PseudoMan

Add or Edit: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\ (REG_SZ) AutoAdminLogon and set it to 1. You'll also need to set. DefaultUserName to the administrator name. DefaultPassword to the administrator password.

Win2k was meant to replace the 9X kernel OSes entirely, this was the plan until Beta2 of Win2k (NT5 build 1877) when they figured out how they didn't have enough time. Unfortunately they couldn't build in all the cool features and driver support that they wanted to in the time they had left before they needed to ship. MS missed their ship schedule by around a year trying to get 2000 totally perfect. This the reason for Whistler (as far as I can tell) is to try to get a the cool things they just didn't have time to implement in Win2k. WinME will be the last of the 9X kernel OSes, if for no other reason than its costing MS way too much to continue to develop and support the two different OSes. I have yet to see anything from MS claiming that Win2k was designed for businesses only. Its true that Win2k wasn't primarily intended to be used for gaming, but I know that many incompatibility bugs with games were specifically targeted and fixed. MS makes far less off of individuals who are purchasing (or stealing it off the web...) Win2k for personal use, they're more concerned about having business systems up for 24x7 since there'll be far more companies actually purchasing it. MS knows that Win2k is huge, they've placed the entire company's future on it. That's why it's so great.

Not paying for software which isn't 'bug free', what?!? You don't pay for any software? I think its funny that people beleive the myth about bug free software. In the end no software is bug free. There are just too many people trying to integrate too many things for there not to be some gaps where this don't mesh perfectly. Drivers are the perfect example. Driver installers are constantly up[censored] dll's. This works fine if you're using a standard install of the OS, but what happens if you have an older driver which already updated that dll? The newer version of the dll may not contain the APIs that the older driver relied on to work correctly which causes the older driver to begin to fail/BC/bsod...

What could have possiblely happened, is that an older game installed Dx5 for you... The really early games did that sort of thing. (circa Dx2-3). Dx7's version number doesn't have a '5' in it.

Games do not have to be writen to use a new version of DirectX to see benifits. Games which are wrote for a particular version of Dx will work on that version or higher. I saw huge improvements on my games when I switched from Dx6 to Dx7. So we should see improvements on Dx7 (or older) games even if they don't use any of the cool new APIs that the new version of Dx provides.

The main differance between FAT32 and NTFS is security. FAT32 can be accessed by any OS which supports FAT32, say a Win98 boot disk. NTFS has security features which can be changed to make it so that only a particular user has access to the files/folder/partition. This can make it a real pain if your OS gets hosed though. As for speed... there really isn't much diffrence between FAT32 and NTFS. NTFS is slightly faster.

Goto: http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/downloads/deployment/appcompat/default.asp It covers Wargasm, it's number 46.

There are definately code diffrences between the diffrent products of Win2k. Their basic cores are the same, but there are additional services installed for Srv and AdvSrv.

The check box to allow all system files to be shown is at: 1)tools->folder options->view(tab) 2)uncheck "hide protected OS files" recommended. Any file which has both the attributes of hidden and system will be 'hidden' if this option is checked.

Another thing that can be done for any video card with this problem. 1)Bring up the DXdiag (type "dxdiag" from run, or CMD prompt). 2)Go to the "More Help" tab. 3)Click the "Override..." button. 4)You can then type in the refreash rate you want to force DirectX to use.

This problem has nothing to do with ACPI, it is the RealTech driver that is causing the problem. Most likely the same driver is being used with both cards, therefore you have the same problem. I'd suggest getting a non-RealTech chipset NIC. My system is ACPI and has no problems with any sleep states running Win2k. Shuts down fine too.