Windows 2000 Professional, while not considered a home user operating system, fits my bill for an OS that is stable and has a good combination of performance and compatibility with previous Windows versions, says Brian Bruns.
My Workstation OS: Windows 2000 Professional
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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I consider Win2k the only OS microsoft ever got right. XP is a joke for adults, aimed squarely at kids. Anything below Win2k is not an OS, (runs on DOS, shame shame). And it does not contain all of that crap called eye-candy useless junk. So Of course Win2k is decent.
though with several hours worth of hacking and the built in registry editor winxp becomes a very nice os. (i cant run a ‘tune up your pc’ type program though, becuz of all of my hacks. if i do it distroys my install an I cant even fix it.)
I run Windows Server 2003 at work. It works VERY well and even plays all the games I’ve tried on it (yes I’m allowed to do this, it’s my computer). It also is more responsive. w00t w00t for Server 2003.
I think there are a lot of people who are like the writer. Win2K is 5 years old and is performing at least on par in terms of functionality with any OS. It’s like the baseline OS, and it’s strength comes from the fact that everyone develops for it. 64-bit XP will change this, of course, but I don’t think that there will be any pressure to upgrade for at least another year. … when they release the Mac OS 10.5… ‘kitty’.
“Anything below Win2k is not an OS”
Win NT was a OS. It didn’t have the hardware support of 2K, nor was it as good of an operating system for game performance due to a rather crappy version of DirectX. Win2K was so much better because they spent a good four years improving their kernal for better stability as added support for USB and other new hardware technologies that NT4 didn’t support or supported very poorly.
Windows XP’s higher overhead problems aren’t purely the eye candy because you can turn the eye candy off and many tasks still take longer.
At work, I use three different XP machines on a regular basis. They are all less stable than my personal W2K system.
@Fixor
Even turning off all the eye candy does not improve my XP experience much. XP itself seldom crashes, but the Explorer shell fails me 2+ times a day.
In contrast, I can count on my hand the number of times W2K core OR its shell have crashed my home PC.
What drawbacks are you talking about in XP in comparison to Windows 2000? could you elaborate please? Not trolling but rather I am uneducated on the matter and would like to know more. It is just not enough in saying one OS is better than the other without citing specifics. I think IMO XP is quite decent. I have tweaked my registry as well. I have all the gui stuff running full on and frankly it does not make a dent in the performance on my laptop. Boots up in less than 20 seconds including post. I reboot occasionally. I just put it on hibernate and so its almost instant on where I left off. It has never BSOded on me especially after I upgraded to SP2 and did my tweaks, for example nLite and registry edits. I would just like to know. MAybe there are some bencmarks we could run to check where the overhead in XP is. Thanks.
Win2K can run on 32MB is you so desire, XP needs 128MB minimum. Win2K is my choice of OS for old hardware, as new and as compatible as XP, yet works beautifully on old hardware (it flies on PII chips!)
XP runs on a p3 500 mhz and 256 mb of memory no prob. Yes you are right about the memory requirements most likely but the memory requirement can be brought down if you are ok with disk thrashing and also turning off the gui stuff. And who would want to run on a 32 mb environment anyway?!
im typing this on my laptop
p3 500, 192mb ram with win xp sp2
and i can even watch dvds and divx in full screen and do some medium 3d cad-stuff on it
but i have to admit that i had to strip down my setup to the point that win only takes 40mb ram after booting.
XP ran on a k6-2 300 mhz and 64 mb of memory with no problem for me. Right now the machine has 160mb and runs even better.
And yes, I feel that XP is much more responsive than 2000 was on this machine.
Features I’d like:
– Close Explorer any time and only bring it on when needed
– Bring on Explorer more gracefully: not one UI element after another, and not lose System icons in the systray
– Unhide any window (when you have a running app but no window nor systray icon you just can’t talk to it any more)
– Use real shadows instead of horrid .lnk
– One-key-press to show Desktop and hide it again: just show and allow operation not minimise all windows
– ‘Close Group’ for all task icons, not just those heaped together when space runs out. And close immediately, not after waiting fo the context switch.
– Real support for vertical taskbar
– Bring back the Win 9x search window!!!
These would be small steps into making the Windows UI more sufferable.
MS has made quite a few strategic mistakes in the last 10 years, IMHO:
1)”Repairing” Windows 98 and selling it as a new OS, instead of offering it as a free update.
2)Having such a beautiful OS as Win2k and not using it on home desktops. Instead they shoved ME down the users’ throat, the worst rubbish of an OS ever seen.
3)Windos 2003 Server: advanced users were begging them to make a workstation edition out of it (I know, it can be made into a workstation, but the cost?). Again, they wouldn’t listen, God knows why. Are their users not worthy of something good?
Now they are devoting all their resources to Longhorn, which seems to fail to convince most people.
Well, without all those mistakes probably people would like them a lot more today, including myself.
I didn’t say XP was a bad OS. I merely said that even when you change to a simpler theme like the classic theme and turn off most of unneeded UI ‘effects’ that on most lower end machines 2K gives higher frame rates for games and higher performance on other benchmarks. While on almost every machine XP boots faster, on lower end machines(most machines with CPU clock speeds below 1Ghz) 2K tends to do most other tasks faster. When you don’t need to reboot very often the seconds one saves at bootup are likely made up for and then some by the slower performance on many tasks.
I agree with the others people that using XP doesn’t require one to use the kidy looking Luna theme. If you can’t figure out how to change it maybe you are a kid and need it to comfort you! Just my 2c.
I agree that Windows 2000 was one of the best versions that Microsoft put out. I still regularly use it on some older systems i have. All the goodness of XP without all the bloat they added.
Agree,the Home edition should have been like Windows XP
and the professionnal edition should have been like Windows
2000. This way both version make sense.
The XP / 2K comparison has been one I have given a lot of though for a fair while now, as I have dual booted them on my Athlon 2600 machine for over 18 months.
I found what a lot of other have: too many “features” to turn off in XP (search puppy, avi preview, zip folders, cd burning, common tasks…); no real disadvantage in using 2k for anything what-so-ever; lots of noticeable, annoying bugs in XP.
Bugs have been my biggest disappointment: settings that won’t stay set; random window focus errors; CD Burner incompatibility (even while it worked with 2k on the same machine!); stupidly intrusive autoplay that can’t remember how you set it up, and many other little annoyances mainly to do with it forgetting your settings. The quality control on XP has been poor – I sometimes wonder if they even use their own software in there at MS. Obviously, XP has built in skins and other UI enhancements but I just found myself turning these off as the computer responded better that way.
On the performance side XP boots faster but that’s it as far as I can tell. I benchmarked XP and 2k on the same system and didn’t get a conclusive result either way except that 2k consistently won in PC mark by 1% (10 tests). 3D results were the same. 2K has much better desktop responsiveness. This is very obvious when you boot into 2k after a week or more in XP. Clicks get faster results in 2k.
2K is modern, very fast, very stable, lean and professional. It’s a bit lighter on resources, does what it’s told, and just plain doesn’t annoy me. Can’t ask for much more than that.
I think that most people who love XP came from 98 – 2k users already knew what a decent os was/is.
