Farewell Windows 2000...

[chessnerd]

On this Tuesday, July 13, 2010, we bid a final farewell to a classic Windows operating system: Windows 2000. It was a good operating system, based on the Windows NT line and, with a total of four service packs and one update rollup, survived to a healthy age of ten years and five months.

In February 2000, Windows 2000 promised to bring the ease-of-use of the Windows DOS/9x line to the stable and powerful Windows NT line. It brought to NT the features of the Windows 98 GUI and paved the way for Windows XP just one and a half years later.

While overshadowed on the desktop by its younger brother, Windows 2000 Professional proved itself to be a solid, dependable desktop system for those who chose to use it.
For owners of servers, Windows 2000's three server versions were powerful and robust for their day, and served as the industry-standard for several years.

I have only known Windows 2000 for four of its years, but in that time, I have come to appreciate and admire the system. My install has never experienced a full-system crash. It has produced little lag. It has been strong and stable.

In its final years, Windows 2000 may not have had support for Adobe's latest Reader, or for Google's Chrome, or even for Microsoft's Internet Explorer 7 and 8, but it always had the support of its loyal fanbase.

And while it may no longer have support from Microsoft, I know that it will always have a place in our hearts. For through thick and thin, with solid reliability, it always supported us.

Farewell Windows 2000, you will be missed...

- This post comes to you from Windows 2000 Professional, Service Pack 4, Update Rollup 1

[Giant Speck]

See? By ending support for Windows 2000, Microsoft is FORCING you to upgrade. How dare they force their users to buy Windows XP just to have continued support?

[jerenept]

See? By ending support for Windows 2000, Microsoft is FORCING you to upgrade. How dare they force their users to buy Windows XP just to have continued support?

They still support XP? Weird!
cant Win7 run on netbooks (main reson for xp)

Microsoft exists to make money, if you haven't heard.

[Giant Speck]

Microsoft exists to make money, if you haven't heard.

Hence the sarcasm tags...

[MasterNetra]

Hence the sarcasm tags...

Good bye, good riddance I say. And I'm pretty sure the other guy was being sarcastic too. ;)

[cascade9]

Good ol Win2K. I guess I can throw out my licences for it now, there is no way I'm going back. ot that I didnt like W2K, IMO always been one of the best OSes microsoft ever made. No stupid product activation either.


It was the first NT-based operating system to use a Windows 95-style interface and paved the way for Windows XP just one and a half years later.


Sorry, that was NT4.0, not Windows2000.

[Swagman]

I Big Bro will be gutted.. he still refuses to update to XP

[Morbius1]

I too believe that Win2K was the best OS Microsoft ever sold. But it still lives on in for me in VirtualBox ;) If you think about it WinXP was Win2K with a more juvenile interface slapped on it so it's run is even longer.

Just to give credit where due, Win2K ( Windows NT 5.0 ) like WinNT before it would not have been possible without the creative talent of a group of VMS developers at Digital Equipment Corporation.

[Shining Arcanine]

Good ol Win2K. I guess I can throw out my licences for it now, there is no way I'm going back. ot that I didnt like W2K, IMO always been one of the best OSes microsoft ever made. No stupid product activation either.



Sorry, that was NT4.0, not Windows2000.

Didn't 3.51 also support a Windows 95-like interface?

[RJARRRPCGP]

Good ol Win2K. I guess I can throw out my licences for it now, there is no way I'm going back. ot that I didnt like W2K, IMO always been one of the best OSes microsoft ever made. No stupid product activation either.



Sorry, that was NT4.0, not Windows2000.

qft

[Phrea]

Used it for over 8 years.
Bye, my friend.

[98cwitr]

We can all say goodbye to XP in 2014

http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle/?p1=3223

and Server 2003 a year later

http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle/?p1=3198

[Groucho Marxist]

Windows 2000 NT was the OS of my first computer (got it refurbished from my mother's old job); I'm glad I used it when I did and I'm equally glad that I found Linux.

[dtfinch]

Still have a ~9 year old domain controller running 2000 that we need to retire.

[Lucradia]

We can all say goodbye to XP in 2014

http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle/?p1=3223

and Server 2003 a year later

http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle/?p1=3198

And Windows 8 releases in 2012.

