VOGONS


First post, by tincup

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I have no experience at all with Win2k but from time to time I hear W2k described as the 'ne plus ultra' of the pre-XP familiy.

My question is: how good is it as a W9x era game platform? Are finding drivers an issue? Do 'unnofficial' SP's exist, do you encounter significant compatibility issues?

Would a tricked-out W98se system benefit from a switch to 2K?

I know that the W9x ram limit is overcome so I suspect performance is better - but what are peoples thought's about it generally?

Reply 1 of 13, by Jorpho

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As always, it comes down to a question of what, exactly, you want to play. Win2k is definitely more stable than Win9x, but Win9x is definitely much more compatible with some things than Win2k.

Certainly, Win2k is less secure than XP, but it's probably more secure than Win9x.

Anything you would consider running on 9x or 2k that requires more than 512 MB of RAM is probably best left for a modern system.

Reply 2 of 13, by idspispopd

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Windows 2000 is not based on Windows 9x, it belongs in the NT family, internally it is Windows NT 5.0.
IMO it is more like XP than like NT 4.0, and there were only two years between 2000 and XP. I think of it as XP minus some features and with somewhat lower requirements. Very stable, maybe even more stable than XP.

The last incarnation of Windows 9x was Windows ME. There are very different opinions on this version.

Reply 3 of 13, by ratfink

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I found 2000 clean and uncluttered, more compatible with later hardware than 98. Less eye candy than xp but has the same or similar tools.

Proper user accounts and security, but downside is those games needing admin privileges to run [neverwinter nights, black & white for example ] - never found a way around this.

Supports multiple cpu's [2 iirc] and treats dual cores or hyperthreading as twp physical cpu's too.

Most drivers for anything I'd use under 2000 use the same installation package for 2000 and XP.

Later gear may have xp drivers but no specific mention of 2k.

Reply 4 of 13, by Jorpho

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ratfink wrote:

Proper user accounts and security, but downside is those games needing admin privileges to run [neverwinter nights, black & white for example ] - never found a way around this.

Oh, that's easy – just use a FAT32 partition. 🤣

Reply 5 of 13, by Hater Depot

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As others have said, it is faster and much more stable. I can't remember ever experiencing a BSOD with it. I rarely used it for pre-1999 games but it certainly worked just fine with everything from 2000 to 2006 (that I tried).

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Reply 6 of 13, by tincup

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Nice... all this fills a *big* void in my knowlege. My interest in W2k was piqued in context of W9x era gaming - not post 2000/2001 - so the switch to 2K for my late W9x era retro box doesn't sound particulary called for now. And besides, I have a nice XP install to fall back on to cover the gap between W98se and W7/8.

Now what has me curious is going 2K in lieu of XP as the gap-filler... 'Clean and uncluttered' rank very high in my book, and as much as I loved XP as compared to 7 or 8 in this regard, 2K may be an even *better* fit for the early-mid 2000 era, and with more retro cred to boot... hmmm..

Reply 7 of 13, by Jorpho

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According to http://home.comcast.net/~SupportCD/XPMyths.html , XP is supposed to be faster than 2K provided you have enough RAM. I have not actually seen this in my own experience on my 512 MB machine for reasons I have never quite gotten to the bottom of, but there it is.

There was a lot of fuss made over the resource consumption of the Themes service when XP first came out, but I think that was addressed in later service packs, and the Themes service can be completely disabled anyway.

Reply 8 of 13, by jwt27

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Win2K is IMO the best OS Microsoft ever released. It's basically a no-nonsense version of XP. "clean and uncluttered" is a good way to describe it. Performance on 2K is also much better than on 9x (see the SuperPi thread).
Too bad newer programs, compiled with the latest Visual C, won't run on it without some serious DLL mixing.

Reply 9 of 13, by tincup

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jwt27 wrote:

...Too bad newer programs, compiled with the latest Visual C, won't run on it without some serious DLL mixing.

It's always something! Looks like I'll hold with my tricked-out W98, reserve XP, and of course, Dos 6.22, W95osr2, XPsp3 and W7 [which I'm really liking - no W8 plans here..]

About to fire up a W98se P4/2.8 Asus Ps355-E build at this exact moment..

Last edited by tincup on 2013-05-22, 02:54. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 10 of 13, by d1stortion

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If you don't do anything in DOS in 98 I would switch to 2000. Should be pretty compatible with Win95 games and the UI is just a great bonus compared to XP. The fact that it's NT should also benefit overall performance, not just the far superior stability.

Reply 11 of 13, by SquallStrife

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ratfink wrote:

Supports multiple cpu's [2 iirc] and treats dual cores or hyperthreading as twp physical cpu's too.

It doesn't know about HT's structure though, so sometimes it makes dumb decisions about scheduling, and actually benefits from having HT disabled.

XP fixes this somewhat.

And of course, YMMV.

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Reply 12 of 13, by Jorpho

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d1stortion wrote:

If you don't do anything in DOS in 98 I would switch to 2000. Should be pretty compatible with Win95 games and the UI is just a great bonus compared to XP. The fact that it's NT should also benefit overall performance, not just the far superior stability.

It's no more compatible with Win95 games than XP, and XP's UI is practically identical if you disable the Themes service. And, certainly at least on a system with limited resources, Win9x solidly beats XP or 2K in terms of performance.

Reply 13 of 13, by d1stortion

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I believe it is slightly more compatible with old games than XP. I've had the occasional color problems with games such as MoO2 on XP which I can't recall having on 2k. May be CPU speed related as well though.

About the design thing. You can even switch to "classic" mode on Windows 7. Still it's not the same. Windows 2000 is pretty close to 98 aside from the font.

Also there are official 2k drivers for 3dfx cards. Not for XP. This may always come in handy on such a computer 😀