Internal debate... W2k or XP?

[AnitaPeterson]

Hi there,

I need some input from y'all.
I am building a new machine - SFF - and am debating whether I should use W2k or XP.

I'd normally use W2k (which is an OS I'm very pleased with), but long boot times and the obsolescence factor are two main concerns for me.

So I'm considering XP Pro or MCE... then again, I despise the automatic updates, needlessly complicated activation, the way I'm told "There are unused items on your desktop", the embedded WMP 8 (or whatever version it is) with DRM, and the general feeling that my machine is under MS control.

Are these annoyances "fixable", and don't represent an obstacle, or should I stay with W2k?

 

[CalvinHobbes]

I used to hate Windows XP and always used Windows 2000. Once I had XP at work, I started to like it and it was just as stable as W2K for me. I now have XP installed at home on 3 machines and it's been rock solid for me.

Activation is a one time thing.
You can turn off automatic notifications.

 

[JeffreyLebowski]

If you are "paranoid" then stay with Windows 2000. Keep using an inferior and slower product.
With Windows XP you can disable automatic updates, you can turn off the desktop clean up wizard. What's wrong with embedded media player? It doesn't prevent you from installing any other media player and setting associations. I have no feeling that MS is in control of my PC. Find a corporate edition and registration doesn't exist.

 

[Zucarita9000]

I've found that XP is equally good or even better than Win2k. I built my system last december, and is hasn't crashed once.

For a SFF, I would definetely consider MCE. MCE is just a software running on top of XP, so it's basically the same thing. XP has better hardware support for that kind of applications.

Unless you're using some legacy applications, there's no point on running 2k nowdays. But then again, it's personal preference.

 

[eggrole1]

I made the jump to XP pretty early and have never regretted it. If you are setting this up for a HTPC, you might want to look into some of the linux based solutions like MythTV. I have no experience with MCE, so can offer no opinion there.

 

[DennyD]

Originally posted by: AnitaPeterson
Hi there,
So I'm considering XP Pro or MCE... then again, I despise the automatic updates, needlessly complicated activation, the way I'm told "There are unused items on your desktop", the embedded WMP 8 (or whatever version it is) with DRM, and the general feeling that my machine is under MS control.

Are these annoyances "fixable", and don't represent an obstacle, or should I stay with W2k?

Hi... I work for XP Tech Support so I know what I'm talking about...
- Automatic Updates can be turned off or on; your choice
- Activation is quick and painless. During setup it will ask you if you want to activate. Yes or No. A no-brainer.
- The "Unused Items" can be turned off as well
- Media Player 9 or 10 now comes with XP. DRM is something Im not sure on but I've never had a problem with it.

Your machine would not be under MS control... Many people just believe whatever they hear about MS. Media Center Edition is nice (it's what I use) but takes maybe another 10 seconds to boot. But at the end of the day, XP has more to offer than Win2k.

my 2 cents
Dennis

 

[spherrod]

I have no experience with MCE (although what I hear sounds good!) but would definitely recommend XP over 2k

 

[Griffinhart]

Originally posted by: AnitaPeterson

So I'm considering XP Pro or MCE... then again, I despise the automatic updates,

No Windows XP machine requires automatic updates. You can set it to different levels or completely off.

needlessly complicated activation,

It's only "needlessly complicated" if you need to activate your copy more than once every 120 days. It takes seconds, especially on the initial setup, and just a few clicks of the mouse.

It is possible to get an activation screen if you make several hardware changes, but, it's just a couple of clicks. In the past 6 months since I installed XP on my current PC, I've installed a new NIC, Video Board, Soundboard, Scanner, Printer, DVD Burner and more RAM and have not been asked to re-activate yet.

the way I'm told "There are unused items on your desktop",

I don't care for that either, but, it only pops up once in a while and then it doesn't bother you again. At least I haven't seen it pop up in months.

the embedded WMP 8 (or whatever version it is) with DRM, and the general feeling that my machine is under MS control.

WMP9 is the default with version 10 available through a patch. But, DRM is not on by default. You need to turn it on to use DRM. I Ripped my entire CD collection with WMP and none of the 350+CDs have DRM on.

Are these annoyances "fixable", and don't represent an obstacle, or should I stay with W2k?

I personally like XP better than Win2K. And I really liked Win2K, even before it had a lot of drivers.

