Windows XP downgrading to WIN2K experiences

Thanks for the tip on performance improvement -- I'm trying your suggestion now.

"What older DOS program hasn't been replaced by some form of Freeware that runs on Windows?

It would take an abnormal amount of time to list just the ones that are in use by a majority of businesses. So I will start with the most obvious, Q&A (dos and windows version), Anything built on a Foxpro database, Superbase(The original versions) and the programs that were built using it(Most windows programs of the time were built on SB's engine). These are the ones that I encounter every day.

One client has a whole business based on the old FoxPro database, that's 80 pc's. To replace that program he was quoted(By different sources) ranged from 240k-400k(manufacturing software with all specs and controls).This did not include the loss of production due to retraining employees to work with a new program. And the only reason this even came up was because most new PC's come with XP or win2k(forget 98).

The problem is MS is interested in making money and does not care who it screws in the process. If it truly cared about its customer base it would have made sure it's newer OS's at least had a remedy for backwards compatibilty, kind of like 8086 CPU's being backwards compatible with older 8086 CPU's.

So if XP Home Edition is such a POS, why does MS sell it?

Its never stopped them before. Besides, home edition is a way to get the clueless into the fold.

I hardly have any contact with the Database crowd outside of setting up SQL servers. I trust what you say to be true and I do find it unfortunate that there will always be groups of MS's customer base that gets left behind.

I remember when AutoDesk had the audacity to require users to have a Math Co-processor to run AutoCad (v9 I think).

It is a faced paced industry that leaves many behind wanting for more.

I look forward to the day when my young nephew comes up to me with a few friends and says 'Uncle Timmy, tell us about the days you and daddy use to use a mouse and keyboard'.

I had a lot of security problems with XP and was irritated by the amount of Windows Updates I needed to keep it running. Not to mention, every time I installed an update, another problem requiring yet ANOTHER update was needed to fix it and so on. Since I am still on dial-up, this was a miserable condition to be in. Some updates took more than 2 hours!!

I finally had my sister (tekno-geek) replace XP with Win2K. Had some driver issues that were resolved with new software and I have been pleased as punch ever since.

From what I understand, the Home XP is inferior to XP Pro. I will stick with 2K until it's dead.

"I look forward to the day when my young nephew comes up to me with a few friends and says 'Uncle Timmy, tell us about the days you and daddy use to use a mouse and keyboard'.

LOL, I get that now when I even mention 5 1/4" diskettes or audio cassette disk drives :)

If XP Home stinks so bad, why do they sell it? Why not just have XP Pro for everyone?

I agree wholheeartedly...on my Workstations I run strictly Window 2000 Pro. BUT...the newly released Windows Server 2003 is Amazing! Lightning-fast, and huge improvements in ease of management, and speed of IIS and file sharing, and SQL Server performance.

I still have a 5.25" and a couple of 720KB 3.5" drives in storage. Drives my wife nuts that I'm such a packrat when it comes to saving hardware.

I currently need to dump on eBay:

2 (Yes two) working Jaz drives
10 1GB Jaz cartidges
a medium size box with at least 4 CD drives, NICs, 16bit Sound cards, 2MB video cards, and various cables.
3 20GB Harddrives and one SCSI 34GB.
2 2500 Cisco Routers with various cables and adapters.

I picked up a steal on a Dell 1550 1U Server with 2 CPUs and 1GB of RAM and I still have yet to build it. Only bought it because she wanted me to show her how to stand-up a server.

I won't even get into the shrink wrap software I've accumulated over the years.

I don't see what is so bad about XP. It is really Windows NT version 6.

As long as you are the "administrator", you have full rights just like older windows products. If your kids, wife, friends, guests, etc use your computer, you can set up paramaters that let them do only certain things so they cannot blow your system away or hack your private files.

We use Windows NT here at work and it is MUCH MUCH more stable that non NT Windows. Instead of crashing or locking up your computer 4 to 5 time per day, now some days it doesn't even crash once !!!! What an accomplishment!

I still don't see the big problem.

Another thing, Microsoft has an automatic update service to fix security holes in your system as they are found. Are they even still fixing old systems like Windows ME ?

I don't like Microsoft's practices either, but they are the only practical game in town. (I know, LINUX is available, but I am not a computer expert and would not try it until it is further developed)

Just my 2 cents worth.

Yeah, turning off System Restore gives you a few Gigs back. I use GoBack instead.

That would be my recommendation. But who am I?

The writer hasn't a clue and shouldn't be writing computer commentaries until he knows what he is talking about.

I was thinking the same thing. I personally love XP Pro. That is what I run on my home network.

You didn't plan very well for this move backwards. But I bet you got an education, and know more about computers than you did a couple of weeks ago.

But it was an expensive move, and you may run into driver troubles with new hardware down the road.

