WinXP vs Win2K

TerrorFirmer

Does anyone think there is any major difference or reason I should not install Win2000 over WinXP?

Basically I fubared my Sony Vaio last night by installing some dodgey forceware drivers with a modded inf file.

It (the vaio) came with a recovery partition, but no xp cd, so I had to reinstall win 2000 as the screen was completely blank on restart. It was a pain in the ass as the sony drivers took me ages to track down for my particular model, half of them didnt work, etc etc, - but by 4am this moring I had it sorted, all drivers working on win2000.

So am I alright to stay with Win 2000 do you think? I only really play old games that run on win2000 anyway on my laptop so that aspect is grand but is there anything else I'm missing? I tried to install my wifi card - and it said that minimum requirements were WinXP SP1! so that kinda sucks. but before I start installing all my older stuff back on the hard drive, is there anything else like this I should be wary of using Win2000? I can't tihink of any reason but then again I've been using xp for the best part of 5 years so I'm not too sure what limitations win2000 might place on me other then not being able to play some very new games.Don't want to install all my stuff and then be slapping my forehead going "doh!" further on down the line....

My specs are pentium m 1.7, 512 ram, geforce 6400

The Bollox

like what ahppens when every new OS comes out, they say the predecessor is 1,000,000 times better, it happened with WinXP, everyone said 2k was much better, safer etc... and now they are saying the Media Centre thing (whatever it's called) if the superior machine, no mention of 2k :rolleyes:

anyway I have XP professional and it is excellent, I had to, for a short while, downgrage to 2kProfessional and it was a pain in the @ss. the way I see it XP pro has all the stability and security of 2k pro, but the user friendlyness of XP.

so I would say look into XP Pro

Gurgle

HavoK wrote:

It (the vaio) came with a recovery partition, but no xp cd, so I had to reinstall win 2000 as the screen was completely blank on restart.

If you have a recovery partition, you don't need an XP CD.

But to answer your question, I always found Win 2k to be far better than XP.
At least when 2k went belly up, it could be fixed just by clicking 'New Task' and typing 'Explorer', no need to reboot or even shut down running programs. XP will ignore everything you do for 30 seconds and then offer to tell Microsoft that it crashed.

And afaik the XP drivers for any and all hardware will work under 2k.

(btw, I assume you are taking about 2k-pro, not ME?)

SouperComputer

bah, if it aint broke, dont fix it. Stick with 2k. You are a pretty clued-in user, so the "goodies" in XP SP2 wouldnt be a major advantage.

Personally of my windows usage I use 2k about 70% of the time, Vista 15 and 10% XP (not counting MCE in that though).

Over the years, from my own personal usage ive found 2K to be more stable for me. Its seen a lot of hardware changes (maybe as many as 15 mobos, from Slot1, thru Slot A, Socket A, S939 and currently S478, from ATA to SCSI and SATA drives) and syspreps, but is still very usuable. IE the same original install has been used since the Slot 1 PIII800 board.

In the same amount of time under the same circumstances, sitting on the same HD, XP both Home and Pro have crapped out on numerous occasions. Not a majorly technical breakdown, more of a subjective view.

OS X on the other has has been a champ Going from G3 to G4 to G5 laptop to desktop back and forth with no issues.

_CreeD_

Gurgle wrote:

If you have a recovery partition, you don't need an XP CD.

But to answer your question, I always found Win 2k to be far better than XP.
At least when 2k went belly up, it could be fixed just by clicking 'New Task' and typing 'Explorer', no need to reboot or even shut down running programs. XP will ignore everything you do for 30 seconds and then offer to tell Microsoft that it crashed.

And afaik the XP drivers for any and all hardware will work under 2k.

(btw, I assume you are taking about 2k-pro, not ME?)

You can do exactly the same in XP, and you can turn off event notification to Msoft.
ME is a version of Windows98, TOTALLY different beast to 2K so the 2 don't relate at all.

Win2k's Kernel (Core) is also labelled as NT 5.0xxxxx, XP's is NT 5.1xxxxxxx. XP is a refinement of 2K with some newer tools. The main advantage is that XP will have a much longer and richer support path through microsoft. It won't be long before you start seeing patches and the like for 2K begin to slow and disappear. Also XP loads faster. Other than that one is just about as stable as the other.

the_syco

Heh. You're worried about running future games with those specs o.O O.-

Seriously, tho, I'd say that with 512MB's, Win2K would run smoother then XP, tbh. Also, gimme the full name of the wifi card, model number, etc, and I'll see if I can get you a driver for it.

TerrorFirmer

Gurgle - thats the point. The forceware drivers did not install correctly - so the Laptop would not start up at all, I couldn't even get it into safe mode. So without an xp CD, there was nothing I could do not being able to see anything, even though I had the recovery partition.

Thats why I hate recovery partitions....

Anyway, I did have a Win2k Pro cd around, so I used that. I think I'll stick with win2K pro as well, thanks for the input lads.

And the Syco - I didn't mean future games, I meant current games - Battlefield 2 for example only runs on XP so I've already sacrificed that. And anyway, my laptop spec ain't that bad - even with the 512mb ram I can run Battlefield 2 on medium and Far Cry on high settings Another gig of ram and I'll be flying.

