Windows 2000 may have quite literally saved the hard drive's life on this one, the OS is that good.
Posted by Contrantier@reddit | retrobattlestations | View on Reddit | 50 comments
TerminalCancerMan@reddit
A vastly underrated OS. It was a godsend for those of us with early aBit BP6s that wanted SMP on windows.
satsugene@reddit
Peak Windows, with XP in a close second.
Spinxy88@reddit
XP64 Beta was peak Windows. Anyone who was there knows what I'm talking about.
satsugene@reddit
True, if you could get drivers. Some vendors were slow to release them for 64-bit systems.
A lot of old applications also didn’t work if they had hard coded paths.
We had to downgrade a bunch to 32 (though almost no non-server machines in our institution had <4GB RAM at the time). Even most of the Windows servers were <=4GB.
aeon_inaz@reddit
I had it for my daily station for years and it was amazing
Spinxy88@reddit
Yeah the stable was great. Super lightweight in the time of Vista coming along eating up time on our expensive CPU's. The beta though. Omfg.
You've never experienced anything like it, everything had a problem, but it was like opened up the tolerance to errors to the max so you could fudge out answers. It was like being on the wild west frontiers of hardware development, every patch roll out caused bugs here there and everywhere.
I loved every minute though, weird to say but it was great fun.
Dumbass_Saiya-jin@reddit
Agreed. I got a Dell Dimension from a church fundraiser sale that wouldn't boot into the OS from the hard drive. I installed Windows 2000 to it, and it works great. Granted, it had Windows Millenium originally, of course.
coltonreddit@reddit
Never mess with the rock solid reliability! That'll keep that drive going for at least a bit longer, def keep tabs on the SMART data
Contrantier@reddit (OP)
Seriously, with a bloated slowed down XP then drive was clicking 1/3 of the time I tried to boot.
Had it that way for years, reinstalled once or twice and it clicked less, more like 1/4 of the times I tried to boot.
Installed windows 2000 in 2017.
Hasn't clicked since. Acts like a new hard drive even though it's been around since at least 2007 if not longer.
stonktraders@reddit
I remember with a 7200rpm hdd the boot time was like less than 2mins, not much slower than ssd these days.
And I love the start menu instantly showing EVERYTHING.
sa547ph@reddit
Programs were very small by today's standards.
A Win98 or 2000 installation will boot fast provided it's properly optimized, and after you got rid of the bloatware.
ThruMy4Eyes@reddit
98/2000 didn't come with any bloatware...
sa547ph@reddit
Third-party programs, however, that come with the PC.
TheFanumMenace@reddit
SSD takes like 10 seconds
Lord_Frick@reddit
Was it raw xp wdym instantly showing everything
stonktraders@reddit
The cascading menu, showing all the programs at once and allows you to find them with cursor movements only. In XP it became an option to use as ‘classic menu’. Modern Windows requires you to click through layers of menus or using search function to find the program I installed, and separately if there’s associated programs from the same publisher
philophilo@reddit
Was is raw XP, or XP with service packs. Raw XP is blazing fast, but has some serious vulnerabilities.
fenixthecorgi@reddit
SP2 is almost a sweet spot. SP3 is basically using Vista’s kernel afaik
dagelijksestijl@reddit
SP1 is perfectly fine when running an Athlon XP or Pentium 4. Supports large IDE disks as well.
Lord_Frick@reddit
Not true. Kernel was still the same 5.1 kernel.
Contrantier@reddit (OP)
I think it was SP2 at the time. But it also got viruses pretty easily because I was horrible at online safety. Even then, the drive still only partially seemed to recover after reinstalling. I eventually tried 2000 because it felt like it would be a more lightweight system for the poor thing.
ThruMy4Eyes@reddit
sounds like you need to run both a surface scan, and a zeroed-wipe of that hard drive to write or revive all the bad sectors.
Contrantier@reddit (OP)
Why? It's been fine for years. I also can't reinstall Windows 2000 if I wipe it. I'll leave it the way it is.
LooseSpare3987@reddit
Unfortunately, I only ever experienced 2000, Millennium Edition. Fond memories like out typing the speed of the Gateway branded QVC special and having to defrag far too often in my chunk of shared family pc time flood back to me now.
Lord_Frick@reddit
2000 and millenium edition were completely different products. ME was DOS based, 2000 is NT based.
Contrantier@reddit (OP)
Never tried ME on hardware, but I've always wanted to.
ThruMy4Eyes@reddit
you're not missing much. it's basically 98 with less DOS support, better USB support, and slight graphical changes to the UI theme.
Contrantier@reddit (OP)
Hey, little things like that couldn't stop me. I'd still like the experience. I've done a LOT of installations of even beta Windows systems like Whistler and Longhorn. Millennium Edition would be just another piece of fun.
rk1213@reddit
why torture yourself
Contrantier@reddit (OP)
On hardware wouldn't be as bad as on a VM. And a few people have said it runs good for them, so they might have just been lucky.
My usage on older Windows systems is pretty light. Nothing heavy duty that has a higher chance of crashing a system, even one like Windows ME.
Loden2068@reddit
Is that because you never turn it on? 🤣
Contrantier@reddit (OP)
No, I use it a lot. I'm confused, are you telling a joke or being scornful?
Loden2068@reddit
It was meant in fun. I think it’s great!
Contrantier@reddit (OP)
Okey dokey. Yeah, might as well nickname Windows 2000 the Dr. Watson itself, kuz it pulled my HDD out of the grave lmao
Loden2068@reddit
Please tell me Chippy still works
Contrantier@reddit (OP)
"Chippy"?
Loden2068@reddit
Clippy
Contrantier@reddit (OP)
Oh. Well, weird thing, I installed Word 98 (not on this OS but a different one) and made sure Office Assistant was enabled and everything, and for the life of me, I can't get Ol' Clippy to appear. Not sure how to make it happen. On Windows 2000 though, I have Word 2000 installed.
rk1213@reddit
my old gateway laptop had 3 dead hdds while it ran Win ME After upgrading to 2k, I used it without any problems until EOL.
koolaidismything@reddit
I used win2000 til XP Service pack 2 came out.
Best OS the made imo. It was like NT with consumer level networking and drivers. It was sick.. it was like having all the keys.
I miss that and old school Day Of Defeat. We had walkie talkies so even our team didn’t know the plan
swagmastersond@reddit
I have a Win11 machine, a Win10 machine, an 8.1 Machine, a 7 machine, a couple XP machines and a 98SE machine. I really need to get a Windows 2000 machine! That's my next priority. (After re-capping my SE/30)
Lord_Frick@reddit
Noice
Bluentes69@reddit
Explain
linkslice@reddit
Win2k was my fave Microsoft os.
decoycatfish@reddit
It's the only Windows I ever paid full price for
linkslice@reddit
I got it free because Microsoft came onsite when I worked at zones.com and gave away a bunch of swag including full licensed disks of win2k. Even then I was a Linux/Mac dork. But 2k was nice.
decoycatfish@reddit
Wow nice! I believe I have my win2k disc around somewhere; the cover art haf this neat holographicy thing going on.
I still daily drive windows unfortunately - mainly because I do a lot of CAD work professionally and recreationally. But who knows maybe this newest freecad RC is as good as some say (doubt.jpg)
noitalever@reddit
2000 was so good and stable. I think it honestly was the last operating system that I would consider what an operating system should be. A stable shell that you can use to run other programs. Windows anyway.
machacker89@reddit
Ahh the classics
royaltrux@reddit
Honestly, my first favorite OS that deserved that opinion. (Maybe Amiga Workbench did, no, it had issues, too.)