Author Topic: W2K (Read 2212 times)

MrSiD · « **Reply #15 on:** February 01, 2001, 04:43:00 PM »

I've heard alarming reports from several IT companies around my area.. They're ditching Win2k because of several problems.

Problems I've heard include erratical crashes with Office2000 products.. Serious fragmentation of harddrive (needs a looong defrag often to keep in condition..) And of course if you look at any gaming benchmarks produced with win2k you'll see that win98SE wipes w2k bellybutton by a healthy 50% back and forth..

If you don't have a special need for W2Krap, I'd leave it out of my box untill say, SP 4 =)

[This message has been edited by MrSiD (edited 02-01-2001).]

-lynx- · « **Reply #16 on:** February 06, 2001, 11:07:00 AM »

OK, anyone in the UK can lend me a Win98SE CD for an hour

? I promise to send it right back... I paid for the original version and no amounts of service packs could get the USB to work properly

.

DrSoya - how does one get a system to selectively boot?

Lephturn · « **Reply #17 on:** February 06, 2001, 12:58:00 PM »

MrSid, that's a load of BS.

NT4 and Win2k are both worlds better in stability than Win9x/WinMe will ever be. If you are going for stability on a Wintel platform, you go with the NT codebase. 'nuff said.

With DirectX 8.0 for Win2k available, the performance delta between Win2k and Win98 is pretty small. Sure, Win98 will be a bit faster (more like 10%, if that), but at the price of reduced stability.

I'm in the IT industry myself. In fact, the company I work for sells software for Win2k migrations. (http://www.fastlane.com) The industry-wide roll-out of Win2k is happening at an amazing pace, more than twice as fast as NT was rolled out. If the supposed "serious problems" you speak of were real, it would have slowed or stopped the Win2k roll-out. This had not happened.

Every IT support person I know is dying for a Win2k roll-out. It's just made everything so much easier. Sure, it's not perfect, but it's a big step up from supporting NT4!

Win2k still has some problems with USB support and control stick compatibility. If you can work around those, and have the hardware to run it (you NEED 256 Megs of RAM) Win2k is the way to go.

------------------
Lephturn - Chief Trainer
A member of The Flying Pigs http://www.flyingpigs.com

"A pig is a jolly companion, Boar, sow, barrow, or gilt --
A pig is a pal, who'll boost your morale, Though mountains may topple and tilt.
When they've blackballed, bamboozled, and burned you, When they've turned on you, Tory and Whig,
Though you may be thrown over by Tabby and Rover, You'll never go wrong with a pig, a pig,
You'll never go wrong with a pig!" -- Thomas Pynchon, "Gravity's Rainbow"

DrSoya · « **Reply #18 on:** February 06, 2001, 05:33:00 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by -lynx-:
OK, anyone in the UK can lend me a Win98SE CD for an hour ?

Well I did exactly the same thing. When my brother bought his PC it came with Win98SE. My Win98 serial number works with his Win98SE CD, so if the software allows it, then it's not a big deal, right?

It's not like there were major differences between Win98 and Win98SE.

Quote

DrSoya - how does one get a system to selectively boot?

You install Win9x first, then the Win2k installer will take care of that. When you boot you have a menu with a countdown (30 seconds by default, I changed it to 10). You can have either Win9x or Win2k (or NT4 for that matter) boot by default if you don't make a choice.

I'm an IT support guy myself, but a "generalist" (first line). The big guys decided last year to move to Win2k, it's going to be in a year to a year and a half (5 000+ PCs to migrate). I don't know if I can wait that long, I'm tired of having to support Win95A (yes, A) and a Banyan Vines network!

------------------
DrSoya
308 (Polish) Squadron "City of Cracow" RAF
Part of the Northolt Wing (First Polish Fighter Wing)

[This message has been edited by DrSoya (edited 02-06-2001).]

-lynx- · « **Reply #19 on:** February 07, 2001, 08:44:00 AM »

OK, attempt to install W2K yesterday on a brand new 46GB IBM deskstar.

Formatting in NTFS - WTF is NTFS and what's happened to the FAT32 it formatted the smaller HD earlier? (there was no option for FAT32 for formatting...)

I still don't want "Accessibility option" - I still never got asked any options for install other than keyboard layout.

Yikes - installing V5 drivers, it didn't recognise the card, installed generic VGA and then wouldn't let the darn thing go (V5 didn't start until 3rd or 4th reboot)...

Is it possible to format 46GB as one FAT32 disk at all?

Vermillion · « **Reply #20 on:** February 07, 2001, 09:01:00 AM »

NTFS - NT File System

Its a generally more stable way to write HD information that was developed with the NT OS.

------------------
Vermillion
**MOL**, Men of Leisure

-lynx- · « **Reply #21 on:** February 07, 2001, 09:30:00 AM »

Hmmm - more stable but would Win98 install on it?