– One-key-press to show Desktop and hide it again: just show and allow operation not minimise all windows
Like WinKey+D?
Does anyone know how to enable Explorer to display the Security tab in the File/directory dialog on XP Pro? All of this extra hand-holding wizard crap is fine for new users, but gets in the way for the rest of us.
P.s.
I have XP running the classic theme.
– One-key-press to show Desktop and hide it again: just show and allow operation not minimise all windows
Like WinKey+D?
No, nothing like ‘WinKey+D’. Read what I wrote. **1** key, to show and *hide*, ‘not minimise all windows’.
I have been saying this for a LONG time. It took a long time for me to abandon NT4 in favor of Windows 2000 (aka NT5). XP is a joke, it’s slow, severely bloated and as I have said before “OS by Microsoft, GUI by Fisher Price”. Yes, I know that you can select in the menu to go back to the “classic” look. To me, the classic look of 95/98/2000 looked the most professional. The user interface in XP however reminds me of a child’s busy box. Or if you like, dumbed down to the lowest common denominator.
Now I also use Linux (SuSE) and Solaris, but Windows 2000 is the primary OS I use at the moment, it just simply works. The only thing I have added is a Cygwin environment and multidesk, this makes it about as UNIXed up as I can get it.
2k Pro was the best Windows desktop release. I hate all of Microsoft’s “home” OS’s. They just disable stupid little things and claim it’s still worth $200 (I count box prices).
Okay, I’m going to gloat for just a sec, please excuse me. Awhile back, when other sysadmins I knew were using their “Microsoft Software Assurance” benefits to upgrade their desktops to XP, I told my CEO that I saw no reason to move our users away from 2000 Pro. None at all. In fact, even being the Linux advocate I am, I had to admit that 2000 was the most satisfactory desktop OS I’d ever used in a corporate environment. Now, I sit back and smile as the guys who went with XP talk about what a step backwards they took. I still don’t understand what XP was supposed to be about. I’m just glad I stuck with what is probably Microsoft’s crowning achievement to date. It will be sad when MS declares “end of life” on the most business-friendly product they ever put out.
Microsoft seams determined to kill off Windows 2000. I do not quite get why they refuse to provide an XP SP2 level updates to 2K, especially to the Internet Explorer and non-executable page functionality in the kernel. While it is nice to be able to easily use my digital camera with the Windows XP laptop, I agree that Windows 2000 was the best overall Microsoft operating system with which I have ever dealt.
I actually had a lot of places where 2000 would just hang for whatever reason, and XP fixed every single one of these hang issues.
XP should not have been a step back for any business, as you can fully customize it with policies and such, not to mention the inclusion of RDP means you don’t have to always go to a workstation to fix it.
The biggest thing I like about XP is the new start menu, which makes it so much easier to access certain items as compared to the Win95 style start menu.
Not to say that XP doesn’t have it’s quirks, most of which have been stated, like it forgetting settings (which, incidentally, 2000 has the same problem with) and such. But you all make it out to be a load of bloated crap, when in reality this bloat that you speak of just is not there, on top of the fact that it can be tweaked to look and act like 2000 while gaining the improvements that were made in XP.
I’ve always been a big fan of Win2k. It’s an excellent OS! Definitely one of the most stable Microsoft has ever come out with.
However I run XP on my main box here. Reason being I use a lot of XP “features” like the enhanced wireless connection stuff it has and it’s nice to have it automagically recognize my digital camera when I plug it in.
Of course I’ve totally stripped XP down. I’m running the bare minimum of services and I of course do not use those ugly themes XP ships with. Luna makes me seriously ill after an XP install and I turn it off as soon as possible! lol
While I run XP on my main box, I do run Win2k on other boxes here, like the laptop, file server, etc.. The rest of the family is also running Win2k.
Both 2k and XP are equally stable in my experience. On most boxes they run without a snag. Although I have had Win2k go down a few times. However, I’ve been using my current install of XP for two years now and it hasn’t crashed once! I’ve had apps go down, but the OS keeps running. In fact, at this moment I have a little over 52 days of uptime on it. So XP is indeed a stable OS. You just have to feed and take care of it properly.
Supporting and working on both Win2K and Windows XP in a Prepress Graphic Design/Digital Print Environment I prefer to work with Windows XP. The strengths I have found are mainly in better user switching which is extremely helpful for administration when you are running restricted user accounts. Also better support for modern hardware (USB/Flash Drives).
Also it is much easier in a restricted user space to install software with RunAs. Just makes my job as administrator easier. Windows 2000 runs nicely but I just find XP easier to work with. SP2 is nothing to be worried about and I find performance to be more favourable to XP’s direction with more modern compilation of the XP kernel compared to 2000. SP2 delivered a noticeable speed up on SP1.
XP needs customisation to get running well and to be rid of that crap GUI that is the default but when done it is a pleasure to deal with and as mentioned the start menu is better laidout than previous Windows versions. Again I run everything in restricted user space with the LAN behind a router/firewall.
I support many small sites and working on the ones with XP is a pleasure as opposed to previous MS OS’s which can be quite tedious.
Win2K was about Microsoft’s strongest point. It hit before all the security problems and at the time it was better than basically any competition – Linux was still on the difficult side and OS9 had underlying problems.
Does anyone know how to enable Explorer to display the Security tab in the File/directory dialog on XP Pro? All of this extra hand-holding wizard crap is fine for new users, but gets in the way for the rest of us.
Yeah, it’s in View > Folder Options somewhere; it’s “Use simple file sharing”. Like every other option in there, it should be toggled as soon as Windows is installed.
Has anyone ever seen win2k’s automatic repair feature? Sophomore year, when I was playing with the Blue Moon Rendering Tools, Windows decided that some library installed by BMRT was broken, and proceded to automatically “fix” it. Re-installing BMRT just caused windows to recognize the “broken” library and replace them with whatever it thought was the correct thing. Needless to say, I never could get BMRT running on that win2k install again. To this day, I’m curious if anyone else has had troubles like this with windows.
Somewhat OT, but this was the final thing that drove me from windows to linux. I decided that a stupid OS that requires tons of manual intervention is definitely preferable to one that thinks it’s smarter than its user.
– One-key-press to show Desktop and hide it again: just show and allow operation not minimise all windows
Like WinKey+D?
No, nothing like ‘WinKey+D’. Read what I wrote. **1** key, to show and *hide*, ‘not minimise all windows’
Actually, if you have a half decent keyboard and/or multi-button mouse, you should be able to program that in. Otherwise, on a normal keyboard with just standard keys, which key would you use for that? I’d hate to press it on accident
I’d state it this way:
OS9 was an underlying problem.
:).
Didn’t OS X release in like mid 2000? I realize 10.0 was an unusable pile of steaming crap, but 10.1 a year later was good (while at the same time Microsoft made a good release, and then subsequently screwed it up).
Architecturally, win2k and winxp are almost identical. They differ only in version number of components, plus some minor addons in winxp.
What make they look so different is their default settings; like file system permissions, smb sharing modes, GUI/explorer settings, system service/daemon defaults etc. Win2k is much more “professional” looking in the sense as:
– It requires more understanding of permissions and system inner works to get it running
– navie/useless animations turn off
– less idiotic wizards getting in your way
In contrast, winxp is designed with the mind that even the n00best user can jump in and use w/o knowing any innner works. These means most things are pre-configured, or they have to be configured via wizards.