[chessnerd]

Sorry, that was NT4.0, not Windows2000.
I stand corrected. Windows 2000 had a Windows 98-style interface with a Quick Launch, Windows Explorer enhancements (like the back/forward buttons and address bar), and a few other, more minor, GUI changes from 95.

Corrected in the original post.


Didn't 3.51 also support a Windows 95-like interface?
No, that had a Windows 3.1-style interface. - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_NT_3.51

[Shining Arcanine]

We can all say goodbye to XP in 2014

http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle/?p1=3223

and Server 2003 a year later

http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle/?p1=3198

Microsoft has extended Windows downgrade rights to 2020, so support likely will be extended as well.

http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/12/microsoft-says-74-percent-of-work-pcs-still-use-windows-xp-exte/

[doorknob60]

Microsoft has extended Windows downgrade rights to 2020, so support likely will be extended as well.

http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/12/microsoft-says-74-percent-of-work-pcs-still-use-windows-xp-exte/

God, just let it die! Does that mean people will still be using IE6 in ten years too? Oh no...

[borth92]

Windows XP was the real deal in OS's. If your too stubborn to already have upgraded then why not just go back to win95?

But this is exactly why I moved over to Linux, I upgrade to all the newest OS's for free and I have the power to customize everything, so if one OS is a little bloated I can change that.

[RiceMonster]

Does that mean people will still be using IE6 in ten years too? Oh no...

I hope not :(

[nerdopolis]

Shining Arcanine: you actually are correct, it seems they did have some backport available for NT 3.51 to make it look like 4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKNFQRr9Pu8

[proggy]

I never used Windows 2000 but I did hear it was a good OS

[keithpeter]

I never used Windows 2000 but I did hear it was a good OS

It was. We put Win 2K on the learning centre computers after suffering Win 98 for years... Corel Draw actually worked properly and a lot less crashes. Seemed solid somehow.

[cascade9]

Shining Arcanine: you actually are correct, it seems they did have some backport available for NT 3.51 to make it look like 4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKNFQRr9Pu8

NT4 was teh first NT to use the Win95 style interface 'stock'. There are also ways to get aeroglass running (at least partitally) on XP., but IMO that doesnt make XP the first areoglass windows ;)

[nerdopolis]

Didn't 3.51 also support a Windows 95-like interface?

He didn't say it was the first to support the interface, he just said it supported it. ;)

[tjwoosta]

Farewell Windows 2000...

If anyones sad that 2000 is gone, Windows Fundamentals for Legacy PC's (WinFLP) is probably the next best thing. Its essentially XP, but slimed way down so it runs great on legacy hardware. Running perfectly here in virtualbox using less then 100mb ram, and its actually really quick and responsive :D

[Johnsie]

I liked it, but there were a few problems running some apps so I upgraded the last remaining win 2k machine at work to Windows XP in 'classic mode'. Hopefully I will be able to phase that machine out over the next few months because it's so old and slow.

[nrs]

Windows 2000 was the best OS for it's time, IMO. I loved it. I eventually switched to XP because aside from the fisher price theme -- which could be disabled -- I found it even faster & more stable than 2000. This was probably around SP2.

By then the competition became more well rounded and Windows was no longer the superior solution for me, and I switched to Linux completely.

[3rdalbum]

Great, now let's hope Microsoft kills off Windows XP soon. Preferably through a remote "upgrade-switch" that automatically updates everyone to Windows 7.

[The Real Dave]

Ah W2K. I have mainly fond memories. In fact, I got my first random BSOD on W2KPro, which I was delighted about. I'd never had one before :)

I once installed and setup W2K Pro on a dozen Dells, which were donated to elderly people in my community as part of a school project.

I used W2K Pro on my first ever "server", a 451Mhz PIII with 128Mb of RAM. All it did was share files, download torrents, and sound quite loud, and the fact that it was all controlled by VNC seemed even cooler :) It helped me cut my teeth, and started my fascination with servers.

I always have W2KPro, or one of the server releases in a VM, they always feel snappier than XP once the effects are disabled.

W2K has taught me alot, and thanks to clonezilla, a fully updated copy will always be to hand :)

[Giant Speck]

I liked it, but there were a few problems running some apps so I upgraded the last remaining win 2k machine at work to Windows XP in 'classic mode'. Hopefully I will be able to phase that machine out over the next few months because it's so old and slow.
Yeah, that'd work out without problems.