NT, 2000, 2000Pro, Whistler! What's what?

[SnapperOne 0]

Starting to get a bit confused by the new OSs. While I understand that NT 4.X preceded 5.0 (whoops Win2000) and that 2000 has some variants itself (ie...PRO, etc.), where does Whistler come in? Is it simply another name for 2000, or an entirely different package?

[OLEerror 0]

Whistler is the next Windows OS being released by Microsoft. Its release title is Windows XP. It will also come in several different versions like Windows 2000. These will include: Personal, Professional, and the various Server versions.

[DosFreak 2]

Windows Whistler is the successor to Windows 2000. It's like Windows ME after Windows 98SE except more so. All product lines for Windows Whistler will be the same as Windows 2000 except for 1 more addition. Windows Whislter Personal. Whistler Personal will be a more dumbed down version of Professional with crippled Professional features and more feautres to confuse home users.

[Guest]

BTW guys, Windows XP Server editions will not be called Windows "XP". MSOFT hasn't come up with a name for them yet, all they've said is that the server versions will not be called XP.

 

Later

[SnapperOne 0]

OLError, DosFreak, Sandoval........thanks for the input. It was short and to the point.

 

In the interim, I did however get off my dead *** and do some searching through past posts. Guess what? The answers were there; a bit more technical than I was looking for, but nonetheless there.

 

The question now is, "Wait for XP or jump into 2000Pro?" I think the later! But, now that I just now starting to feel comfortable with 98SE (read that to mean, I can get out of most of my self-created problems), I gotta' tell you I am moving toward 2000Pro kicking and screaming.

 

Thanks again for sharing what you've learned!

[Guest]

Use Windows 2000 Pro. In my unpopular opinion, it is much more solid than XP. But then again, I've only tested the betas of XP. Perhaps the final version will be a rock, but it's not right now.

 

Go to Win2k, after a little learning, you'll absolutly love it. You'll wonder why you didnt move to it a year ago. Install it on a FAT32 partition though, just in case you want to dual boot with 98 for a while.

[SnapperOne 0]

Sandoval.........,again, thanks for the input. Guess I'll put an audio tape under my pillow at night saying, Win2K, Win2K, Win2K...........

 

Right now the two systems we're using run PIII-533 and PIII-667 processors, both with 128K of Ddram, and 30G HDs. In addition to upgrading our video cards, possibly to Radeons based on past "post-advice", I'm considering upgrading the processors into the 900MHz range and/or bringing the Ram up to 256K. The ram is questionable, however, due to the cost.

 

Thanks again...........hope to bump into you again in the future.

 

Steven

[DavidJonesIGI 0]

I had 2000 running on 128 Megs, and though not brilliant it was OK. Windows 2000 is the best OS ever. When you get used to the ide of accounts (possibly the hardest thing for new users), you just think "Wow, what have I even been doing with 98/Me." I have been running 2K of about a year, and I am still waiting for it to crash or give me a BSOD

[Guest]

I've gotten plenty of BSODs, but not as a result of Windows funkering out on me. Usually they happen as a result of my playing around with things I shouldn't be playing around with. Either that or buggy software. What a lot of people don't understand is that 99.99999% of the time it's not the Operating System that crashes, but rather some crappy software running on the OS. This is exactly the reason NT (2k) has the ability to terminate any process running on the machine.

[ThC 129 0]

yeah im using Win98SE on a machine here at school and have already had 2 lockups in the course of an hour. Looks like i will have to format and put SE back on again for the 3rd or 4th time in like 3 months. That is whats nice about 2k, you can load it up with a bunch of crap (most of the programs on this machine are from a bunch of diff people using it and putting their crap on) and when a program f's up in 2k you can just open taskmanager and kill them. In 98 its pretty much pressing cntrl-alt-del and trying to kill the process not being able to getting a BSOD and then rebooting losing the crap you were working on.

[DavidJonesIGI 0]

Yes, in 98, if a program is shaky, then it flies all over the system crashing every other programme it can, in 2K all programmes are "Sandboxed", and if they try anything stupid, they crash themselves, and Windows keeps on rollin' rollin' rollin'. It's a simple featuer, and I don't know why M$ can't just integrate it into all versions of Windows, but then, that would mean business users would use 95/98 and then Microsoft couldn't charge them extra for NT/2K.

[Guest]

The reason is pretty simple. Win9x runs off of the DOS kernel, which by nature cannot perform tasks like killing processes with ease. Think of the NT kernel as a stone with a big circle around it. Within that circle are all the programs accessing the kernel. If one screws up, it's simply eliminated from the circle.

 

Imagine Win9x (DOS kernel), as a big playground, where everybody plays with everybody else. If you get a program to hang in this situation, killing it isnt so easy because it's all over the place. It's just the nature of the kernel.

 

Anyways, it's late and perhaps I'm rambling, but I just thought I'd give you guys a mental picture of the differences in kernels, so you kinda know what's happening under the hood when you hit "ctr alt del".

 

--Cheers

Sandoval

[ThC 129 0]

yeah i fully understand the differences between the kernals. I like the 9x analogy hehe, its pretty much true, that you get a lot more GPFs (general protection faults) in 9x because of the fact that each program doesnt get its own seperate memory space to run in and that the kernal in 9x doesnt get its own protected memory space so when Billy the ICQ program throws sand in Sally the IE program's eyes she goes screaming around the 9x playground bumping into everything and disrupting as many process as she can in her death throwes. Where in 2k if Billy is being disruptive the 2k kernal just says 'Get The Hell out of here!!' and throws him out of the circle and everything else gets along fine.

[Guest]

LOL

Man I thought my analogy was good! LOL

[ThC 129 0]

Hell with Windows for dummies this is Windows for Preschoolers LOL