Windows 2000! - Computers - http://maxpages.com/nanotechnology/Windows

It’s surprisingly tough to people the best of both worlds when most of them are happy living in just one. Nevertheless, Microsoft has been wrestling for years with the self-imposed challenge of combining its two PC operating systems- to make the desktop-oriented windows 95/98 more like the corporate enterprise’s Windows NT in terms of reliability and security, and to make the ponderous NT more like its nimble cousin in terms of device support and ease of use.

Now, at last, Microsoft has managed to build the best features of Windows 98 into the ultrarobust NT architecture, giving us Windows 2000. In purely technical terms, this is good news for business users of all stripes- from the two-person home office where the bulk of small-business users today are reasonably content running business applications on Windows 98 (many still on Windows 95, for that matter).

This is stubbornly at odds with Microsoft’s plan to, having combined the operating systems, resplit them- or at least to divide the computing universe into work and play, positioning Windows 2000 as strictly for businesses and Windows 98 as just for consumer and entertainment applications. The company ha moved Windows 98 into its consumer division, and plans are already under way to morph the OS into a super-simple platform code-named Millennium-suited for games hardware and entertainment center.

The blind spot in Microsoft’s vision is that home-based businesses, telecommuters, and flex-time workers land squarely in the middle. Cheap PC’s high-speed Internet and E-mail access, and nascent home-networking technologies are making it easy to mix business with pleasure, to work from home a few days weekly or bring work home on nights and weekends. The line between business and consumer computing has never been fuzzier.

Fortunately for you, not even Microsoft has the strength to force the issue for the next years; Windows 98 and Windows 2000 remain similar enough today so that there’s really no wrong way to go. In the meantime, we’ll lay out the benefits of Windows 2000 so you can decide whether to climb aboard or stick with what you’ve got.

In a nutshell, Windows 2000 is impressive, but probably not alluring enough to convince you to switch from Windows 98. (Windows NT 4.0 users, however, will you want to upgrade with no hesitation.) If you’re planning on buying a new computer soon, though, you shouldn’t be surprised to find Windows 2000 preinstalled on midrange and high-end business systems, with Windows 98 relegated to low-end, consumer-oriented PCs. It’s not unlikely that you could wind up running a mix of both.

Many of the major changes in Windows 2000 are subtle, behind-the-scenes stuff, aimed at making the operating system more reliable, forgiving, and secure. Perhaps the biggest impact will come from Windows 2000’s built-in-protection against applications’ installation or setup routines’ nasty habit of overwriting or replacing critical system files. However, a few up-front improvements-including new features as well as enhancements to existing Windows NT spec- deserve attention, and might be compelling enough to convince you to upgrade.
Modest System Requirements

Unlike Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000 will work pretty well with most PCs on the market today, and many of those sold as far back as, say 1996. While Microsoft official “Windows 2000 Ready” campaign strongly suggests at least a 300 MHz Pentium-class desktop processor (233MHz for notebooks) with 64MB of memory, its proposed minimum system requirements dictate a 133MHz Pentium CPU with 32MB of RAM.

This means it’s not out of the question to run Windows 2000 Professional on many of today’s sub-$500 PCs. We installed the OS on an older Compaq Deskpro 166MHZ desktop with 32MB of RAM; it takes noticeably longer to boot than Windows 98, but we find it’s just as fast in every-day operation.

Works With Everything

Limited device was a sore spot with Windows NT, but Windows 2000 is catching up to Windows 98. For example, the new platform supports plug and-play devices and includes drivers for Universal Serial Bus (USB) and IEEE 1394 FireWire peripherals. Bob Visse, product manager for Windows 2000 Professional, says that as of the Beta 3 release, Microsoft engineers had certified 7,000 hardware devices as compatible, and that number keeps growing every day. While Visse can’t promise that the new operation systems will support as many hardware add-ons as Windows 98, he says it should be close.

