ZigZig

Listen, If you guys can sit there and say; In W2K you'll have LESS failures, LESS problems, LESS issues AND it'll run faster, etc etc THAN NT, then fine - I believe you. All I'm saying is that that is not what I experienced, it contained TOO MANY issues for me to WASTE a big bunch of time trying to fix. AND.... I am still experiencing problems to this day with it installed on a laptop (DELL 3700, PIII 500mhz, 192mb RAM, 6Gb Disk). My current machine is; Dual 500mhz PIII, Supermicro P6DGBU Motherboard, 512Mb RAM 2 x SCSI Seagate Cheetahs (9 & 18gb), 1 x SCSI Yamaha CDRW 1 x SCSI Plexor Player, Matrox G400 Max 2 x 21" Monitors, SCSI Scanner, Wacom Tablet, Intellimouse Pro Mouse, Printers (2), iPaq H3630, 3Com Modem. And, in MY experience, ALL MY applications run better on both the above machine AND the Laptop under NT (than under W2K). When W2K is 'up there' I may try it again. But, NOT BEFORE because I have been BURNT twice. In fact I am being burnt at this moment. But I need the USB (I am a Freelancer - Digital Camera). If you read Pikey's email, my guess is that he is a USER, LIKE ME - and I guess he is NOT a Computer Engineer (I am not either). But from the sounds of things you guys are in 'the Industry' (and to solve problems and find fixes). I'm paid to USE 3DS Max effectively. I'm sure I will one day upgrade from NT to.... what and when ?? Who knows !! P.S. Can anyone of you W2K advocators explain, why today I've suffered 3 blue screens in W2K (the Laptop has NEVER bluescreened under NT) AND also, can ANYONE tell me WHY in W2K I could not log back in as Administrator - see my previous message). All 1sts on this machine using W2K ! I look forward to your 'fixes' (ho hum) !!

To DOSFREAK, What UTTER Baloney ! Discreet, the writers of 3DSMax upgrade this software every 18months, sorry if that doesn't coincide with Microsoft's worldwide domination plan.... Oh, I forgot also about ALL the upgrades and patches I had to wait for for my 3DSMax 'plug-ins'. "Buy a Mac"......I'd LOVE to, if 3DS worked on the Mac OS I'd go tomorrow (if I could afford the software all over as well). My dealer is the best out there for discreet products and ALL THE VIDEO COMPONENTRY (hardware and software) that goes with it. He could sell me either W2K or NT - chooses NT and they don't just read the spec sheet (we're talking UK dealers here). And YES, they are VERY technical (they have to be). Re the IBM Intellistation, you can buy it with either W2K or NT. Its a top flight Visualisation Workstation - not a multimedia plaything. As I said, SERIOUS APPLICATION'S USERS WILL STICK WITH NT (WHICH IS PROBABLY WHAT THEY HAD ANY WAYS).......People who want to play games, and open up their computers for a hobby so that they can woo over W2K (and assist Microsoft with getting the bugs out of it - to their cost) have probably come from W95 or W98 themselves. "Seems to me that YOU don't know how to pick your parts." Really ?? My NT machine has NEVER EVER LET ME DOWN - everything sings. "You take companies by their word that this or that will work fine in Windows." That's not true, writing's just not my strong point ! "Well guess what? IT'S ALMOST NEVER BEEN LIKE THAT!!!!" And it never will whilst Mr Gates wants to rule the roost. "GO BUY A MAC. It runs graphics just fine and as all the Mac Zealots are fond of saying Photoshop is faaaaaaaaassssttt." I'd love to - see above. "Oh and as for stability well I guess you won't find it there either." Not according to my Mac Zealot friends. "Go find yourself an SGI workstation or something." SGI running Windows is not impressive. "Obviously 2000 is too hard for you." Yes it really is - what with 'MY Network PLACES" and 'Computers NEAR ME' - its all so technical. LOL!!!!!

