mine has been w2k proffesional for ages - i still love it now , shame it wont work on dual core stuff

Vista Home Premium 64bit FTW

W2K pro is one of the best OSs that MS has come out with in the last 15 years or so, from a stability and support viewpoint. It is unfortunate that they (MS) are rolling this system off the back end of the support cycle shortly.
When it first came out, it had some of the same support issues, and then some that we are seeing with Vista now, but overall, I think it was/is one of the best implementations for corporate installations of all of the MS OSs.
Additionally W2K Pro, from day one supported 2 processors or cores, and through HyperTransport up to 4 logical cores.

Gerritt

There are only three Windows operating systems that are actually usable. They are 2000 Pro, XP, and Vista. Before that I can honestly say that Windows was crap. Windows 2000 Pro is by far the least bloated of the three. Windows Vista is the most bloated, but probably the most stable and secure as well. Windows XP is somewhere in between.

XP Pro or 2000 Pro

NT4 was plenty stable.

1. Vista Ultimate x64
2. XP x64 Edition

Every other Windows I don't really care for anymore, except maybe Windows 2000 for a workstation or server with limited resources (say, the half of a working 850MHz Duron system in my closet), but for that, I'd probably prefer Slackware or Debian anyway.

McFly said:


Same but only Business instead of Ultimate

Sean,
I congratulate you on being able to run all 64 bit systems. Even in my own house I can't accomplish that. FTP Server services do not work on Vista. IPSec VPN does not work on Vista 64. Lexmark MFP Laser printer (t620 with x443) works only minimally, until very recently.
Don't get me off onto multipurpose PCs that have to do analog to digital conversion...They flat out do not work on Vista, and barely on 2003 much less 2008.

Gerritt

XP Pro (32 and 64bit inclusive)
First Windows OS I felt truly supported individual, business, and educational functionality, and integration of same.

Major issues:
Never-ending security vulnerabilities,
The WGA crap,
The much higher price you have to pay just to get an OS that isn't full of marketing-bloatware and/or constrained with a severely restricted license (like the 'Academic' versions, and OEM versions)

Windows XP Pro. There isn't another choice for me, even though I've had a copy of Vista sitting on my desk for 4 months.

Windows Me!!!

Call the white coats!
Jim has fallen off the deep end!

Definitely Windows Vista Ultimate 32-bit. If only people gave it a chance, they'd probably be blown away. Windows Explorer has been upgraded to the point where it's vastly more functional than previous versions of Explorer, and yet isn't quite as visually complicated as some of those third-party Explorer replacements. The power and versatility of the search is absolutely jaw-dropping. Aero is so much better-looking and more powerful than previous Windows UI's, and doesn't require much anything to run (GMA X3100 as we speak). The level of control that the users have over power options is unparalleled. I love it.

The wow is now.

Completely agree with A_Pickle. I can literally fly in Vista when it comes to multitasking. Things are organized in a more sensible way than in previous versions of Windows.

A_Pickle said:

Pickle, yes the wow is now. Both MS VIsta Ultimate and Apple MOS 10.5+ give a wow factor, but in the case of Vista, the WOW could be; wow why didn't that work, wow why couldn't I connect to a Vista system from an XP system, etc.

It seems to me that W2K was much better supported at one year latter than VISTA is.

Gerritt

W2K Pro and XP Pro. Both are equally excellent for their time. W2K is still a winner for older PC's. XP is excellent for the multicore newer PC's. I still love my A64 single core PC. Extremely stable for about 3 or 4 years now. XP is my OS of choice for the dual core. Multitasking is a breeze. Vista was short lived on my dual core. Ate up too much of the system memory and I have 2GB on it. Not to mention stability issues. That was 5 months ago. I may try it again.

Win 2k is just too minimalist for me - home use anyway. Its nice and stable, and does the job, good for a work PC.


However, my favourite 2 WIndows variants have to be
1. XP Professional x64 edition
2. Vista Home Premium

Seriously. I think XP Pro x64 has to be one of the best OS's I've ever used. Rock solid stable, great support from MS (most likely due to being built upon Server 2003) and is very responsive

But I have to say, since installing Vista, I've only needed to boot back into XP Pro once - and that was because I had older vidoe editing software that wasnt yet suported in Vista - over a year ago!

I LOVE Vista. Looks great, very responsive, rock solid stable, intuitive, runs all my software great. No complaints at all.

DublinGunner said:

Yeah, I'm really not sure what everyone has been complaining about Vista seems to work fine for me too.

I was making a bit of a pun there, because I don't really think the "Wow" was "Now" when Vista launched. Like it or not, Vista had some serious teething issues and growing pains, some that were Microsoft's fault, others that were third-party companies' fault (Creative and Nvidia come to mind).

That said, I largely think that the major issues have been stamped out -- the notable exception being the dreaded file copy bug that still plagues an unlucky few. I have been so fortunate to avoid all of that.

Now, Vista to XP? That's easy, sir. I've got a home network here that puts Air Force networks to shame (mostly because I don't use f**king serial RS-232 lines ). Nonetheless, I have about six computers running XP Pro to the four computers running various versions of Vista... haven't had any issues whatsoever, except for the Netgear router which infrequently drops connection, and Age of Empires II, which is kind of a pain in the ass to network these days. That game has a bad enough networking engine as is, it's even worse when you try to add a Vista to XP conundrum into the mix. Fortuitously, we have pioneered a working solution for that, as well.

Netgear, ewww ...

I haven't had any problems connecting between XP and Vista machines. My computer is set up to share my printer as well as a load of files, and the XP machines I've connected to it have no problem with it.

i have xp home , and vista h/ p on laptop , but am lucky - or old enough to have used every one of windows os , and man - i still love w2k pro , small and fast - like an old sports car . sure, like sports cars now, there are faster and more features, but classic ole w2k pro still does it [ i also like ubuntu - its a cool os ]