just don't be sore when you lose. In the meantime I'll just be a prick.

And just to make you happy here is a response to the questions in the original post:

Yes. No.

I run WinXP, mostly cause I don't see any big reason to go with Win2K over XP, but IMO the reverse is true as well, say I had Win2K at home and had to pay for XP with my own money, why should I bother, WinXP has nothing for me that Win2K doesn't have.

So, how exactly would I be "left behind" without XP? Aside from the day MS ceases support for it that is.

 

[8ballcoupe]

I think there are a lot of things that WinXP does better than Win2K.

1. Remote Desktop / Remote Assistance - This has saved me a lot of trips to friends' / relatives' houses. Faster and better than the third party alternatives. Works just great over dial-up.
2. Superior Runas service with ability to save credentials
3. A lot of "pre-fab" policies, some of which are very useful
4. Fast User Switching -- I don't use it, but it's nice for multiple family users on one computer. Junior can print out his homework without making Dad log off.
5. System Restore - Win2K's reliance upon an ERD diskette that doesn't work half the time is annoying.
6. Driver Rollback
7. Simple File Sharing (and a choice of regular in Pro version if you like that better) - I have seen a lot of FUD about this. It's not that hard to deal with it, and it's easier and safer for the unannointed, especially if you turn the Guest account for each machine on, change its name, give it a password, turn it off. (all computers with same guest name and password, obviously)
8. Simpler GUI-based time synchronization control over Win2K
9. Better functioning performance monitors that don't crap up the Event Viewer with sporadic whining about such-and-such didn't respond within allowed time and so on
10. Faster booting, self-optimization of startup routines
11. Better functioning defragger -- if you think it's necessary
12. Wider hardware support
13. ICF - better than none-at-all
14. A pretty damned good help system! An intelligent and interested niece watched me use it to look for some info just one time and has been fixing all of her family's problems (save one) since then!
15. Decent picture-handling, especially with the little power toy thingy. More convenient paging through pictures in a directory than waiting for the browser to come up for each picture in Win2K. Yeah, I know about third party stuff like IrfanView, but it's nice not to have to install something to get some of the basic functionality.

These are just off the top of my head. They make WinXP a lot easier to manage for other people, and they make it easier to use personally. Some of these features can be very useful to a network / domain admin, too.

Ernie

 

[Sunner]

Originally posted by: 8ballcoupe
I think there are a lot of things that WinXP does better than Win2K.

1. Remote Desktop / Remote Assistance - This has saved me a lot of trips to friends' / relatives' houses.
Faster and better than the third party alternatives. Works just great over dial-up.

May well be, I've never had any need for it.

2. Superior Runas service with ability to save credentials

Same as above

3. A lot of "pre-fab" policies, some of which are very useful

Same as above

4. Fast User Switching -- I don't use it, but it's nice for multiple family users on one computer. Junior can print out his homework without making Dad log off.

I can see how this would be useful

5. System Restore - Win2K's reliance upon an ERD diskette that doesn't work half the time is annoying.

Never used

6. Driver Rollback

Never used

7. Simple File Sharing (and a choice of regular in Pro version if you like that better) - I have seen a lot of FUD about this. It's not that hard to deal with it, and it's easier and safer for the unannointed, especially if you turn the Guest account for each machine on, change its name, give it a password, turn it off. (all computers with same guest name and password, obviously)

Hate it, maybe it's useful, but not to me

8. Simpler GUI-based time synchronization control over Win2K

I tried using it, but for some reason it doesn't like my Linux NTP server, so I had to go 3'rd party

9. Better functioning performance monitors that don't crap up the Event Viewer with sporadic whining about such-and-such didn't respond within allowed time and so on

Never had a problem with 2K's(aside from the fact that the general troubleshooting tools sucks in both 2K and XP, but that's for another thread

10. Faster booting, self-optimization of startup routines

I rarely turn my computer off, this is nice, but very very minor

11. Better functioning defragger -- if you think it's necessary

Didn't know that, but I'll take your word for it, good thing

12. Wider hardware support

As always with a new OS, just a function of the OS being newer(well not entirely, but you get my point)

13. ICF - better than none-at-all

Never used, no comment

14. A pretty damned good help system! An intelligent and interested niece watched me use it to look for some info just one time and has been fixing all of her family's problems (save one) since then!