There is so much misinformation on this thread that I decided to go out and get some information about the differences between XP Professional and XP Home Editions. This comes from the Windows XP Technical Overview (http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/techinfo/planning/techoverview/default.asp ) The one thing I didn’t see listed here is that the Home Edition limits the size of a network you can setup (I think to 4 or 6 PC’s) But you can see that most of the differences are network related. Most people waste money on the Professional edition without even knowing what they are buying. I use both of them quite a bit and have not seen any performance or stability issues with the Home Edition.
Here are the differences between XP Professional and Home Edition (Listed are feature in Pro that are not included in Home):

1. Enabled by default if you’re using Windows XP Home Edition, Fast User Switching is also available on Windows XP Professional if you install it on a stand alone or workgroup-connected computer. If you join a domain with a computer running Windows XP Professional, you will not be able to use Fast User Switching.

2. Ability to lock down Windows Media Player features in a managed network. Windows Media Player has a standard corporate skin that can be deployed in a network. If the Active Directory® service is enabled, administrators can specify a corporate skin, restrict playback formats and codecs, and specify other customizations on a per-group or per-user basis. (This requires client computers to run Windows XP Professional.)

3. NetCrawler is on by default when you install Windows XP Home Edition, and on Windows XP Professional when your computer is in workgroup-mode and not logged on to a domain.

4. Remote Desktop is based on Terminal Services technology. Using Remote Desktop, you can run applications on a remote computer running Windows XP Professional from any other client running a Microsoft® Windows® operating system. The applications run on the Windows XP Professional–based computer and only the keyboard input, mouse input, and display output data are transmitted over the network to the remote location.

5. The features provided by Remote Desktop are made available through the Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP). RDP is a presentation protocol that allows a Windows-based terminal (WBT), or other Windows-based clients, to communicate with a Windows-based terminal server. RDP is designed to provide remote display and input capabilities over network connections for Windows-based applications running on your Windows XP Professional desktop. RDP works across any TCP/IP connection including a dial-up connection, LAN, WAN, ISDN, DSL, or VPN.

6. Group Policy settings simplify the administration of users and objects by letting IT administrators organize them into logical units, such as departments or locations and then assign the same settings, including security, appearance, and management options, to all employees in that group. This approach also ensures that settings are consistent across all members of a group. There are over 300 new polices available for Windows XP Professional, in addition to those already available for Windows 2000 Professional.

7. The Resultant Set of Policy (RSoP) tool in Windows XP Professional allows administrators to see the effect of Group Policy on a targeted user or computer. With RSoP, administrators have a powerful and flexible base-level tool to plan, monitor, and troubleshoot Group Policy.

8. Windows XP Professional adds more policies to Local Group Policy, a benefit that enables you to better customize user and computer settings. This powerful management feature lets you lock down and fine tune your desktop, introducing the possibility of many different customized scenarios. With Local Group Policy you can:

I threw out my 5.25" Floppys (and all of the software), but I think I have a couple of Hayes 1200 or 2400 baud modems around. I Also have a nice 24 pin dot matrix printer with a replacement ribbon...

"XP, however, offers awesome plug and play support, networking support (can you say "never have to reboot after changing a network setting"), manageability, security, and for the hardcore gamer like me, it is the best gaming experience available."

Ditto. I manage 150+ W2K machines and deployed the first XPpro today. Per our 'no discretionary upgrades' policy it was a rebuild for a failed hard drive. It was a clean install to a same-model Seagate Barracuda ATA II so it makes a good comparison to the W2K system.

My early opinion is that XPpro is a superior network client OS to W2k. I've run XPpro on my home machine(s) since Whistler and have so far been pleasantly surprised at it's performance vs. 2000Pro in a network.

-Faster boot time.

-Ability to run a NAV scan concurrent with other processes without slogging the system.

-Better throughput, more reliable network connections.

-Better plug and play support.

-Better hard drive and IDE drivers.

-And of course The Big One, ability to resize the clusters.

With everything that runs on a DoD network speeding up networking, OS and HD performance is a huge improvement for the customer.

The only thing I'm worried about is XP's automatic TCP/IP route switching. We run some timed sessions through our Intranet and network congestion on a 'faster' circuit can drop a session if it exceeds the program's TTL. In the past this has been an issue with broadcast storms on the hubs (from malware) which required using PestPatrol and Spybot. The XP machine is located in one of those 'Shareware Specialty Shops' so I'll see how it holds up.

"until I read of a new/better way to disable/tweak XP to kill all the spyware and improve performance."

Have you tried a Google search under "tweak XP Pro" or "remove spyware XP pro?

There's a bunch of settings you can use to de-claw XP using Start, Run, MMC, File, Add/Remove Snap-In, Add: Group Policy, Add, OK, Close, Local Computer Policy, Computer Configuration, Administrative Templates: then use stuff like Windows Components or System, Error Reporting to disable the intrusive stuff. Play around, have fun. If you make a Restore Point before beginning you can roll the OS back if you mess something up or don't want to go thru changing everything back. System restore isn't 100% reliable though.

That's odd. I just nuked XtraProblems on this box and installed Win2k with no problems. It autodetected and installed all my hardware. I didn't have to hunt down a single driver.

(Though at the moment, I'm using Linux on another partition!)

Perhaps there are other reasons you don't want to switch to Win2K?

As I said before, I don't wish to spend the BIG BUCKS just because the "new one" has been released. NT works just fine for the work I do; and, my NT is operated "stand alone" with no network. I prefer to work that way ... I don't need no stinking network. I develop embedded equipment. If those require networking, it is done compactly without any code bloat.