I agree. At this time, I see no need for Win2K. 98SE and XP cover all the bases. Also, XP is really just a minor upgrade from Win2K. It essentially is Win2K with some improvements.

However...

There may come a time when Win2K might make for an easier build vs WinXP. For example, I think MS is dropping ALL support for XP in June of next year. After that, I can see why somebody might choose Win2K over XP. You see, there is a very easy way to install Win2K without a key and it also does not require activation. That is the only advantage I can see over WinXP. Otherwise, in all ways XP is the superior OS.

(Note: If you can find an Enterprise/Corporate version of XP, that would be best. That version requires a key, but does not require activation.)

My advice: Start making notes of which patches you need for XP and start saving copies now. I've got three upcoming XP builds I need to do and I intend to use them as examples for which updates are needed. I've already done this for Office 2003, but XP requires so much more.

At some point, I'm sure either MS or somebody else will come up with a way around activation if they should ever discontinue that service.

Compared to 98SE:
Higher cpu/memory requirements
Stable
Driver issues if hardware is not compatible with 2000.
Compatible with most windows games except for some 9x games which are incompatible.
NTVDM not recommended. Use DOSBox but if CPU is too slow then use NTVDM with vdmsound\Virtual PC\Vmware, etc and/or dual-boot with DOS.

Compared to XP:
Less bloat.
Lower memory requirement.
Better user interface. (not fugly like XP)

Compatibility is pretty much the same except for the past couple of years devs have dropped 2000 support you'll need to use API wrappers to run XP+ programs and games.

XP patches have been backported to 2000 by the community and are still ongoing but XP is more secure since at least some patches will be offered for that OS until 2019 and any patches backported to 2000 will take awhile.

If you check my compatibility list you'll see that the "just works" games outnumber 2000 but the "games with problems" are higher for 2000. So if you want less work trying to get XP+ only games to work then go with XP.

Activation was solved long ago so that isn't a issue and shouldn't stop you from using XP.

Windows 2000 is the NT successor: excellent as a server.

Having just finished a W2k build I'd mostly agree with DosFreak's sentiments - it's a very similar OS to XP, but it's lighter and has more "businessey" features in lieu of all the hand-hold wizards. I haven't honestly noticed a huge difference in "idle" memory footprint between my 2k SP4 and XP SP1 builds, but with SP2 (and *especially* SP3) that situation changes.

Personally my feeling is that for relatively powerful machines, especially with newer hardware, XP is probably the better choice. But 2000 is a good alternative to 98SE for machines from around the Y2K era; especially SMP boxes.

I used Win2k for gaming up to the point where new games needed the DirectX that only XP offered. 2K was more stable then 98 and needed less RAM then XP. These days I mostly use 2k on laptops that won't run XP well because of RAM limitations and anything with multiple processors that's too new for NT4 and too old for XP. Also depends on drivers for exotic hardware.

There's also a few situations where a shipped video driver provided by Windows 2000 is faster and more stable than the latest available for Win98 and SciTech Display Doctor (Chips & Technologies mainly, so older PentiumMMX-era laptops with those will definitely get a Windows gaming speed boost in 2000)

Speaking with my own opinion so bear with me (and yes I prefer to install what I need and only what I like). I don't think it's good for anything now days BTW.

Windows 2000 has a smaller footprint, very stable, and doesn't have a bunch of security holes with needless stuff stacked on top; it just gets to the point. XP is pretty, heavy, and has lots of stuff you probably will never use. XP Home edition is somewhat bearable but it's still overloaded compared to 2000 Pro IMO (had a friend pester me to install XP Pro despite recommending Home, because he said it was more stable. Don't understand why he said that). Windows 2000 just seems more suited to serious PC users at home (no kiddies allowed 😀).