These preconfigured systems/wizards are always annoying when a experienced users tries to customise the OS. Together with the stupid animations and quirks here and there, it make winxp extremely kindergatenish.
Many people argue that the n00bish stuff can be disabled, but why go through the trouble turning off the unwanted cruft one by one while win2k have that by default?
Win2k successor win2k3 go even further with most things disabled/unconfigured by default. This “secure by default” setting saves a lot of security auditing. As win2k is already aged, win2k3 is a better successor as a workstation OS than winxp.
XP supports an automated install where you burn an XP disk with service packs preinstalled into the CD and an Answer File which controls what’s installed.
Usig this method you can have it boot up for the first time with all the dross, games, useless utilities and brightly-coloured themes uninstalled and disabled so it comes up looking like Win2K and having used vastly less space (as they never get installed in the first place)
From that point its far quicker to set up an XP box than a Win 2000 one. I’ve distributed XP in this way to lots of users down to a P2-400 with 160mb and all loved it far more than original XP
XP loads faster, is faster, can take advantage of new technology better, is more stable, has better multimedia, has better security, and actually makes multiuser possible.
The last one was the deal breaker for me. At home, I like to have multiple accounts; one admin, and at least one regular user. I use the regular user the vast majority of time. While run as exists, it is extremely limited in what it supports. Back when I had Windows 2000, I had to close everything, lose my entire workspace, log in as admin, do some administratrive tasks, and then log in again as a regular user. This got annoying very quick. Now that I am using XP, it is just a matter of switching users and doing my work.
Anyways, after turning of all the graphical stuff and making Windows use classic mode, Windows XP is superior to 2000 in every way.
A lot of people has used Windows 98 and Windows ME at their home PC’s. If I hate one thing are OS’ses which crashes very easy, which makes working to it unreliable.
Instead of Windows 9x, Windows 2000 Pro is reliable and compatible. Only when I want to buy a piece of hardware I have to ask if it works on Windows 2000. Mostly it was not a problem. Windows 2000 includes every feature with W98 also has except the crashes. Even you can play games on Windows 2000.
Before I used W2K pro as home system I have also used Windows NT/4. Windows 2000 combines the good things of Windows 98 and NT/4.
I have never understand how people can work with Windows 95/98/ME. This is for me a big miracle. It is just going from crash to crash.
Now I’m working with XP and Linux.
Right-Click -> Task Manager …
Try taking a look at the bloat .. Ah, the power of ignorance.
2K is not being fully supported now. It took me a long time to move to XP from 2000. I think 2000 was a very good OS.
Because MS have started cutting away at 2k – you cannot stay with it. That is I feel the truth. Starting with the browser, but not limited to it, MS have begun the process of cutting away and leaving end users exposed. More and more reason to move to XP.
Because the MS system IS one where you dance to their tune, You can take seperate steps to refrain from this. But these are steps like running firewalls, or different applications, or avoiding security problems with other methods, and working round new function being denied in 2k.
But on the other hand, at some stage you will find it suitable to move from 2k. In terms of UI, you can shut off the new shell enhancements and go back to a 2k shell in XP. But I myself see that in truth XP is where new additional function has been applied. Examples would be better wireless support in SP2 – better security to some degree, better handling of USB2, better browser security.
But beyond that, other areas like sysprep were much improved. I liked 2k, and I still do, but its carrying more baggage and issues – which is a shame. One could argue that XP additions in funtion/security/technology should get backported, but its not going to happen.
In my environment, if you give a windows 2k box, and apply SP4 + patches, its a very poor system security wise. Its just no longer viable to do it for me. I could blame MS for that, but they provide XP – and our corp lic allows free upgrade, so what am I bitching about? They provide the fix to the issue… until next time.
But this is a bit moot now. XP is on SP2, and longhorn is on the way. I’ve not looked hard at Longhorn yet, but I am presuming its a leap akin to NT <> 2000
AdmV
that Microsoft still fully support Windows 2000. It’s true that certain functionality is missing compared with XP – but most participants in this thread are probably indifferent or perhaps even happy that they cannot get said functionality :p
MS is still releasing bugfixes for IE to Windows 2000. And when all support for windows2000 is stopped then XP will follow shortly after, having almost the same age. And then I’ll be running the games on my linux using Wine (if properly configured it is as a fast or even faster than Windows – just remember to use fairly standard hardware).
I’m using Windows 2000 Pro at home – and it works fine. It does have a few problems with older games, problems which XP doesn’t have. But then… DOS-games is better played in DOSBox (either on Windows or Linux) – and Windows games runs pretty well on Windows2000.
And office-apps … –> Ohhh… productivity belongs to linux anyway :p
What new technology is supported by XP and not by 2K?
What new technology is BETTER supported by XP than by 2K?
Where are your benchmarks?
Are you comparing XP Home or XP Pro with Windows 2000 … and which windows 2000 are you comparing with?
In Windows2000 you can easily run a program as Administrator _without_ having to log of – just as you can in XP. Windows2000 has the same functionality in this area. You ought to know that – if you have used Win2K that is :p
What drawbacks are you talking about in XP in comparison to Windows 2000? could you elaborate please?
I don’t know what SSA had agiast XP, but for me the main problem is software activation. This is an extra peace of technology that have no value to me, and that potentially can make my system unusable if something goes wrong. It is also bad for long term data security. I.e. what happens when/if MS no longer is there to give you a key?
Another thing is that I can’t stand the default Luna theme. Yes, I know I can change this, but on previous versions of NT I didn’t have to.
Windows NT4 did everything I needed to conduct my business, the add ons on win2k, and now XP didn’t make my customers to pay their bills earlier, neither do they improve my working speed.
Win2k had some advantages like USB support, but really nothing that made the upgrade worth the cost in a business setting.
2K is not being fully supported now. It took me a long time to move to XP from 2000. I think 2000 was a very good OS.
Because MS have started cutting away at 2k – you cannot stay with it. That is I feel the truth. Starting with the browser, but not limited to it, MS have begun the process of cutting away and leaving end users exposed. More and more reason to move to XP.
I think it’s time to consider other alternatives as well. As Longhorn is around the corner it would probably be a good idea to wait for that, or you would soon find you self in the same situation when XP turns unsupported.
Another alternative would be to start planning a switch to Linux, by replacing as many applications as possible on your current windows desktop with ones that are cross platform, E.g replace IE with firfox, MS-SQL Server with Sybase or postgresql, IIS with Apache, MS-Office with OpenOffice,…
That way, it will be easy to avoid the MS tax and get in control of your IT environment by switching to Linux at a later date by switching to Linux when it gets more mature.
(You probably can use it right now, but if you don’t have that early adopter personality you would sleep better if you wait a year or twoo).
For business users, XP has some clear advantages over 2000:
Zero-conf wireless networking
Cleartype
Better automatic updates
Better laptop features
MAPI over HTTP (VPN-less Outlook)
Also, you’ll find Windows 2003 to be as fast as Win2K
Oh, and you can get the Win9x search window if you fiddle with the options a little.
