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I still wouldn't mind they take a page from the Win98SE experience, update it with a true x86-64 O/S core and hidden XP Home style of permissions (only accessed through safe mode or CLI) for a single user O/S-type of experience. A root password for administration and a separate log on password for the user - even if its limited to one user per system - is not a bad scheme to follow!

The whole Windows system folder layout made sense in Win98. Today's implementation doesn't improve on it by having so many layers - scattered layers at that - of folder/file locations for data, settings, and temp space.

Edited 2010-02-28 02:31 UTC

Windows 2000 is still my default boot option for these reasons. No activation, no brain-damaged UI, and very fast on modern hardware. It's also very similar to XP for developers. Just this afternoon I was altering binaries that "require" XP according to their PE header but work fine on 2000 once the "requirement" is changed.

I'm sure I'll still be using it in some form well after support ends.

It depends on your definition of modern hardware. The higher the core count, the likelier Windows 7, and maybe even Vista, will outperform it.

Not that it matters. If you like 2000, then you should use it .

You realize you can use the classic UI with 7 and Vista, right?

I suppose it is ok to use 2k if you are dual booting just to use a couple Windows apps but 2k is really missing some key security features like Data Execution Prevention.

Agreed, Win2k is the only version of Windows I can say that I absolutely enjoyed using. Lean and mean, with a minimalist UI that didn't get in my way at all. Then, of course, Microsoft had to screw it up with XP and, at least in my opinion, it's been down hill since then as far as the UI goes. 7 has some great technologies under the hood, but I personally think the UI is god awful. It gets in the way, has too many steps for some actions (come on, three steps to connect to wifi?), and a pain in the ass from the keyboard while feeling extremely clunky and slow. It's like scraping nails across a chockboard for me to use 7 because of that UI.

Windows 7 is the only windows UI that gets out of the way.

If you are someone who knows the old UI to the point that you have ware marks in your screen from the mouse movements then I can see how the different UI would make you feel like it was in the way.

Windows 7 is the first version of windows that I don't bump into the UI every time I want to do something.

What exactly gets in your way compared to Win2k? You launch the programs, they go in the taskbar, you switch between them. I'm really not seeing a major difference.

I Totally agree.

Windows 2000 is still my main OS for all the reasons that you stated (and more).

I will continue to use it for as long as is possible, because I have yet to see any other operating system that I would rather use in its place.

Windows 2000 was an amazing release. I used it daily on at least one of my computers from ~2000-2008.

Pro was good on its own, but more than that, the entire 2000 environment of 2000 Server + Pro + Active Directory.

I can't think of any other software company accomplishing such a large shift, to a radical new way of doing things (Active Directory, Kerberos auth, etc.) with very few flaws. Not zero flaws, but pretty close considering the sweeping scope and highly technical nature of the changes they made. It is truly amazing.

The 2000 Server's automatic replication topology generation system, the KCC, is one of the great feats of engineering of the last few years.

So, short version, 2000 is an historic release, all the better for being a great release to use.

*edit*
Also it had a new driver model, a new disk model, offline storage, EFS. It goes on and on. I even think the 2000 Server and Pro Resource Kits are the best they've ever put out, all the more impressive because so much of that documentation had to be newly written from scratch for all the new systems.

Edited 2010-02-28 16:40 UTC

You have to be kidding me. Windows 2000 was an amazing release? Need I remind you of all the holes that hackers found in Windows 2000?

2000 had a solid kernel and file system but its security was swiss cheese. Windows Server 2000 shipped with all ports unfiltered by default. IIS 5 had a ton of vulnerabilities, mostly buffer overflow exploits.

2003 and 2008 are great releases. Windows 2000 users were beta testers when it came to security. Some people here think I am anti-Linux but when Win2K came out I thought it was just plain nuts to run it as a web server.

Windows 2000 was the first version of Windows that I actually quite liked using. Nothing that came after it did much to impress me.

These days I'm using Vista, but I don't consider it a huge upgrade from 2K. Considering the time that passed between 2K and Vista, that's pretty disappointing progress.

I'd definitely still be using Windows 2000 if it had drivers for my current hardware.

As a macosx and linux user i must admit that windows 2000 really impressed me. It was minimalistic and felt really responsive. Windows 2000 is the only version of windows that i really enjoyed to use.

I have seen quite a few people laud Win2k for its simplicity, its ease of use, and its consistency. I think some of you are describing why NT4.0SP6A was such a kick ass O/S to support. NT4.0 without service packs sucked until about SP4, but after that point it was getting good. And by SP6A it was really a lean O/S compared to even Win2k at the time.

On the enterprise network we used Novell Netware 5 - later 6 - to access groupware storage, personal profiles within the network, and for separate privdirs from the profile space. It was simple. It was secure. And it was F-A-S-T. 40,000 users shared space across 200 servers in the enterprise and it ran relatively smooth. That is until XP.

We rolled out XP because Microsoft was pressuring our legal department about the liability of computer security and whatnot. The lawyers that negotiated licenses basically painted us into a corner to switch to XP. And from there they began to push for more Active Directory integration. Slowly but surely Netware was losing its hold on main corporate LAN. And what sucked was the speed of the network suffered a horrible painful flood of QOS packets. Sure they contained them within LAN's, but the QOS packets really brought each segment to its knees. WTF do they need QOS packets for!?

And from there it just went downhill. Downhill to the point where they were seriously talking Linux clients. Not sure where they are today as I don't work there anymore. But I can say the trends when I left make me believe they ditched Netware. It was a shame, too. NT4.0SP6A and Netware was a pretty kickass combination.

There are no QOS packets, packets are only marked with QOS. That's only a few bits in a packet so if that took your network to the knees maybe the problem wasn't with the packets.