As far as retro purposes, I'd say 98SE topples 2000. Seriously, any game that is designed for 2000/XP should run no problem on Windows 7 (Doom 3 comes to mind). 2K is as bad as XP for glide capability, DOS games, and old DirectX titles like Resident Evil 1. 98SE will probably bench higher than 2K on a single core cpu too; 2K is a lot heavier than 9X. I just don't see the point in using 2k for retro purposes. Linux blows away 2k as far as anything old with dual pentium pros...

I bet those who migrated from 2000 to Vista 64 felt pretty happy without XP; they might've even went with a server OS instead of Vista actually... It's a pity there's no more Desktop OS's like 95 or 2000 from Microsoft (lightweight and letting the user choose what to install); at least there's Server 2008 (thanks Microsoft... 😜). If it wasn't for Microsofts' recent desktop OS's, I wouldn't be hoping for Steam OS to take over (seriously, how can you force something like the WINSXS folder sucking up 1-100GB or more HD space I could be using for music and games, along with indexing services and what not down everyone's throat?! Can you say pathetic?). An OS is supposed to open up a PC to users, so they have the power to use a PC and all its hardware however they see fit, not take it away from them!

What is all this fuss about XP looking ugly? Deactivating the Themes service is trivial and afterwards it looks just like 2K.

Bypassing activation in XP is also trivial.

Holering wrote:

Windows 2000 has a smaller footprint, very stable, and doesn't have a bunch of security holes with needless stuff stacked on top; it just gets to the point.

XP has had many extra years of patches at this point and is likely to be considerably more secure.

(seriously, how can you force something like the WINSXS folder sucking up 1-100GB or more HD space I could be using for music and games, along with indexing services and what not down everyone's throat?! Can you say pathetic?).

Hard drive space has never been cheaper and I'm sure the overwhelmingly vast majority has no idea how big their WINSXS folder is, nor do they care. It presents a solution, albeit not a particularly elegant one, to compatibility woes of the past. I have no idea what you mean about "indexing services".

An OS is supposed to open up a PC to users, so they have the power to use a PC and all its hardware however they see fit, not take it away from them!

What on Earth gave you that idea?

I used 2k on one of my rigs years ago, and I wasn't really impressed to be honest. It was slow to boot, slow to shutdown. The only advantage I saw was that I didin't need to activate it.
I like XP better, but having a 2k machine does sound nice, especially fitted with hardware that XP doesn't support anymore.

For speed and stability, nothing beats Windows 2000 IMHO.

Holering wrote:

98SE will probably bench higher than 2K on a single core cpu too; 2K is a lot heavier than 9X. I just don't see the point in using 2k for retro purposes. Linux blows away 2k as far as anything old with dual pentium pros...

Win2K tends to score a bit higher in general purpose CPU/RAM benchmarks (check the SuperPi thread). For gaming benchmarks and in-game performance, I don't know. I'm inclined to say 2K would be faster since it's more efficiently designed (no bloated shell on top of 16-bit DOS) but I think the graphics card drivers are the main bottleneck. Driver support for 9x used to be better which is why 2K was always regarded as "slow" for gaming, but this changed when XP was released and hardware manufacturers started to optimize their NT drivers.

I just discovered this the hard way after finding a Hoontech YMF744 card. Turns out Yamaha never bothered to finish their 2K/XP drivers so now I'm missing out on all the cool features like EAX/A3D/DSound3D.

jwt27 wrote:

For gaming benchmarks and in-game performance, I don't know. I'm inclined to say 2K would be faster since it's more efficiently designed (no bloated shell on top of 16-bit DOS)

Good heavens. You would have to seriously twist the meaning of the word "bloated" to conclude that 2K is less "bloated" than 98SE.

It might be said that the reason 2K is so much more stable is because the OS does so much more to prevent applications from directly accessing the hardware.

but I think the graphics card drivers are the main bottleneck. Driver support for 9x used to be better which is why 2K was always regarded as "slow" for gaming, but this changed when XP was released and hardware manufacturers started to optimize their NT drivers.

Or maybe by the time XP was released, people stopped using the older hardware they tried to run Win9x on. With low amounts of RAM, Win9x will run circles around 2K/XP.