Dunno if this is what you want, but anyway — a loooong quote from scottxp.com:
——————————
Advanced File Sharing & Security
(The information for method 3 of this workaround was taken from a Newsgroup post by Gilles Pion on November 14, 2001.)
Anyone who has used Windows XP Home on a network will immediately notice that it is severely impaired when it comes to file sharing. First of all, the only option the user is given is whether or not a file/folder should be shared…there is no choice as to who has access to which files; this is an all or none option. This is what Microsoft likes to call Simple File Sharing. Windows XP Pro allows simple file sharing to be turned off through an option under Folder options, but this option does not appear in the Home edition. In addition, XP Home does not allow you to share the Program Files folder, the Documents and Settings folder, or the WINNT folder, which can be extremely annoying if you wish to share all your programs with other computers on the network. Of course, you can still share each directory under Program Files and Documents and Settings individually, but this is a waste of time. The following are some ways to access the Windows 2000-style security that is still intrinsically built into XP Home.
Method 1
Booting the computer in safe mode will reveal that Windows XP Home does indeed still function on traditional NTFS security. In safe mode, right-clicking on a file/folder and choosing Sharing and Security will display the properties sheet for the file/folder, but you will also notice that the Security tab is now present as well. While this method will work, it is not recommended since any security changes made in Normal mode will overwrite the changes that have been made in safe mode.
Method 2
The second method for accessing NTFS security in Windows XP Home is through the CACLS.EXE utility. This utility comes with XP Home and is used for changing the Access Control Lists (ACLs), which are used by Windows to keep track of user permissions/security. Search the Internet for more information on using this control-line utility.
Method 3 (RECOMMENDED METHOD)
This is the method of choice for setting user security permission in Windows XP Home. It is very easy to install and will bring back the Security tab in Normal mode.
1.) Download the NT 4 Security Configuration Manager from http://www.microsoft.com/ntserver/nts/downloads/recommended/scm/def….
2.) Run the scesp4i.exe file and extract all files to a temporary directory.
3.) Right-click on the setup.inf file and choose the install option.
4.) Answer no if asked to overwrite essent.dll.
You will now be able to access the Security tab as shown above.
——————————–
”
I think it’s time to consider other alternatives as well. As Longhorn is around the corner it would probably be a good idea to wait for that, or you would soon find you self in the same situation when XP turns unsupported. ”
It is worth considering alternatives. And I do. But people in this regard HAVE to realise there is a reality out there that does not reside in tech enviroments and discussions – and its real. Alternatives have to both be better and easier to use, with support that matches what is already in place.
“Another alternative would be to start planning a switch to Linux, by replacing as many applications as possible on your current windows desktop with ones that are cross platform, E.g replace IE with firfox, MS-SQL Server with Sybase or postgresql, IIS with Apache, MS-Office with OpenOffice,…”
You can plan as you wish. I plan in line with what the business accepts. Linux has begun to replace SUN workstations in our shop. It frankly has zero chance of replacing windows workstations. That is the reality. The end users, and management are centred round the microsoft products. They know them, they understand the enough to do their daily work. Firefox lacks enterprise tools, and support, and even if you do roll it, winthin a windows environment, what you do is create a situation where you double your support realities. You have to support all the queries, problems, security failures and support issues on TWO browsers.
There are possible situations where Apache may replace IIS, but the latest incarnation of ISS is in my opinion quite solid. Databases again, yes, you could do this. Open office has zero chance of replacing MS office in our shop. This is largely again, politically driven with more people being involved than just IT. Each department would have to agree to it, and for absolutly certain, I don’t want to have to support TWO office products because of a company scism about not being able to switch totally. Open Office 2 is quite good, but so is MS office.
While suggestions about where you could roll out changes and improve areas is always good at looking at, and if you run some small business where you can call the shots, then cool. But in the larger organisation, you have to win people over, its rare you’ll have enough financial and political firepower to force a switch, cover tthe costs of change, and face up to end user gripes/retraining/new procedures. These are painful and increase with size and complexity.
“That way, it will be easy to avoid the MS tax and get in control of your IT environment by switching to Linux at a later date by switching to Linux when it gets more mature.
(You probably can use it right now, but if you don’t have that early adopter personality you would sleep better if you wait a year or twoo)”
Business drives IT. IT does not drive the business. Linux advocates seem to not realise this in most of their postings. Linux software is not cheaper to run. Its not per se better for the organisation. Its support issues are not *better*, and Linux is IMHO NOT a good windows replacement system. I am clearly NOT alone in this thinking with Linux making good inroads against Sun and Unix but not so much against Windows. Now this is very organisational dependant. You may be in a company where you have mostly techs who can cope with the change. But many businesses do not.
In the environment I currently face – I can tell you the exact picture. I have converted on department to linux – and they were using SUN workstations, and still do, but to a lesser extent. They LOVE Linux, and won;t be going back to SUN. But I also presented them with MAC OSX for a couple of weeks, and they came to the conclusion that it was excellent.
I have converted a few scientists, but the core reason they were happy to consider this was their number crunching software called R came in multiplatform packs ,and they found the windows version buggy. I persuaded them to trial linux and they now use it. But get this, they went back to windows for their office, mail and general use. That was despite being shown what linux has, the browsers, Open Office II..
Most businesses PAY for IT. I mean that at the end of the day the IT manager or director has to sell the vision to the rest, and they have to pay for it, they have to switch their users to it, they have to pay for training, they have to absorb the difficulties in working round any shortfalls or failings. In addition, if have to say Linux is not free. You can role it out free, thats not the argument. Support costs are heavy in linux, at least in an enterprise. The BOFH approach may work to some degree at universities or other locations, but in business, if a user can’t get open office to do what he wants, you’re going to have to go to the desk and do it. Or someone else will. If something isn’t working – then you are going to have to get it working. And there are a hell of a lot of MS akin dependencies now in business. The large efforts in Munich and at IBM to move wholly to Linux desktops is a realistic overview as to the very great difficulty in doing this.
I like Linux. Its a good UNIX system. Its a good system for adaptable techs and staffers. And its always improving. But it should only be used or advocated where suitable. And people have to be given a choice. Certainly at senior levels you have to sell this in a winning way and its got to be workable.
I also happen to think that despite apple and MS being closed source or proprietry, that they too have things to offer. Vendor lock-in is as awkward in the unix and Linux world as anywhere else. Real support via Red Hat or others carries real costs, and open source is great for developers, and does give you control. But only if you then take on the code yourself, and this is expensive in itself. Many will prefer MS do this. To a large degree this discussion could be vast, and almost unlimited in scope, but its better to try and hold it to a discussion related to your enviroment or mine, where you have some base to work off
It can then be looked into wether its a good fit, and wether costings, support, and other issues mean its workable.
AdmV
Windows 2000 doesn’t even need a CD-key to run.
Windows XP needs not only a CD-key but you have to call Micros~1 and “activate” your OS. And in opposite to themes you can’t turn this off in the control panel or whereever.
Basically Windows XP is to blame for bringing Ubuntu to my desktop. Trying to force me to activate my software kind of crossed a red line.
As long as Micros~1 provides patches for Windows 2000 I’ll stick with a dualboot system and then Windows 2000 will get removed, though it’s a good OS.
