Windows 2000 users to miss out on IE 7

Cnet ^ | June 2, 2005 | Ingrid Marson

[softwarecreator]

I usually stick up for Microsoft, but if this is true ... it sucks.  The new editions of IE need to be backwards-compatible.

[rdb3]

Not surprising. I still pick Win2K over XP.

[Petronski]

I am a win2k user (an excellent system), and now that I know I will never taste the sweet, forbidden fruit that is IE7, I say...

BFD!

[Born Conservative]

I could care less; my Win2K box at work has Mozilla installed.

[hole_n_one]

........Win2K box at work has Mozilla installed

Mo is da bomb!

[JoJo Gunn]

ping!

[neb52]

What is this IE you speak of?

[RayChuang88]

Who cares.

I have Firefox 1.0.4 and Maxthon 1.3.1 installed on my Windows 2000 Pro (SP4) system, so the new features of Internet Explorer 7.0 are not needed for me.

[Redcloak]

I have a Win2k box at work. I use Firefox on it too, so I could care less about whether it will run IE7.

[backhoe]

Although Windows 2000 will be supported until 2010, at the end of June of this year Microsoft will no longer accept requests for design changes or new features for the operating system.

---

I usually stick up for Microsoft, but if this is true ... it sucks. The new editions of IE need to be backwards-compatible.

( Sigh! )

Just another reason to learn Linux. And I hate trying to have to teach myself another OS, but between this, and MS's new licensing schemes, I guess I'll have to.

They really are shooting themselves in the foot with this stuff.

[goldstategop]

They have an alternative in Firefox or Netscape. And by then Longhorn will be available. How many still use Windows 95? That was like ages ago!

(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)

[neb52]

There is surprisingly many people who still use Win95/98. I even know a guy that still use his DOS based Word Processor.

[Nataku X]

Oh, no. We better upgrade to WinXP, now!

Honestly... why does MS think we stuck with Win2K all this time???

[softwarecreator]

I'd hate to agree with you but you may be right.  Are the new licensing schemes you mentioned part of the 'Longhorn' project and what are they?

I've said this many times before that MS is still the better OS in terms of ease of use and software availablility.  If Linux really wants to compete they need to seriously address their 'dependency' issues.  If they do not, then MS will continue to totally dominate the PC operating system market.

[backhoe]

I'd hate to agree with you but you may be right. Are the new licensing schemes you mentioned part of the 'Longhorn' project and what are they? I've said this many times before that MS is still the better OS in terms of ease of use and software availablility. If Linux really wants to compete they need to seriously address their 'dependency' issues. If they do not, then MS will continue to totally dominate the PC operating system market.

Don't know for sure- it can't be Longhorn since it's not yet on the market. I hear from users of OS's newer than mine ( Win2000 ) that they pay an annual fee, or get limited numbers of re-installs, or that if you swap cards or internal parts, you get grief from the OS. It just sounds like too much unnecessary hassle to me.

You have a good point about Linux- my first experience with the SUSE release was so annoying enough that I sent it back for a refund. Tried Mandrake 9, and between the wife giving me grief ( My files! Where are my Files? ) and lightning killing the modem, the new modem not being recognized by Linux, and the fonts being too small for these old eyes to see well, I just gave up on it. I put the two home PC's behind a hardware firewall and that stopped the virus/highjacker problems, so I lost my main motivation for switching.

Linux needs to do two things to be ready for prime time- be as easy to install as Windows ( pop in a CD, and follow the prompts ), and be able to work easily with Windows applications. A lot of people- like my wife- bring home tons of stuff from work, and they need to be able to use work with it without jumping through hoops.

I'm not particularly partisan about operating systems- I use Win2000 because it does what I want to do mostly well, and was fairly cheap to upgrade from Win95/98. But if they make it too expensive, or too annoying, to use I will certainly look elsewhere again.

[softwarecreator]

I hear from users of OS's newer than mine ( Win2000 ) that they pay an annual fee, or get limited numbers of re-installs

I have WinXP, Win2k, .Net and Win 2003 installed on different PC's and don't have this issue.  I think this may not be true.

[softwarecreator]

I have Mandrake 10.1 installed on a PC with Win2k (dual-drive, dual-boot) and they interact pretty well for file sharing.

between the wife giving me grief ( My files! Where are my Files? )

My wife had a similar problem, her law firm used Word Perfect and my PC only had MS-Word.  Drove her crazy until they got rid of Word Perfect.

[backhoe]

I have WinXP, Win2k, .Net and Win 2003 installed on different PC's and don't have this issue. I think this may not be true.

Appreciate the information- come to think of it, Mrs. B's office upgraded to Win2003 a while back and I can't recall her mentioning any annoyances like those I wrote about.

[ShadowAce]