Win2K to XP is just personal choice really. But, MCE is an entirely different story. If you're wanting to do media Center stuff, I recommend MCE. It's not that you can't get other software to do most of MCEs functions, it that I find it very stable with an excellent 10 foot UI and it has some excellent funcitons.

 

[slothman]

Well I'm sorry to say, but Windows 2000 is not slower than Windows XP. In fact, it is the other way around. I have a 750Mhz Athlon system, dual boot with Windows 2000 and Windows XP. Even heavily tweaked, my XP system still feels way slower than my somewhat tweaked Windows 2000 OS. I think its mostly because of the extra bloat they have tied into the OS core which cannot be easily disabled or removed. This article proves my main point: http://www.w2knews.com/archive/w2knews-20011101.html

Also I am not biased either, I like all Windows OS's and all UNIX OS's.

 

[Fern]

I'm with slothman here. My testing with a triple boot system (98se, 2kpro & XP) showed XP the slowest to boot and shut down.

 

[timswim78]

You can turn off the "There are unused items on the desktop." It is called D3esktop Cleanup Wizard, and it is under the desktop properties.

 

[n0cmonkey]

There is almost no reason to use 2k these days.

 

[Link19]

There is a prgram called nlite you can use to strip out components you don't want in Windows XP from your installation. I use it and it works great. You can download it at http://nuhi.msfn.org.

 

[mendellj]

I have 2 machines, both with athlon xp1800+, 512MB of ram, WD80 GB hardrives. One has winXP and the other win2k. I think that the win2k machine boots faster, and has a more snappy feel to it. It generally feels faster, though I haven't ran benchmarks on both of them.

What reason is there to run XP over win2k?

Can the bloat be removed from winXP to make it perform the same as win2k?

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: mendellj
I have 2 machines, both with athlon xp1800+, 512MB of ram, WD80 GB hardrives. One has winXP and the other win2k. I think that the win2k machine boots faster, and has a more snappy feel to it. It generally feels faster, though I haven't ran benchmarks on both of them.

What reason is there to run XP over win2k?

Can the bloat be removed from winXP to make it perform the same as win2k?

In the ancient post right above yours there is a tool mentioned that removes stuff from the XP install.

Most of us don't have any lag or anything on our WinXP desktops. Maybe you still have all of the eye candy crap turned on.

WinXP better supports AMD64 chips. WinXP has a built in firewall.

 

[willstay]

Completely off topic : I thought this forum was male only zone. (But really happy to see female starting the thread).

I have a weird feeling that XP (and Windows 2003) saves running instance of services for quick boot time. If not all the services, I can guarantee few of them for sure. Self test - Have a DNS server in your local network and point domain A.com to IP1. Browse A.com from XP and 2000. Shutdown both the computers. Now while these computers are down, change A.com to point to IP2. Start the computers and browse A.com. Windows 2000 will go to IP2 while XP will still try to go to IP1. So, here in XP, you have to restart 'DNS client' which is responsible to resolve A.com and it seems, XP just took off from the last shutdown point without actually restarting the service. Hence XP boots quicker. Once they have booted up, I don't see any speed difference. (Just remember there are lots of unnecessary services running in 2000 which you should carefully tailor for better performance).

 

[MrChad]

Originally posted by: willstay
Completely off topic : I thought this forum was male only zone. (But really happy to see female starting the thread).

I have a weird feeling that XP (and Windows 2003) saves running instance of services for quick boot time. If not all the services, I can guarantee few of them for sure. Self test - Have a DNS server in your local network and point domain A.com to IP1. Browse A.com from XP and 2000. Shutdown both the computers. Now while these computers are down, change A.com to point to IP2. Start the computers and browse A.com. Windows 2000 will go to IP2 while XP will still try to go to IP1. So, here in XP, you have to restart 'DNS client' which is responsible to resolve A.com and it seems, XP just took off from the last shutdown point without actually restarting the service. Hence XP boots quicker. Once they have booted up, I don't see any speed difference. (Just remember there are lots of unnecessary services running in 2000 which you should carefully tailor for better performance).

XP initializes a number of devices in parallel rather than serially, improving startup performance.

Article on XP performance improvements

 

[willstay]

Very interesting article on XP. The prefetch feature of XP came to me with an awe.