MS akin dependencies now in business.
So where’s suport from the vendor coming in action here?
We hear a lot of people telling about support issues.If you consider to migrate,it’s likely because support for your current OS stops and you have the chance to migrate with little loss of already invested money.That is if you current hardware supports the migration etc etc.
Onething suprises me and rarely someone brings it into the equation here:existing knowledge at hand.I think especially these days, its much cheaper to hire competent Linux admins than paying for guys who wants to lunch with you first before they start looking at what’s really an issue.If a system runs what support would you need?
Business drives IT. IT does not drive the business. Linux advocates seem to not realise this in most of their postings.
Perhaps at MS.The whole information technology infrastructure within a company is one big tool.It’s only putpose:the gathering,processing,serving,storing of information.Without the network infrastructure nothing runs.The whole tredmill stops eventually or people risk a severe burnout.So it’s undoubtedly an tool preferrably handled by experts.Fortunately some worthwile firms tend to have an IT-manager whome they gave a budget to spend within a certain time frame.He shouldn’t have to defend his choices
made from a technically perpective.Ideally he’s only to blame when spend amount X and the network ceased to funtion in one way or another.How can non-technical employees judge upon very technical issues?
Why is that you are trying to make people fear, feel uncertain, and what is the reason for you to spread doubts?
Lets review:
>”is software activation. This is an extra peace of technology that have no value to me,”
According to most popular free market theories, mass production reduces price per until.
More sales- more units produced- lower price per until sold.
Software activation, in theory, is supposed to make more incentive for people to buy the product, instead of getting it without paying to the vendor and then using vendor’s services other people paid for.
So, at least in theory, software activation has very much material value: reduces cost of software. Of course, if you pay nothing for software- activation does not have any value for you both in theory and in practice.
Most people pay for software.
>“and that potentially can make my system unusable if something goes wrong”
And you potentially can be electrocuted by the Windows if you open a cover of a computer running Windows and start touching live cables.
>“I.e. what happens when/if MS no longer is there to give you a key?”
Well, so what happens? Tell us, please. Make us run screaming. If MS declares Chapter 11 tomorrow, all our data on all Windows computers worldwide will be lost instantly. Right? Right?
>“Win2k had some advantages like USB support, but really nothing that made the upgrade worth the cost in a business setting.”
Strange business you are in…
>“or you would soon find you self in the same situation when XP turns unsupported.”
The sky will fall the moment it happens. No, we can’t run unsupported Win XP (it’ll turn itself off the day Microsoft makes it unsupported) and we can’t upgrade to Longhorn because it needs triple CPU 10 GGHz, Ultra-SCSI 500 GB hard drive and 500 Gigabytes to RAM just to boot.
>“Another alternative would be to start planning a switch to Linux”
Yes, because with the Linux, when the distro becomes unsupported (which happens once in a millenium) anyone could upgrade seamlessly to completely different Linux distro in two hours, and that new distro will run even on grandpa’s watch, so you will never in your life have to upgrade hardware again to run the greatest and latest Linux distro with OpenOffice/FireFox/Gaim and anything else.
>“it will be easy to avoid the MS tax”
Software tax was invented by Stallman, Microsoft just copied an idea.
Also, I find it surprising how Linux advocates say it is OK to pay for software (Linux, sure) but how bad is a company (MS, sure) charging for software.
Last, but not least: if it is easy to avoid software tax, how come Red Hat is profitable?
Wait, you meant avoid MS software tax and switch to OpenSource software tax? OK, now I got you…
>“get in control of your IT environment by switching to Linux”
That is very much true. Switch your IT to a Linux, preferably distro you built yourself, and make them fear firing you.
Happens all the time. You can’t do it with Windows- too standard, no way to make something special out of it only you can control and manage. No job security running Windows whatsoever.
>“switching to Linux when it gets more mature.”
Looks like an admission that today Linux is not mature enough, Windows is a better choice. We will follow your advice, thank you.
“So where’s suport from the vendor coming in action here? ”
Bottom line, you either support it yourself, get vendor support, or do somekind of mix. Denying that you need vendor support doesn’t seem logical.
“We hear a lot of people telling about support issues.If you consider to migrate,it’s likely because support for your current OS stops and you have the chance to migrate with little loss of already invested money.That is if you current hardware supports the migration etc etc.”
OK, here is a fact for you. If I migrate my 100+ users, I have a great deal of work retraining, findig applications that replace windows versions, problem solving, work on security, support for NEW applications, and changes in policy and procedures. I am sorry if you think this is akin to a light switch on/off change, but if so – you do not know what you are talking about.
“Onething suprises me and rarely someone brings it into the equation here:existing knowledge at hand.”
Erm, existing knowledge equates to zero in the areas that matter.
“I think especially these days, its much cheaper to hire competent Linux admins than paying for guys who wants to lunch with you first before they start looking at what’s really an issue.If a system runs what support would you need?”
Hiring competent admins, well that is only the start. You have to lay off others, you have to train a lot of people beyond just some admins, and beyond that I’ll put it to you that ‘competant admins’ is a tricky issue in itself. Just out of interest, give me the requirements as far as you are concerned in regard to a competant Unix/Linux admin – one who holds all the migration skills and background for moving an enterprise and all its systems and software to linux. Oh, and how much do you believe you would pay in wages and project costs.
“Perhaps at MS.The whole information technology infrastructure within a company is one big tool.It’s only putpose:the gathering,processing,serving,storing of information.”
Yes, and if it doesn’t work, or its users can’t use it, or it costs money, time, effort and lacks what the organisation needs, or causes problems with the companies operations, then its not going to be considered.
“Without the network infrastructure nothing runs.The whole tredmill stops eventually or people risk a severe burnout.”
Why do you believe companies have a high turnover in IT? Do you believe all the polls showing high burnout and stress with IT staff is a mirage? Do you somehow believe IT staff run companies and can dicate how things will run?
“So it’s undoubtedly an tool preferrably handled by experts.”
Its odd you say that, I just spent some time with a law firm, and they fired the previous guy because they said he was trying to make himself indispensible in terms of knowledge. Companies are not interested in this, they want systems that work, and systems that can be supported. Forget your elitism, its not going to be applicable.
“Fortunately some worthwile firms tend to have an IT-manager whome they gave a budget to spend within a certain time frame.”
Firstly, the IT manager does’nt tend to make these calls, boards and IT directors and business decisions make these calls, and the IT manager is charged with getting on with it.
“He shouldn’t have to defend his choices
made from a technically perpective.Ideally he’s only to blame when spend amount X and the network ceased to funtion in one way or another.How can non-technical employees judge upon very technical issues?”
Because if you take your low level staff, your managers, your directors, your scientists, your specialists and remove windows, and put a new linux system on the desk, thats not the end, that is the beginning. And you better sure as hell be able to say they can do their work, they are trained, they will not have problems, they will be able to do their work, they will be able to communicate to others, they will be able to deliver their products and send them to customers without problems and so on and so forth.
If you believe that this issue is one of ripping out windows, dropping in linux and walking away and washing your hand of the issue that follow, that is perhaps why you don’t understand how it really is.