I tried using it once or twice, never gave me very good help, but then, my problems were more of the kind that you'd Google for anyway, so I guess that's to be expected

15. Decent picture-handling, especially with the little power toy thingy. More convenient paging through pictures in a directory than waiting for the browser to come up for each picture in Win2K. Yeah, I know about third party stuff like IrfanView, but it's nice not to have to install something to get some of the basic functionality.

I agree, the picture viewer is very nice, a few minor complaints, but overall it's a very handy program

These are just off the top of my head. They make WinXP a lot easier to manage for other people, and they make it easier to use personally. Some of these features can be very useful to a network / domain admin, too.

Ernie

Now, the point isn't that XP isn't better than 2K, for some purposes it will be, as you've shown, the point is that for a great many people, it just doesn't have very many benefits over 2K, I'm one of those people.
To say that "you'll be left behind" and other such stuff is just nonsense.
The switch from NT4 to 2K brought alot of benefits for most anyone, 2K to XP isn't anywhere near as great an upgrade.

 

[Canterwood]

The things you listed 8ball, are only a benefit IF you use them or want them.

I personally don't like having stuff installed by default which I dont need or can get a third party app for.
Also most third party stuff I use is free and better or as good as XP's.

Its all a matter of taste, but I actually like the fact that 2K doesn't come bloated with stuff, and allows me to install which apps I want.
IMO the user should have a choice during setup which apps to install on XP Pro.

XP is great for your average nooby user with its wizards and stuff, but I dont want that.
Don't get me wrong, I have tried XP extensively, but things bug me in it and I find 2K more usuable and stable overall.

But thats just my personal eXPerience.

 

[Unforgiven]

i have to agree that remote desktop is a nice feature of xp. we run that here at work and pcanywhere on other computers and the remote desktop is much faster. granted im not one of those that uses it but others do and from what ive seen its very fast.

 

[8ballcoupe]

Now, the point isn't that XP isn't better than 2K, for some purposes it will be, as you've shown, the point is that for a great many people, it just doesn't have very many benefits over 2K, I'm one of those people.
To say that "you'll be left behind" and other such stuff is just nonsense.
The switch from NT4 to 2K brought alot of benefits for most anyone, 2K to XP isn't anywhere near as great an upgrade.

Yup, I never said anything about anyone being left behind, but I do think that WinXP is a better finished piece of work. There are some important things about it that just work better than their counterparts in Win2K -- wireless networking and power management (especially for laptops), for instance.

There's a lot of that stuff in WinXP that I don't use on my personal systems, too. My point was that WinXP is a great OS to support. If you have to install a Windows OS on a system that YOU are going to have to support, WinXP is the way to go.

Ernie

 

[Sunner]

Originally posted by: 8ballcoupe

Now, the point isn't that XP isn't better than 2K, for some purposes it will be, as you've shown, the point is that for a great many people, it just doesn't have very many benefits over 2K, I'm one of those people.
To say that "you'll be left behind" and other such stuff is just nonsense.
The switch from NT4 to 2K brought alot of benefits for most anyone, 2K to XP isn't anywhere near as great an upgrade.

Yup, I never said anything about anyone being left behind, but I do think that WinXP is a better finished piece of work. There are some important things about it that just work better than their counterparts in Win2K -- wireless networking and power management (especially for laptops), for instance.

There's a lot of that stuff in WinXP that I don't use on my personal systems, too. My point was that WinXP is a great OS to support. If you have to install a Windows OS on a system that YOU are going to have to support, WinXP is the way to go.

Ernie

The left behind thing was a reference to Smilin's post.
I do my best to avoid supporting PC's, people screw them up no matter if it's 2K or XP(or Linux, or Solaris, or BSD, or....).

I guess I could pick up a VAX /w VMS from EBay and hand it to someone, they'd probably have a hard time messing it up

 

[8ballcoupe]

I do my best to avoid supporting PC's, people screw them up no matter if it's 2K or XP(or Linux, or Solaris, or BSD, or....).

If I were wise I would try to avoid supporting them, too.

I guess I could pick up a VAX /w VMS from EBay and hand it to someone, they'd probably have a hard time messing it up

Or keeping it from crushing their feet when you handed it to them, for that matter.

Ernie

 

[Sunner]

Originally posted by: 8ballcoupe

I do my best to avoid supporting PC's, people screw them up no matter if it's 2K or XP(or Linux, or Solaris, or BSD, or....).

If I were wise I would try to avoid supporting them, too.

I guess I could pick up a VAX /w VMS from EBay and hand it to someone, they'd probably have a hard time messing it up

Or keeping it from crushing their feet when you handed it to them, for that matter.