MrSiD · « **Reply #22 on:** February 07, 2001, 09:55:00 AM »

Lephturn: I didnt claim W98SE was more stable, I told its game performance beats W2k back and forth!

It's tested several times with different benchmarks. For example Athlon 1.2Gig with GF2 scored less than 4000 with W2k and 7500+ with W98SE in 3DMark2000 - 'nuff said.
If the _home_ user has no real need for business class reliability, I don't see why anyone should freewillingly take that kind of performance hit to their machine.

Those problems I told about are real, and if you look at the problems reported (hd fragmenting etc.) theyre probably caused by too little amount of RAM. I guess the companies didn't want to start upgrading _all_ their student training computers just because of this new OS, even I don't have 256Megs of ram in my box and I see no need to buy 128 more because of W2k.

Ok, that user seemed to have 256M RAM so it might work for him.. Anyway, in my point of view for a home user W2k is still more a bag of problems than an advantage.

I'm currently administering NT4 in our company, and none of our IT people are too jumping about the arrival of W2k simply because we'll have to start upgrading most of our 6000 workstations when (and if) the shift happens. Majority of computers are still 2-3 years old and equipped with 64-128 Megs of RAM.

We use W2k currently only to a couple places where we need the flexibility of W2k in for example plugging new devices in at speed.

Don't tell me I'm full of toejam because that's not the case. Please.

[This message has been edited by MrSiD (edited 02-07-2001).]

MrSiD · « **Reply #23 on:** February 07, 2001, 10:00:00 AM »

And Lynx: the correct procedure for (double) installing W2k is to first install W98SE and after that install W2k as second OS.

You might consider partitioning your HD so that C: contains only system files, then D: E: etc. You may even install W98 to C: and then install W2k using D: partition.

I wouldn't want to have a 40+Gb HD in 1 partition.. Even defragmenting would be a pain in the ass. With multiple partitions you can always defrag a partition at a time when you feel the need for it.

Staga · « **Reply #24 on:** February 07, 2001, 10:05:00 AM »

Nope.

W2k can "Read" FAT16, FAT32 and NTFS but W98 only 16 and 32.

When installing W2K to FAT-form disk the installation asks if you want to use NTFS or stay in FAT.

EDIT: Too slow to type; This was answer to Lynx's post

[This message has been edited by Staga (edited 02-07-2001).]

Staga · « **Reply #25 on:** February 07, 2001, 10:17:00 AM »

I started to use W2K because for some reason AH crashed after 15min-1hour gameing.

I still have 60-70fps (1024*768/32bit) with P3 700@933 256Mb Gf2MX(oc'd)with Nvidia 6.34 drivers and Dx8a.

Some tests show W2K with Dx8 and good drivers are almost as good as 98.
If my fps drop from 80 to 60-70 I can live with it if I got more stable and safe system instead huge 3D-Marks

MrSiD · « **Reply #26 on:** February 07, 2001, 10:35:00 AM »

Staga: I'm glad to hear it worked out for you..

On the other hand, Aces High crashing in W98 is not normal, you had a problem which could have been solved without a new OS =)

Anyway, it seems the trend is to move to the new system, Microsoft is planning even to force people to do so.

Just seems a bit ridiculous how Windows consumes more and more resources.. There was a joke about similarities with viruses and Windows. There's a hidden truth to that joke ;-)

-lynx- · « **Reply #27 on:** February 07, 2001, 10:57:00 AM »

Thank you all - still need to borrow 98SE from somewhere... *sigh*

MrSid - I see your point about defrags, didn't think about it...

Quixote · « **Reply #28 on:** February 08, 2001, 04:22:00 PM »

BTW, I could imagine problems with Office2000 could result from the MS FindFast application/cancer/plague (take your pick). At best it's an annoyance, at worst it hogs memory, accesses your hard disk at the most inappropriate moments and might even go as far as trash your disk during heavy swapping. And the POS even gets installed by default!

qts · « **Reply #29 on:** February 08, 2001, 04:26:00 PM »

Some points to assorted posts:

1 - Windows 2000 has a hard-coded limit of 32 GB when *creating* FAT32 partitions. Workaround: use Win98 to create larger partitions.

2 - I work in corporate IS in the aerospace industry and Windows 2000 adoption seems to be quite slow on the server front only. As a workstation OS it is leaps and bounds above NT4. Rolling out a new OS is a major logistical exercise, and many IT departments will have only just finished the evaluation stage and started planning the roll-out.

3 - The X36 does not work correctly under 2000.

4 - NTFS vs FAT32. For home use, go for FAT32. NTFS may have some nifty features but it takes a lot to beat the ability to boot from a floppy and access the HDD.