AdmV
I Still run win98se at my work .It’s run very fast on my DURON 900MHZ with 256Mb.ram ,I tried more than 6 OS but finally i return to win98se for daily work and i have WINXP for develope software ,I don’t like win2k because it take very long for boot time..and my customer can’t wait …
No, nothing like ‘WinKey+D’. Read what I wrote. **1** key, to show and *hide*, ‘not minimise all windows’.
I DID read what you wrote you illiterate twit. WinKey+M is minimize all, WinKey+D is SHOW/HIDE desktop (meaning all the visible windows). Why didn’t you actually TRY it before spouting off?
For me, XP offers plug ‘n play scanning and integrated wireless. My old scanner, a UMAX (never again – Umax sucks), never worked on Win2K but worked “out of the box” with drivers that came with XP. And I don’t know if anyone ever used the early wireless stuff with native configuration utilities, but it was really bad – XP solved the problem.
Wireless is a HUGE deal for my wife, and it has to be easy, and XP does that for me, hands down the winner.
I abandoned Win9x because the networking was horrendous. Win2K was my power machine for me at least until XP SP1 came out. Now XP Pro is my gaming machine, XP Pro is on my laptop (work laptop – no choice; besides, the wireless is great), and Linux is my daily usage machine and server.
I really resisted the switch to XP but it ended up being better than I thought. I am picky about my hardware, so I hardly have any issues. In fact, my XP gaming machine has been on the same install for almost 2 years now – Win9x had to be reinstalled “over itself” every few months of hardcore usage.
My $0.02.
“In Windows2000 you can easily run a program as Administrator _without_ having to log of – just as you can in XP. Windows2000 has the same functionality in this area. You ought to know that – if you have used Win2K that is :p”
Ok, try this. Open 10 – 15 applications as a normal user. Now change your network settings without losing anything.
Do you somehow believe IT staff run companies and can dicate how things will run?
Who would buy an newer server and gives a binding advise about which type and with what specs?That’s not running the entire company.The IT staff can’t and wouldn’t dictate anything.Although what can the board of directors do other than honour an technical advise,not their turf,they have to sit on the do.But i was referring to what you call the IT director all the time.Perhaps you know that not every company has the same naming convention.
Because if you take your low level staff, your managers, your directors, your scientists, your specialists and remove windows, and put a new linux system on the desk, thats not the end, that is the beginning.
True,but is it a necessity to migrate everything to Linux?
I wouldn’t migrate as i said in my post if the company would loose to much already invested money.
OK, here is a fact for you. If I migrate my 100+ users, I have a great deal of work retraining……
Stop till you burn-out 🙂
There’s more than Linux on the desktop.What about migrating
some of the servers?That means you have to study buddy.
Its odd you say that, I just spent some time with a law firm, and they fired the previous guy because they said he was trying to make himself *indispensible* in terms of knowledge. Companies are not interested in this, they want systems that work
Everybody can be replaced,i wonder how they think about their own indispensibillity though,unless the are partner of course,with some stock in the firm,hard to get rid of shareholders 🙂
Hiring competent admins, well that is only the start. You have to lay off others, you have to train a lot of people beyond just some admins, and beyond that I’ll put it to you that ‘competant admins’ is a tricky issue in itself. Just out of interest, give me the requirements as far as you are concerned in regard to a competant Unix/Linux admin – one who holds all the migration skills and background for moving an enterprise and all its systems and software to linux. Oh, and how much do you believe you would pay in wages and project costs.
As long as you don’t migrate the desktops all you mentioned is irrelevant at this stage,but well said nontheless and true.In princype the average desktop shouldn’t have to experience anything about the technical layout of the server room and the network infrastructure.To put it simple wether there’s a apache or IIS webserver shouldn’t be noticed and isn’t really relevant as long as everything fits in to place and works.So the (linux) admin comes back in to the equation.
But i wouldn’t want to work in that particular law firm,either not really an inspiring environment.I wouldn’t like to be an admin who has to babysit because otherwise they might think: he thinks himself indepensible.A good healthy company benefits from skilled people in all diciplines,especially if the processing and storing of data
is vital for their continuity as a whole,they won’t whine about keeping the peoples skills up2date.
Serious
If you believe that this issue is one of ripping out windows, dropping in linux and walking away and washing your hand of the issue that follow, that is perhaps why you don’t understand how it really is.
True,but it’s allways a matter of improving yourself and your work with the means ( tools and or budget) you have at your disposal.Can be a webserver that’s easier to secure on Linux than on.. Or a OpenBSD/hardened-gentoo firewall instead of allways issuing a hardware firewall where you most of the times run behind the facts with the firmware updates.
“Who would buy an newer server and gives a binding advise about which type and with what specs?That’s not running the entire company.The IT staff can’t and wouldn’t dictate anything.Although what can the board of directors do other than honour an technical advise,not their turf,they have to sit on the do.But i was referring to what you call the IT director all the time.Perhaps you know that not every company has the same naming convention. ”
Technical advice has to fit into what people are doing. ‘Linux is better’ advocacy has to be backed by the real deal.
“True,but is it a necessity to migrate everything to Linux?
I wouldn’t migrate as i said in my post if the company would loose to much already invested money.”
OK.
“Stop till you burn-out 🙂
There’s more than Linux on the desktop.What about migrating
some of the servers?That means you have to study buddy.”
Indeed. However, studying either costs time or money. Linux is not free. That being said, I am not against migrating to linux or anything else if its the right thing to do.
“Everybody can be replaced,i wonder how they think about their own indispensibillity though,unless the are partner of course,with some stock in the firm,hard to get rid of shareholders :-)”
Shareholders are as likely to get very pissed of at failing projects, cost over runs, and business not working as anyone else.
“As long as you don’t migrate the desktops all you mentioned is irrelevant at this stage,but well said nontheless and true.In princype the average desktop shouldn’t have to experience anything about the technical layout of the server room and the network infrastructure.”
That is true.
“To put it simple wether there’s a apache or IIS webserver shouldn’t be noticed and isn’t really relevant as long as everything fits in to place and works.So the (linux) admin comes back in to the equation.”
It may, it may not. Companies may look at this and stick with IIS – their own staff may be able to run it.
“True,but it’s allways a matter of improving yourself and your work with the means ( tools and or budget) you have at your disposal.Can be a webserver that’s easier to secure on Linux than on.. Or a OpenBSD/hardened-gentoo firewall instead of allways issuing a hardware firewall where you most of the times run behind the facts with the firmware updates. ”
Apache + Linux IMHO along with openBSD/Harddend gentoo firewalls again require a change in skill sets, retraining, or hiring. In addition, I am not webserving expert, but if your webservers are built around ASP, does Apache provide the function of IIS (as an example) – if not, you may have to change your whole developer team or go through a re-training process.
In S/M sized businesses – yes, filling in a hole where you need a webserver, or a forewall might well be done with a bit of fixing and installation. And perhaps in other places. But its more a case of fitting where suitable and assessing that. There are a great many cases now where you can just buy a small cheap linux firewall/ADSL modem or whatever and that works for a small business. It may work for a medium sized business.
