|
HOME TOPICS ABOUT ME Some users just don't like to have anything made by Microsoft on their PCs. |
technofile Al Fasoldt's reviews and commentaries, continuously available online since 1983 Solving the Windows dilemma, Part 3: Is Windows 2000 worth it?June 4, 2000 By Al Fasoldt Copyright ©2000, Al Fasoldt Copyright ©2000, The Syracuse Newspapers Should you switch to Windows 2000? If you have Windows 95 or Windows 98 and are fed up with viruses and crashes, Windows 2000 might seem like a good deal. You'd get an operating system that is just about crash-proof, and you wouldn't have to learn a lot of new things the way you would if you switched to a Macintosh or to another operating system such as Linux. But Windows 2000 has five major drawbacks. It requires a lot of computing power. You can't run it very well on your five-year-old Pentium PC with 32 megabytes of RAM, for example. You need a modern, fast PC. I'd say a 233 MHz Pentium II is the bottom end of the speed range for Windows 2000. You could run it with only 64 megabytes of RAM, but it would run better with twice that. It needs a lot of disk space. This is true of Windows 95 and 98 too, but Windows 2000 is less forgiving. Multi-gigabyte drives are cheap, so get a bigger hard drive if you are planning to switch to Windows 2000 but have less than 2 gigabytes of total space. Most games and entertainment programs probably won't run under Windows 2000. It has no more protection against viruses than Windows 95 and Windows 98. If you're looking for a computer operating system that will resist the latest crop of Windows-only viruses, you're out of luck with Windows 2000. It costs a lot. The initial price is high, and the hidden (or perhaps not-so-hidden) cost of getting help and support from Microsoft is high, too. Windows 2000 has another problem for some users. It's mostly psychological. Some users just don't like to have anything made by Microsoft on their PCs. This is surely no problem if you don't feel that way, but there is a factual, non-emotional element in this kind of "ABM" ("anything but Microsoft") feeling. The factual part is this: If you run Windows 2000, you still have Windows. You still have to deal with a company that bumbles and stumbles. Microsoft is a huge enterprise and has done wonderful things, but it's also the same organization that has the globe spinning backwards in the latest Encarta encyclopedia, the same company that allows viruses to roam through your e-mail. Apart from these drawbacks, Windows 2000 is a good operating system. Most of the time it is well behaved. A problem with the display driver can kill Windows entirely -- a big flaw in an otherwise good system -- but Windows 2000 should be able to sail through most other difficulties. Windows 2000 looks like Windows 95 and Windows 98 in most ways, and you probably would feel at ease the first time you used it. A big plus for some families is the way in which Windows 2000 handles multiple users. Windows 95 and 98 have User Profiles that give a small amount of privacy for dad, mom and the kids, but Windows 2000 uses the Unix, Linux and Windows NT standard method of requiting separate passwords (and login names) for each user. This allows everyone in the family to have separate e-mail accounts, documents, Start Menus and Web-browser bookmarks, to name just a few of the benefits. This could be a major plus for many families. Next: How to get out from under Windows -- all versions of Windows -- without losing your mind or your files. |