BTW, Pikey was not talking about Servers, just a workstation, running AutoCAD (an application I have USED for years) So,....... Funny then that today, as coincidence would have it - my fresh W2K installation started to play up. I couldn't log on as Administrator..... "Windows cannot load the locally stored profile......An i/o operation initiated by the registry failed unrecoverably !!!!". How do you get around that ?? And coicidence or what ?? THIS HAS NEVER HAPPENED EVER IN NT !! If YOU'VE have NO problems, then fine, I'm happy for you.... but that doesn't exclude those of us who continue to have untold problems with it. Believe me, I'd love to have W2K (I like its features), I was one of the first in the queue to get a copy and go for it, but I won't try it again on my main machine until I am a lot lot more confident that it'll work just as well as what I've got. My confidence has been eroded. I have spent so much time, 'testing' things, downloading drivers, upgrading software, that I cannot keep spending this amount of time. And believe me, I have spent so much time testing, comparing application performances - I have really tried - but I've had too many problems. BTW, how much time do you think I wasted trying to get around the above problem today and do you think I could have done without it ?? My point to Pikey remains - You may be 'lucky' with W2K and have no problems. BUT, if you don't want to go through what I have had to go through (and continue to do so) AND if your livelihood depends on reliability, stability and NO FRILLS (USB, games etc), then my advice would be to go to NT. Finally, just what sofware do the W2K workstations that you have installed W2K run (the Workstations - NOT the SERVERS) ??

No facts ?? Yeah right. I just made them all up. And I'm the only one who has had problems with W2K, right ?? My opinion (NOT FACT) - if you are going from W98 to W2K you'll probably think W2K is great. If you are USED to NT4 and you go to W2K you'll probably say "Why the F*?$ is this running so bad ?" and then you'll spend a big bunch of time trying to get in W2K what you had in NT. Now the FACTS. Go today and try to buy an IBM Intellistation ZPro, a top of the range Visualisation workstation, tell them you need the machine to do intensive graphics work, with performance and stability. You'll get recommended to have NT on it rather than W2K. Funny that ? Maybe my 'Dealer of the year' gets it wrong too with their recommendations (NT over W2K)?? And they have FAR FAR more experience than I (FACT). So why is this ?? Because there are still too many issues with W2K FOR THE SERIOUS USER to contend with rather than just getting on with REAL work. Just trying to save Pikey the RISK of wasting lots of time. If he wants USB and to play games, then NT is NOT for him (FACT). So, if you are so smart, give us YOUR FACTS Nagual ;-)

Also, let me add that when I said I tried to install W2K TWICE on my workstation, the first time I tried was an absolute nightmare, up[censored] bios', scsi drivers etc etc. I did get it to install eventually but then I wasn't impressed with the performance (W2K is slower than NT4 in my experience). The second time I tried (approximately 8 months later) I had to upgrade loads of software, certain things still did not work 100%. The performance still wasn't impressive (any better). And I also started not to trust the W2K to perform without a hitch when it came to 'working under pressure' (my workstation is my livelyhood). Finally, I was getting serious performance problems over my LAN which was the last straw(when I went back to NT, the problems disappeared !). I'm sure I'll go to W2K one day, but for now I'd rather wait until it gets to around SP3/4 before I 'waste' a whole more bunch of time. The applications I run are; 3DS Max, Lightscape, Photoshop, Illustrator etc (heavy graphics programs). BTW, when I did install the ONE game I had on W2K (Fight Simulator 2000) it kept crashing !! Nah, if your work is in AutoCAD, go to NT4 ! EVERYTHING JUST WORKS (don't waste your time !)

I'd say go to NT. Its tried and tested - SP6, stable. In my experience, Windows 2000 is not there yet. Its got some nice bells and whistles but if your livelyhood depends on it - stick with NT Otherwise you could find yourself wasting a hell of a lot of time (and money) trying to get it anywhere near as good as NT. I've got two machines, workstation NT, laptop W2K. Believe me, I've tried twice to put W2K on my workstation and yet again I've gone back to NT - it just works ! If you want UTTER stability, NT is the choice.