Ernie

Best of all, if they ever got it up and running, I could honestly say I have NO clue at all how to fix their problems with it

 

[Sianath]

To the person who guessed at the reason HT was better in XP than in 2000 (possible performance hit instead of gain) your reasoning was actually correct. It has everything to do with thread scheduling. Windows 2000 doesn't know the difference between a physical and logical processor, so thread scheduling can get backed up when trying to balance processor utilization between multiple processors when in reality, half of those processors are the same physical CPU.

Boot times were targeted to 15 second startup (vs the 45+ second startup in 2000). This of course excludes BIOS POST times (we can't control that) and if you have 3.5 billion apps running during startup.
We fixed old code in ntdetect, we allowed asynchronous loading of drivers, we don't require you to wait for networking prior to logon, etc.

The same code that works for boot optimization also applies to application launching during normal OS use. It handles tracking page faults during application loads to it can pre-load them in batches on the next launch. It also reorgs the files so we can take advantage of sequential disk IO instead of random seek, which is 100x faster than random (that's not a number I made up for exaggeration purposes).

The MFT has been performance-tuned (as part of the boot optimization work) as well.

There's also little things that have been updated to make life easier. Ever try and tab to complete a command-line statement in 2000 Pro? Let me know how that works out for you. (yes, it works in XP).

How about this?

OPENFILES /parameter [arguments]

Description:
Enables an administrator to list or disconnect files and folders
that have been opened on a system.

Parameter List:
/Disconnect Disconnects one or more open files.

/Query Displays files opened locally or from shared folders.

/Local Enables / Disables the display of local open files.
Note: Enabling this flag adds performance overhead.

Examples:
OPENFILES /Disconnect /?
OPENFILES /Query /?
OPENFILES /Local /?


How about Last Known Good actually having the ability to roll back a driver for you instead of just roll back the Current Control Set?

I'm also a big fan of the self-healing registry and the ability to repair corrupt registry hives.

There's many reasons to upgrade, and very few (solid) reasons not to. If you don't personally think it's worth the money then don't upgrade. Based on your environement, you may or may not find the new features worth it. I know that from a support standpoint, I much prefer to talk to people using XP than 2000.

I just wish the people in this thread would give solid opinions based on fact rather than rant and rave about <insert current pet-peeve here>.

 

[Smilin]

Just to clarify one tiny point:

I don't consider it "left behind" if you are running 2k and choose not to upgrade to XP until you have a reason (ie buying a new pc).

However, if you are doing a new install, need to purchase a new OS and for some reason choose 2k over XP then you are choosing to be left behind. Foolishness.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: Sunner

Originally posted by: 8ballcoupe

I guess I could pick up a VAX /w VMS from EBay and hand it to someone, they'd probably have a hard time messing it up

Or keeping it from crushing their feet when you handed it to them, for that matter.
Ernie

Best of all, if they ever got it up and running, I could honestly say I have NO clue at all how to fix their problems with it

The sad thing is, I probably could. Eek. Anyways, if you happen to pick up a VAX on eBay cheap, and you can't figure out who to give it to, PM me. Just watch out, some of those older ones require three-phase AC power. I'm not sure how well that would work in a residential setting.

Ahhh, VMS, the OS that will live forever. (Or at least stay "up" forever, as long as the hardware doesn't disintegrate out from under it while running.)

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: VirtualLarry

Originally posted by: Sunner

Originally posted by: 8ballcoupe

I do my best to avoid supporting PC's, people screw them up no matter if it's 2K or XP(or Linux, or Solaris, or BSD, or....).

If I were wise I would try to avoid supporting them, too.

I guess I could pick up a VAX /w VMS from EBay and hand it to someone, they'd probably have a hard time messing it up

Or keeping it from crushing their feet when you handed it to them, for that matter.

Ernie

Best of all, if they ever got it up and running, I could honestly say I have NO clue at all how to fix their problems with it

The sad thing is, I probably could. Eek. Anyways, if you happen to pick up a VAX on eBay cheap, and you can't figure out who to give it to, PM me. Just watch out, some of those older ones require three-phase AC power. I'm not sure how well that would work in a residential setting.

Ahhh, VMS, the OS that will live forever. (Or at least stay "up" forever, as long as the hardware doesn't disintegrate out from under it while running.)

Or you could run something decent on it.

There are actually plenty of _old_ VAXes in use still. A US .gov I visited had a microVAX that was about as old as I am. :Q