Linux and derivities are going to continue to grow in use. But in terms of this thread, replacing windows workstations really can only be done in my opinion if its a suitable situation for doing so. No more, no less. Crazy blind advocacy isn’t a workable idea in this area.
AdmV
give me the requirements as far as you are concerned in regard to a competant Unix/Linux admin – one who holds all the migration skills and background for moving an enterprise and all its systems and software to linux. Oh, and how much do you believe you would pay in wages and project costs.
Good point,however the same can be said for the MS oriented networks.When will you know you have hired an decent admin unless you have seen him/her in action?Paper doesn’t say anything in reality.MS certification is bollocks.And yes the good ones,are maybe not totally indespensible but the board wouldn’t be to eager letting them go so easily and trust their sensitive data to somebody else for guarding.They indeed make a lot of money.
You did’nt answer me:) I asked you to spec out what you would demand from someone coming into your employment under the idea that they were a competant Linux admin.
Linux +
LPI1 ?
LPI2 ?
Red hat certification?
I presume you understand that linux skills and certification is perhaps an underdeveloped area.
Finding good Windows admins is easier (IMHO) because of a host of reasons, and if you get one that is substandard, you can find another.
I’ll also add that having looked at MSCE recently, anyone who studies (not braindumps, but studies) deserves to be given some respect.
AdmV
+1 vote for w2k prof. I installed to my work machine in 2003 september. Still runs fine (of course i dont install stupid video codec packs, that hack my whole system, or anything else). My friends reinstalled their xp-s during this period 2-3 times.
And of course i prefer opera to IE5, but have to use the 2nd for activex webpages.
what you would demand from someone coming into your employment under the idea that they were a competant Linux admin.
One of the many admin flavours.
1. BS or BA Degree or higher in computer science
2. 3+ years of experience as a Linux Systems Administrator and
4 software engineering experience and networking architecture experience
5. Experience in a high-volume and critical production service
6. Experience in Python programming or Perl and strong
scripting skills?
7. Experience with programming and troubleshooting skills in C/C++ and java
9. Excellent written and verbal communication skills
7. Have you been at a majority of your most recent companies for at least 3 years or more?
10. Have you recently worked for a company that is involved with large scale public facing internet web services?
11.Mod-Perl, Tomcat, OC4J and Java Experience a plus.
12.RHCE
13 Expert with Linux 7.x and Trusted Solaris 8.x
In case you might have noticed you can’t have a webserser fobie 🙂
what you would demand from someone coming into your employment under the idea that they were a competant Linux admin.
“One of the many admin flavours.
1. BS or BA Degree or higher in computer science
2. 3+ years of experience as a Linux Systems Administrator and
4 software engineering experience and networking architecture experience
5. Experience in a high-volume and critical production service
6. Experience in Python programming or Perl and strong
scripting skills?
7. Experience with programming and troubleshooting skills in C/C++ and java
9. Excellent written and verbal communication skills
7. Have you been at a majority of your most recent companies for at least 3 years or more?
10. Have you recently worked for a company that is involved with large scale public facing internet web services?
11.Mod-Perl, Tomcat, OC4J and Java Experience a plus.
12.RHCE
13 Expert with Linux 7.x and Trusted Solaris 8.x”
I noted you did not include the LPI exam. Interesting. Well, given the above, what salary are thinking of paying this person? Oh, and you may need more than one, remember, you’re the advocate for wholesale change and switch
I also note that your candidate has no expertise in training others, Other IT staff and end users, helpdesk management, project management. Messaging, groupware, Open Office 2 administration. This chap would have to be able to train people in how to use the dogfood he eats.
You’re partially winning me over here, but I still think you’re way off base here. You’ve just sold the idea of complete switch and replace to the board, you are in charge, you’ve canned all your MS software support (well you gotta pay for this one way or another) and you’ve gained approval for no more software purchases from Microsoft.
Now, you have to get a complete rollout moving. You have also discovered that the advanced technology department has challenged you. All the microscopes and software has been built round CVI – a windows only development platform. This department brings in half of all grants for the organisation, and will not move away from windows 32 based systems. They are screaming blue murder that the board has made this change and now its political.
The head of this group has more power at board level than you. Sell it to me… I’ll be waiting
The best operating system ever built by Microsoft was Windows NT 4.0 (with all the service packs of course). It just lacked a USB stack, the only reason why I switch to Windows 2000. Windows 2000 is still much slower than 4.0 but it good enough and fast enough. Windows 2003 seems to be better out of the newer crop of NT 5.0 operating systems.
I got a new programming job recently and my pc had windows 2000 server on it. I missed quite a few things from my XP machine at home (which I don’t use all that often, woot osx!)
Anyway, the things I missed most were:
– the lack of cleartype font rendering (on an lcd of course). It’s just so god-damned ugly without it.
– the XP start menu (Lots of room for shortcuts on there if you turn off the thing that displays ‘recently used’ apps)
On the plus side, there was less crap I had to turn off such as:
– hiding of menu keyboard shortcuts until you press alt
– taskbar grouping
– hiding of infrequently used items on start menu
On the whole, I would take XP over 2000 any day of the week and I cant really understand why someone wouldnt
I’m using 2003 Server on my work pc now and it’s ok, but I cant really tell the difference from XP for what I use it for other than not having fast user switching, and annoying me to give a reason for shutting the pc down (for the logs I assume). And of course a completely different set of security privelages by default.
” All the microscopes and software has been built round CVI – a windows only development platform.”
Ever heard of Labview?
http://www.ni.com/labview/
But i will walk the walk with you,but i have changed the referential fit here and there, a little.
Since the scientists are allready using Labview for creating flexible and scalable test, measurement, and control applications rapidly and at minimal cost. With LabVIEW, engineers and scientists interface with real-world signals, analyze data for meaningful information, and share results and applications.The good part is Labview runs on (realtime) Linux
,the hardware doesn’t need to be replaced,the application isn’t new to them so training costs are minimal or zero in this respect.A lot of scientists (88%) are multilingual in terms of OS’s,UNIX,Linux,*BSD proficient,getting used to their “new” environment isn’t difficult.So instead of moving everything to Linux i would suggest to migrate not more than those aforementioned 88% to Linux and see if they can contaminate the others.Since we have such competant admins who could if they are inspired enough also join almost any Linux,whatever,developing team,they need minimum support and mostly write their own applications (tools) instead of relying on third party.That saves money in terms of training,licenses,lunches..At home most scientists use a variety of UNIX,*BSD,Linux,makes them more productive at a very low cost,you can download them all for zero,with all the apps needed.The transition isn’t that painfull,most workstations run on windows 95/98,and we have to make a decision wether to upgrade to windows 2000/XP,wait for Longhorn (when will it be ready),or migrate the allready mentioned 88%……
Most important thing the plant has to deliver.
🙂 I get your point though
Euh the salary?,not the most important part if you have fun in what you are good at,although it has to be somehow market conform otherwise your intellectual assets could leak to other…For the real “artists” inspiration and reckcognition
is at least equal important.
I think we could happily have beers and discuss endlessly
People can change to linux, if its right for them.
I think the salary for your job spec would be more than for a basic MSCE – but depends. Maybe in your area you have lots of linux people
AdmV
//No, nothing like ‘WinKey+D’. Read what I wrote. **1** key, to show and *hide*, ‘not minimise all windows’.//
Why not just download TopDesk?
