commenting on a few comments along the way...
2000 definitely handles memory better... ever notice how in win9x you have around 92% system resources available immediately after a fresh boot, and then you open a program like photoshop or netscape or word, and then you use it for a while, and then you close it, and you expect to have 92% resources again, right? nope. now you're down to about 85%... use the computer for a whole day and you're down in the 60-70% range... use it for a few days and you're even lower.. solution.. reboot.
with win2000 when you close that app, you're pretty much back to the same amount of free memory as before you opened it. that's why i can run my dual-processor 2k box for over 2 months without a reboot (that's right, 2 months, under daily, heavy use).
terreapart:
stability and saying 2000 never crashes... again, same 2000 box, never had a crash yet. okay, i'll admit, netscape crashed on me once when i it some unfriendly javascript, but that was it, *netscape* crashed, not the whole OS, and it just dumped out and let me open it back up again, while 2000 just kept on going throughout the whole thing...
terreapart:
severe crash in NTFS how do you plan to fix it... well, anyone who has used NTFS for a while knows that you install a 25Mb FAT partition as C: and then a whatever-Gb NTFS partition as D: and install NT/2000 onto that partition, so that a bootdisk will indeed work in cases of emergency, taking you to the C: drive... then you can recover what you need from the NTFS partition... cool, huh?
as far as backing up to tape... well, maybe, maybe not... but all you *really* need to do is install your system as FAT, install all your software and non-changing apps (always install your email onto another drive so your system drive *can* be reformatted if absolutely necessary) and then GHOST it onto another drive, saving an image of it... then convert it to NTFS and you have an original system image that saves you time reinstalling a new system... and again, as far as tape drives, i know a good number of people who do have tape drives at home because they value their data. tape drives are not very expensive these days. hell, the onstream drive is a few hundred bucks and hold 30+ Gb on a single cartridge...
as you, just playing devil's advocate..
if the original poster's machine is stable, and it performs all the functions he needs it to, then there is no reson to upgrade... however, if he needs a stronger and more secure networking environment, better serving capabilities, better crash-handling, then 2000 *might* become the way to go... or he could just switch over to some *NIX/*NUX flavor... in my experience, 2000 *is* certainly more stable, and from what i've seen, when it does have an app problem, that app's thread is killed without taking down the whole machine. i've run 2000 for close to 8 months now under heavy usage, and i kind of forget what a bluescreen is until i sometimes go back to my 98SE machine and use it for extended periods.. anyway, that's all.
-syf3r.