Smart, Stable, Still Needs Work. Review on Microsoft Windows 2000

It's smart. It's sturdy. And if Microsoft can smooth some remaining rough edges, Windows 2000 will be surprisingly desirable.

I had installed the third offical beta version of Windows 2000 Professional on my desktop PCs. Windows 2000 will come in several server flavors and gently updated menus and utilities will make Windows 98 users feel right at home. And Windows NT 4.0 users will breathe a sigh of relief as features they had to cajole into working, or despaired of using at all, now simply work. My main compliants-- still scanty driver support and an occasionally bumpy installation routine.

Upgrade is Windows 2000's middle name. It is the first 32 bit operating system that will upgrade cleanly from Windows 95 and Windows 98. It gives you the basic choices as either replace the existing OS or add Windows 2000 as a second OS. But when you choose the upgrade option, the new OS inherits your old settings, and applications(you can't find this feature on Window NT 4.0).

I experienced no major problems when upgrading Windows 98 to Windows 2000 on a Intel Penium III-500 desktop machine with 128 MB of RAM. First, the setup program asked me whether I want to stay with the existing FAT32 file system or comvert to the NT file System. Next, the setup program scanned my system for potential compatibility and driver problems. It found only a handful.

The setup program also reported that several of my utilities-including Diamond Multimedia's InControl control panel and Power Quest DriveMapper would not work and that I would need to upgrade them to new, Windows 2000 versions. However, this don't bother me at all, as the programs that really matter to me are those productivity applications, e-mail, and Internet utilities, and they all worked perfectly after the upgrade.

Overall, Windows 2000 will be compatible with more hardware and software than Windows NT workstation 4.0 and friendlier to protable computing. Although it may not run well on older computers or on systems with 32MB or less of RAM, but if you have the right hardware and want a more stable operating system than Windows 98, Windows 2000 will be your first choice.

P.S. So if you have decided to brave the waters and upgrade to Windows 2000, I got some tips for you:

1) Before you commit to the upgrade, make sure the new OS will work on your PC.

2) Before you cast your lot with Win2K, make sure the apps you use every day will run.

3)When upgrading from Win98, print out Windows 2000's list of items that are incompatible with your system, then cancel out of the installation. After you remove or rectify trouble areas, start the installation process over.

4)Don't bet the farm on Windows 2000 this year, because it will take six months to a year for Windows 2000 Professional's bugs to get fix.