Do a little research, you whiny jackass.
XP slow for you? Add a 512MB stick of RAM from NewEgg for about $40. Big deal.
add 512 MB ramm, get a new cpu, new motherboard and psu and there you go … you can have xp running on your old 386 sx … by the way, old p2 have sd ramm which is more expensive to find and sometimes even rimm ( expensive !! ) or old k6(-2) can have edo ramm …
2k has got : no IE6, no WMP7+, no activation, …
ow and offcourse xp has better hw out-of-the-box support … it’s a newer OS. within 2 to 3 year xp ll have as less new hw out-of-the-box support as 2k.
NT might have looked great for those who came from Windows 95 or 3.11, but for those of us who were used to Unix NT was a frigging joke. There’s no real boot console, if you load a buggy driver (e.g. Iomega ZIP was famous for its BSODs) you’re basically screwed. NFS? X? any real interoperability? Ever tried doing any serious work on it? It chocked everytime a big sized mental ray work was issued. We eventually returned to our IRIX boxes and I’ve never again used anything made by Microsoft.
No, nothing like ‘WinKey+D’. Read what I wrote. **1** key, to show and *hide*, ‘not minimise all windows’.
I DID read what you wrote you illiterate twit. WinKey+M is minimize all, WinKey+D is SHOW/HIDE desktop (meaning all the visible windows). Why didn’t you actually TRY it before spouting off?
Because, you idiot, it’s not true. Winkey+D minimises all windows. The difference is huge. The apps get sent a minimise event.
//No, nothing like ‘WinKey+D’. Read what I wrote. **1** key, to show and *hide*, ‘not minimise all windows’.//
Why not just download TopDesk?
Do a little research, you whiny jackass.
Because, you imbecile, I didn’t mention ‘list of stuff I wish to be available through downloads’. I said ‘things Windows should have bundled’. If you’re going through work to get what you want by default, you may as well go with another solution.
One-key-press to show Desktop and hide it again: just show and allow operation not minimise all windows
—
Actually, if you have a half decent keyboard and/or multi-button mouse, you should be able to program that in. Otherwise, on a normal keyboard with just standard keys, which key would you use for that? I’d hate to press it on accident
But why? If it were as I said – just something that would make the desktop visible – not anything would be lost. Unpress it, and all will be well.
if you load a buggy driver (e.g. Iomega ZIP was famous for its BSODs) you’re basically screwed.
Ever heard of the recovery console? Sheesh.
Because, you idiot, it’s not true. Winkey+D minimises all windows. The difference is huge. The apps get sent a minimise event.
Wait, you’re complaining because it does exactly what you want it to do, but it “minimizes” the windows? So fucking what! It does show/hide regardless, and it doesnt do the min/restore animations. What’s the freakin’ different you whiny brat?
Winkey+D minimises all windows. The difference is huge. The apps get sent a minimise event.
Wait, you’re complaining because it does exactly what you want it to do, but it “minimizes” the windows? It does show/hide regardless, and it doesnt do the min/restore animations. What’s the freakin’ different?
What’s freaking different, and I’ll mod down the language since I had assumed you knew it, is that for each window open, the app is triggered: the OS has to switch context, and the according stuff has to be done. That means that not only millions of CPU cycles are spent, and memory / cache flushes are needed, which is precisely what I don’t want, there’s also the odds that some app crashes or suffers some instability. When I say I want to view the desktop, I’m not saying I want to contact every app and tell it to get out of the way.
Then, if I put this on a ‘Personal wishlist for the Windows shell’, it’s my widhlist and I put what I want in it! If there seems to be something similar to what I’ve requested, then it’s probably the case that what I want has more to it than meets the eye.
This point is somewhat important since I don’t know whether it can be implemented at all. I seem to recall that Explorer is kind of an MDI app, with the desktop being the background of the main window and window apps being the children. There may be no way to tell a window’s background to come on top of its children, so there may be no clean way of doing what I want.
Actually, try doing some research. Hitting WinKey+D DOES send a minimize message to the windows, but it does NOT do what you say. Normally minimizing an app does flush out the pages to disk, etc. But with WinKey+D it does NOT. Try it.
When I say I want to view the desktop, I’m not saying I want to contact every app and tell it to get out of the way.
What are you saying then? It’s doing exactly that, letting you view the desktop…
This point is somewhat important since I don’t know whether it can be implemented at all. I seem to recall that Explorer is kind of an MDI app, with the desktop being the background of the main window and window apps being the children. There may be no way to tell a window’s background to come on top of its children, so there may be no clean way of doing what I want.
But WHY do you want this? What is the purpose? You could use some API calls to bring the desktop above other windows I’m sure, but WHY?
//If you’re going through work to get what you want by default, you may as well go with another solution. //
For shit’s sake .. if downloading and installing TopDesk (which takes all of three minutes) is too much trouble for you … you shouldn’t be using a computer. What a puss you must be.
Hitting WinKey+D DOES send a minimize message to the windows, but it does NOT do what you say. Normally minimizing an app does flush out the pages to disk, etc. But with WinKey+D it does NOT. Try it.
What, you think I don’t use ‘Winkey+D’ all the time? I know full well what it does and the performance of it. If I want to see the desktop, I want to see the desktop. I don’t want to actually do anything to the windows. If you hold down alt+tab, you’ll just see the window switcher appear in no time, and be gone in no time as well, with nothing happening to your windows (provided you press tab enough times to return to the current window). That’s the kind of performance I want.
But WHY do you want this? What is the purpose? You could use some API calls to bring the desktop above other windows I’m sure, but WHY?
If the effect is showing the desktop as it does, and the function exists, then there must be a why for it! If you want a rephrasing, then let it be: ‘I wish that Winkey+D does exactly what it claims to do, only it does it right’.
And as stated, I don’t think there’s a tidy way to implement it.
… if downloading and installing TopDesk (which takes all of three minutes) is too much trouble for you … you shouldn’t be using a computer. What a puss you must be.
I don’t want no TopDesk, I wish Explorer were better and pointed to where it could be improved. Apparently, people take objection to that.
//I don’t want no TopDesk, I wish Explorer were better and pointed to where it could be improved.//
If you refuse to implement a very simple solution to your horrible problem, then you have two options:
1. Call Microsoft to complain about such a heinous disregard of GUI norms, and pray they’ll listen to someone so insignificant.
2. Use another OS. Nobody’s forcing you to use Windows.
What, you think I don’t use ‘Winkey+D’ all the time? I know full well what it does and the performance of it. If I want to see the desktop, I want to see the desktop. I don’t want to actually do anything to the windows. If you hold down alt+tab, you’ll just see the window switcher appear in no time, and be gone in no time as well, with nothing happening to your windows (provided you press tab enough times to return to the current window). That’s the kind of performance I want.
You must have a pretty crappy system. WinKey+D shows no performance issues on any of my systems. It doesn’t effect page faults, mem usage, anything. Not only that, but the result is instant (easily under half a second) that I see the desktop or see all my windows again. If THAT is not good enough for you, then I feel sorry to be you, as pleasing you must be a royal PITA.