i’ve ben exposed to alot of computing industry hype over the last month or so that indicates that win2k is a stabler, more efficient and reliable OS than XP. i currently run XP at home on my tracking system and wonder if i should downgrade to 2k and the newest service pack. any thoughts?
I’ve used both (currently using XP with 2000 look&feel) and I can’t say there is big difference between the two, at least for me.
I needed to use the latest NVIDIA video drivers to avoid nasty random blue screens, though.
From my own experiences, XP runs a load of idiotic services that are not only hard to separate from the rest of the “going-ons” in the OS, but also hard to configure and get rid of. I do feel more comfortable around Win2k, but I am too currently using an XP-installation (The icon-titles just look so much better against a background picture 
).
I believe that it is easier to set up 2k to maximize your computer’s performance, although I’m not entirely sure. Anyone else out there who’ve got any ideas about this?
Edit: Hm, so maybe that’s why I’m getting blue-screens all the time… have to check it out.
errr… I think my PC just had a blue screen because I’ve lost the remote control over it at work 
Will check out this once home (I’ll be back in about… hmm… 8 hours…!!), but I can say that last time I’ve installed XP, it was rock solid when I’ve updated the video drivers.
Then I had to reinstall it, and got blue screens until I updated the drivers again, then had no problems for a whole day yesterday, which was a great result
Until now, it seems
w2k too …
in generall both os are really similar … xp uses an enhanced w2k kernel and the new windows server 2003 os too.
the microsoft development is like all times before: every year a new name but the software is not really new or better.
xp is really better for multimedia stuff e.g. audio … directx apps working more stable/faster on xp than on w2k … on both os you must deactivate services to get the max performance and on both os it’s simple if you know what you are doing.
my xp pro is working with only 10 services (you need less without printing and networking/surfing) and uses less than 150mbyte sysmem after booting …
here is a link about services Windows XP Home and Professional Service Configurations
for geeting rid of many useless “bag of concrete” xp has built in.
may i suggest that xplite program ?
i had 98lite and was good. have seen xplite and i guess it s on my buying list…
rt
imo winXP pro is the best windows yet. I can count the amount of system crashes on one hand and that’s after using it for… uh… 3 years or so?
I’m not too sure about the home edition. I have a feeling it isn’t as nearly as reliable.
My brother is running xp home for quite some time on his notebook. He´d never had problems with it. Except the lack of services and deeper control of the system settings.
Can´t say anything about the performance itself though.
i worked years with w2k … and more than one year with win xp pro … it’s NO difference in speed if you switch off all useless stuff in xp like themes, system restore service and so on … why should there a big difference it’s nearly the same os-kernel?! as i said and my experience: the main differences are a better internal multimedia handling (gfx/audio, optimized for modern cpus) and some gui-gimmicks …
and about xp home and xp pro … both systems have the same kernel too … or i’m wrong? … xp home is only a more feature-less xp pro (no IIS or other special networking stuff)!
At work I had to set up the costumers PC’s (for multimedia, network, internet, special programs they would use). And most of our cutumers were still using win2k. I know that win2k (which came out in 99 actually) is known as a stable system and it does its job. But the fact that it’s pretty old by now (even the versions which come with SP3) is a big problem.
It’s not only the drivers which need to be updated. Like Alexander mentioned already, its multimedia features are leaking compared to WinXP.
In WinXP multimedia is supported well and with the network&performance WinXP can keep up with Win2k easily imho. And I experianced that WinXP loads faster on every PC I’ve installed it (are 50 PC’s enough?). But it’s not truly Win2k’s fault. It’s just the drivers. e.g. WinXP can have a faster hdd access just because of the newer IDE BUS and motherboard drivers while Win2k needs to be updated first. For me it’s clear that installing WinXP right away is more effective than installing Win2k first and then updating it slowly. Sometimes you have to wait until you find out what’s missing. Then you have to find the right software to solve the problem. Consider that not every Windows-update can solve every compatibility-problem.
win2k with up to SP4 installed is a rock solid install. a straight install of WinXP is hampered by excessive GUI effects and all sorts of microsoft pre-.NET interoperability gimmicks like the Auto Update. As for XP’s faster load time, i have noticed that you can get a loaded desktop to come up faster on an XP system but, there’s alag between the time you see your fully loaded desktop and the time you can actually do something with it, whereas once a 2k desktop is fully loaded the system is ready to roll so i think it works out to be about the same. the “multimedia enhancements” in XP are really only in the Windows Media department and you get those with the newest SP upgrades free off of microsloth’s site and the process is fully automated. manually editing the registry to get rid of stupid taskbar notification balloons, on the other hand, is a very involved process. i know there are some programs that won’t run on anything earlier than XP, but as for XP being easier to set up, i have to disagree. the network at my work is a 2k/UNiX hybrid. I’ve installed 2k on hundreds of computers and a completed installation of 2k is a basic, powerful operating system that can be connected to microsoft’s site and brought up to compatibility/security very easily. a completed XP install has MSN Messenger auto installed in the systray, a limiting UI that has to be tweaked to turn off all the annoying restructuring that MS did to it, services that have to be hunted down and disabled, registry keys that have to be ADDED to remove annoying features (the balloons)…
i don’t know. i don’t think i’ve heard any real evidence one way or another. i’ll admit that recently when i had to set up a multi-media workstation at work I used XP, but that’s because Adobe Premiere doesn’t run on anything but XP, who knows why.
just for your information: my blue screen problems where caused by a faulty RAM module (it has become faulty: it gave no problems at all in the past), so if anyone get random bluescreens (with errors like “STOP 0x000007e” or 8e, “page fault in non paged area”, “irql not less or equal”) , check your RAM.
There are a lot of memory tests around. Make crossed tests, putting one RAM module at a time.
RAM is probably most common problem, but another one is heat (due to too poor fans or overclocking or someting…)
indeed I thought it was the heat (>60°C) because the problem arised together with the temperature, but then I’ve made a memory test and found the fault.
May be that the RAM module has been corrupted because of the heat, anyway I’m given it back to the reseller in order to let it be changed, so who cares 
check ram with memtest86. a lot of hardware faults lead to BSODs, and often even drivers can cause them.
I’d go for XP, since most drivers were written for XP. there are many tweaks out there to improve performance, like turning off system restore, etc. you can even turn off some of the non-essential services.
or maybe it’s time to upgrade
Are you unsatisfied with the current performance in WinXP? If not, then don’t change. Anyway, in WinXP you’ll never get blue screens or freezes.
The only problem is that it consumes more RAM, but I think ReNoise depends more on CPU power than RAM, so I think that’s not a big issue.
right.
i meant ‘right’ as in 'right 
’
there was a infinite loop bug that ‘bugged’ many users with VIA+nvidia+amd(+sblive) setups some time ago. blue screens randomly, and especially during 3D gaming.
huh!? 
Irony is really better IRL than on internet…