Jorpho wrote:

Good heavens. You would have to seriously twist the meaning of the word "bloated" to conclude that 2K is less "bloated" than 98SE.

It might be said that the reason 2K is so much more stable is because the OS does so much more to prevent applications from directly accessing the hardware.

Right. No kidding... 2k/xp also run applications in seperate DLLs. DLLs literally work like a virus in 2k/xp haha (they multiply themselves). Ironically it's more stable. Also, drivers are nowhere near what they used to be in 95. They're mostly wdm drivers; that means fatter, more complex, and higher level drivers that have to interface with acpi calls and other Windows must-do features. Vxd drivers still work in 98 (thankfully) , so you can use drivers that operate closer to metal. Vxd drivers can interface with kernel directly, do dangerous things, and access hardware directly; pretty much the same as DOS drivers hehe, except they work through 9x's vmm.

Holering wrote:

2k/xp also run applications in seperate DLLs. DLLs literally work like a virus in 2k/xp haha (they multiply themselves).

I have increasingly little idea of what you are talking about.

Ironically it's more stable. Also, drivers are nowhere near what they used to be in 95. They're mostly wdm drivers; that means fatter, more complex, and higher level drivers that have to interface with acpi calls and other Windows must-do features.

When compatibility is not a concern, I'll take stability any day.

There's really not much of a debate to be had over 98SE vs. anything; you still need 98 for some things (a lot of older pre-DX8/9 games). But if it's a question of 2k vs XP; then I'd go with 2k. First, XP SP3 and beyond just plain broke compatibility with a LOT of legacy stuff. Drivers beside, there are just certain games that never ran right after SP2/3. The kernel changed and a lot of other low level stuff. There's a good reason XP Mode shipped as a stripped down SP2 install. I've also seen this compatibility problem with industrial and workstation software.

So there are many advantages of going with Win2000 SP4 as a base:

* Same drivers as XP usually.
* Supports most legacy hardware out of the box (SP4).
* Possibility to boot from SATA (F6).
* Large disk support was figured out by then (137GB).
* Extremely stable, easy to recover from crashes.
* Much smaller footprint than XP.
* Update rollups & unofficial updates are very complete and far smaller than SP3 + all XP updates.
* No activation stuffs!
* Better game compatibility than XPSP3. NTVDM is approx the same as SP1.
* Measurably better performance on low end hardware.

duralisis wrote:

So there are many advantages of going with Win2000 SP4 as a base

Why not just dual-boot Win98SE and WinXP SP3? Then you'll truly have the best of both worlds.

I'm currently building a WinXP SP3 partition on one of my systems, an IBM NetVista A40:
Pentium III 1000 Coppermine
512MB RAM
3DFX Voodoo 3 3000 AGP
SoundBlaster Live! Value CT4830

I'm only halfway through building it, but WinXP SP3 seems to run decently on this machine. Back around 2006, I used to run Win2K SP4 on this same machine. I remember it running quite poorly. I would say that it feels like XP SP3 is running much better than Win2K ever did on this PC. Of course, I have no benchmarks to back up this claim. I'm also not going to build a Win2K partition to test it out.

I'm using Plop Boot Manager to accomplish this setup. Works really good. I highly recommend it.

The XP partition will be for Internet browsing and productivity, Office apps, etc. The Win98SE partition will be for games.

I never liked XP. I ran Windows 2000 until late 2003 when I bought an LCD monitor and wanted to use ClearType fonts. I can't believe nobody ever managed to hack cleartype support into 2000. Everything else about XP pissed me off.

I remember trying XP on my system around the time it came out. The system specs were quite a lot higher than 2000. 2000 was comfortable on a 200MHz CPU with 128 or 256mb of ram (later). Windows XP needed at minimum 512mb of RAM and at least a 500MHz CPU. At the time I had a 700MHz CPU and it still felt slow.