Windows 2000 may even work with some business-class devises that won’t work under Windows 98, such as remote access server modem cards, asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) network adapters, and gigabit Ethernet (1,000) networking cards. In our tests, we couldn’t find a single device that Windows 2000 wouldn’t recognize.

Solid as a Rock

To exterminate the Blue Screen of Death and other system crashes, Microsoft engineered Windows 2000 to prevent the software from communicating directly to the hardware. When a program crashes, you can simply stop the application and restart it without having to reboot the PC.

But there’s one problem: Older applications that make direct alls to the hardware may not run under Windows 2000. If you’ll have to ask the vendor. Many DOS and windows games won’t work, and BugNet www.bugnet.com reported at press time that the latest beta clashed with the driver AOL 4.0 uses to make a modem connection.

The V-One SmartPass virtual private network (VPN) client software and Compaq AltaVista Tunnel, which work under Windows 98, wouldn’t work with our copy of Windows 2000. Telecommuters who use a VPN to connect to a corporate office will want to check this; Windows 2000 includes its own open-standard VPN client software, but this will work only if the server you’re connecting support it.

Easy Synching

Teleworkers, mobile users, and take-work-home types will love the Synchronization Manager, which is like an elegant attaché case compared to Windows 95/98’s clumsy My Briefcase. It lets you keep local copies of documents and Web pages on your home PC, then easily synchronize them with other files loaded on a notebook or main office PC. We downloaded a Word document from the host PC, disconnected, made changes, and then synchronized the changes with the original automatically the next time we connected.

Internet Connection Sharing

Already seen in Windows 98 Second Edition, this feature lets you share a single Internet connection with other PCs on your home office network, eliminating the need for multiple Internet accounts, modems, and phone lines-especially if you want to share a broadband cable or DSL connection. Visse cautions potential surfing swarms, however that the utility is limited to five simultaneous connections.

Enterprise-strength Security

Although Windows 98 lets you password-protect your hard drive-adequate security for many home office users- if you need to password-protect different folders and create multiple user names with different sets of access rights, Windows 2000 is for you. Moreover, frequent travelers will appreciate the ability to encrypt data files, protecting them of your notebook is lost or stolen. There’s also support for smart cards and public certificates.

Although the following minor cosmetic changes are welcome, they shouldn’t have any bearing on your upgrade

Less Clutter

Windows 200 has a slightly new look and feel, with the desktop tidies up to eliminate a lot of unpopular debris that debuted in Windows 98. For example, the much-dislike Internet Explorer 5.0 Channel Bar is gone, as are the icon for online services such as American Online and CompuServe.

Reshuffled Icons

A move that might make some Windows veterans do a double take is the relocation of the Printers, Scheduled Tasks, Network Connections, and Administrative Tools icons from the My Computer folder to the Control Panel.

Combined History Bar

Windows 2000 provides a single history bar for Internet Explorer and Windows Explorer. Now, any page you surf to in Internet Explorer will show up in the Windows Explorer history, and any file or directory you browse on your hard disk will show up in IE’s history list. This makes it a no-brainer to check a Web site from within Windows Explorer or open a document when you’re using IE.

Question? Upgrade?

Windows 2000 is a powerful operating system—but then again, so is Windows 98. Windows NT 4.0 users should upgrade, Windows 98 (especially Windows 98 Second Edition) users have little pressing need to do so: The most important features in Windows 2000- plug-and-play and USB support- are already in Windows 98. Windows 2000 does pack impressive security features, but they’re overkill for most home offices.

Windows 2000 is the way to go for the future.

Excerted from:

Home Office Computing (CurtCo FREEDOM Group)
www.hoc.smalloffice.com from all editions, 1999-2000

PC Computing November 1997 Copyright

Fortune December 7th, 8th 1998 Copyright

CommuniQue March 1998 edition Issue 89 Copyright.

Chris Yurko from Home Office magazine

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Page Updated Wed Jun 6, 2001 5:25pm EDT