As for the wifi, I think I got that sorted, but I will get back to you if not...

The Sony Drivers are woeful - they are not only out of date, but one of them, the audio driver from the offical site, is corrupt - took me ages to track down a correct realtek audio driver that I found on a forum where some guy had the same problem. They also have absolutely no updates for the Geforce 6400 even though the last drivers are ancient either....hence why I was trying to install the forceware drivers in the first place...:D

But the vaio is so beautiful....

Anyway, thanks again lads!

the_syco

HavoK wrote:

And the Syco - I didn't mean future games, I meant current games - Battlefield 2 for example only runs on XP

Thats bull. I ran it on Win2K for awhile. The only reason I stopped was cos I upgraded to 64bit.

The ForceWare drivers.. were they VAIO Forceware drivers? If not, I think thats your problem: you installed the wrong drivers. I think the VAIO need their own drivers.

HavoK wrote:

Another gig of ram and I'll be flying.

Look in www.shop4memory.com They may stock VAIO ram.

HavoK wrote:

The Sony Drivers are woeful - they are not only out of date, but one of them, the audio driver from the offical site, is corrupt - took me ages to track down a correct realtek audio driver that I found on a forum where some guy had the same problem. They also have absolutely no updates for the Geforce 6400 even though the last drivers are ancient either....hence why I was trying to install the forceware drivers in the first place...

PM me, or put here, the model number of your VAIO, the current date of your current graphics driver, and I'll look around for an update.

zilog_jones

the_syco wrote:

Look in www.shop4memory.com They may stock VAIO ram.

Why do people think particular PC's need particular RAM? Any DDR SODIMM at a suitable speed should be fine. And I've found Komplett to be cheaper than them on a number of occasions.

I've kinda grown to like XP Pro more than 2k after using it a lot more at work in the past few months. There's a lot of little things that just work a lot better, or weren't there at all in 2k. XP Pro having a Remote Desktop server is a godsend, but isn't much use if you only have the one PC. It's a lot more customisable too.

Also, Win2k support ain't what it used to be. Office 2007 and IE7 won't install on 2k, neither will anything higher than MSN Messenger 7.0 and WMP 9. There's a lot of third-party programs that also won't install on 2k for apparently no reason - Adobe Premiere 7 and higher, video calling in Skype, (as you mentioned) BF2 - this list is only going to get bigger. And IIRC, MS are going to stop supporting win2k at the end of this year, so no more automatic updates!

SouperComputer

Why do people think particular PC's need particular RAM? Any DDR SODIMM at a suitable speed should be fine. And I've found Komplett to be cheaper than them on a number of occasions.

Becuase some controllers check for certain code on the SPD chip. Not all generic RAM works on Sony's, Dell's or Compaq's etc etc. Some models actually do require the correct module.

zilog_jones

Really!? I guess I've just got lucky with all the Dells and Compaqs I've stuck RAM in so far then, and that has been quite a lot (only a couple of laptops though).

SouperComputer

zilog_jones wrote:

Really!? I guess I've just got lucky with all the Dells and Compaqs I've stuck RAM in so far then, and that has been quite a lot (only a couple of laptops though).

Yea, its complete luck of the draw in terms of the board. More recently computers have been more flexible with their RAM but there are cases where the machine simply wont POST.

astrofool

I had one Dell which wouldn't work with a newer version of the same memory as it had installed (even down to the memory chip level). I also have an Optiplex GX110 downstairs that only operates with certain modules, which is a pain, as i've only got 256mb in it (its just a mail server however).

TerrorFirmer

Syco - I did not know Battlefield 2 ran on Win 2K - the game lists WinXP as minimum requirement so I took it as fact!

And about my gfx card, I was just making a general comment on the state of Sonys support - I used the latest Forceware drivers with a modded inf last night on the fresh install, and they installed fine - regular forceware drivers or omega drivers will not work.....crappy sony and their own driver support, which is seriously lacking!

Anyway, thanks again guys. I will live without the Win2K future support - this laptop is solely for older games, wolfenstein, call of duty, medal of honor, and will not be connected to the internet very often, or indeed used for anything other then gaming, so I'm not overly worried.

Playing Wolfenstein last night, running on 1280x800, textures on high, dynamic lighting etc, 100 frames a second, by god for a game thats 5 years old Castle Wolfenstein still looks absolutely incredible!

PS - I have never had trouble using different ram with dell pcs or laptops, but maybe I just got lucky....must remember to make sure I get something thats offically supported by the vaio to make sure I dont get caught though

thanks again lads

the_syco

zilog_jones wrote:

Why do people think particular PC's need particular RAM? Any DDR SODIMM at a suitable speed should be fine. And I've found Komplett to be cheaper than them on a number of occasions.

Well, since VAIO is not very updateable (I emailed Sony when looking into VAIO's, and they said that VAIO's either can't be upgraded, or use specific RAM).

Also, unless it mentions XP SP2, usually anything that says only XP, will run on Win 2K games/software wise. Saying that, some hardware will only run on XP, mainly the cheapest cheapo stuff, tho.