XP is full of bloat. Anytime I install it I end up having to disable loads and loads of useless crap. Windows 2000 was the true successor to NT4. Infact, I believe it was still called NT5 shortly before release. Windows XP was basically a dumbed down and bloated version designed for the masses. Windows 2000 was a real operating system. Windows XP was a toy.

To this day I don't understand all the praise heaped on XP. Sure, it was long lived. Not because it was good, but because Vista was even more of a turd.

Anonymous Coward wrote:

I never liked XP. I ran Windows 2000 until late 2003 when I bought an LCD monitor and wanted to use ClearType fonts. I can't bel […]
Show full quote

I never liked XP. I ran Windows 2000 until late 2003 when I bought an LCD monitor and wanted to use ClearType fonts. I can't believe nobody ever managed to hack cleartype support into 2000. Everything else about XP pissed me off.

I remember trying XP on my system around the time it came out. The system specs were quite a lot higher than 2000. 2000 was comfortable on a 200MHz CPU with 128 or 256mb of ram (later). Windows XP needed at minimum 512mb of RAM and at least a 500MHz CPU. At the time I had a 700MHz CPU and it still felt slow.

XP is full of bloat. Anytime I install it I end up having to disable loads and loads of useless crap. Windows 2000 was the true successor to NT4. Infact, I believe it was still called NT5 shortly before release. Windows XP was basically a dumbed down and bloated version designed for the masses. Windows 2000 was a real operating system. Windows XP was a toy.

To this day I don't understand all the praise heaped on XP. Sure, it was long lived. Not because it was good, but because Vista was even more of a turd.

Technically,a minimal install of XP can run on a 233mhz CPU and 256mb but it won't be pleasant to use.

duralisis wrote:

First, XP SP3 and beyond just plain broke compatibility with a LOT of legacy stuff. Drivers beside, there are just certain games that never ran right after SP2/3.

Can you give an example? (There was that awful AUTOEXEC.NT business going around for a while that apparently no one ever got to the bottom of, but that was a fairly trivial fix and only affected the NTVDM anyway.)

There's a good reason XP Mode shipped as a stripped down SP2 install.

I can't seem to find any references to this. A quick Google seems to suggest everyone thinks XP mode uses SP3.

Anonymous Coward wrote:

I remember trying XP on my system around the time it came out. The system specs were quite a lot higher than 2000. 2000 was comfortable on a 200MHz CPU with 128 or 256mb of ram (later). Windows XP needed at minimum 512mb of RAM and at least a 500MHz CPU. At the time I had a 700MHz CPU and it still felt slow.

XP is full of bloat. Anytime I install it I end up having to disable loads and loads of useless crap. Windows 2000 was the true successor to NT4. Infact, I believe it was still called NT5 shortly before release. Windows XP was basically a dumbed down and bloated version designed for the masses. Windows 2000 was a real operating system. Windows XP was a toy.

There is a lengthy article at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb457057.aspx suggesting that with adequate system resources, Windows XP will outperform 2000.

What "loads and loads of useless crap" are you disabling, anyway? Perhaps you should consider making an installation CD with nLite if there are specific components you want to leave out.

jwt27 wrote:

For gaming benchmarks and in-game performance, I don't know. I'm inclined to say 2K would be faster since it's more efficiently designed (no bloated shell on top of 16-bit DOS) but I think the graphics card drivers are the main bottleneck. Driver support for 9x used to be better which is why 2K was always regarded as "slow" for gaming, but this changed when XP was released and hardware manufacturers started to optimize their NT drivers.

Can't speak to 98/2000 or 98/XP comparisons, because the hardware I used doesn't support 9x entirely (no video drivers), but 2000 vs XP in 3DMark01 is negligible on the same hardware. Memory consumption sitting on the desktop is also about similar with the same software loaded; the worst offenders for "bloat" are usually 3rd-party applications IME.

Out of curiosity I may switch some hardware out and repeat with 98/2000/XP at some point in the future, but that sounds an awful lot like work right now. 🤣