Is Windows 2000 worth getting? In a nutshell ... yes. It is much more stable than Windows 95. There is really no comparison.
I had to laugh (in a nice way) when I saw that you had written that Win95 never crashes, and is fast and tasty. Do you actually use your machine, or just admire it? <GRIN>
I can't recall how many hundreds of hours I have spent working on machines with Win95/Win98 installed, fixing problems with memory leaks, corrupted system files, mis-matched .dll's from third-party programs ... the list could go on and on and on. I used to think that Win95 would crash just from sneezing in the general direction of the CRT.
Windows 2000 can do a few things that people like me have always wanted, such as:
Better memory management
Better Multi-tasking
Protect the system files without slowing the computer to a crawl
Load the correct drivers for new hardware the majority of the time, something that Win95 is certainly not going to be able to do in your new machine. It's not perfect, but it's a real improvement.
A true 32bit environment is much more stable ... and that's a proven fact.
Example: I've spent the last few days installing drivers and software on my new machine. The only components I had to manually install was the video card and my MPEG-2 card. Win2K did the rest, despite the fact that my hardware is close to cutting-edge. The entire process was smooth as silk.
I installed many software programs, including alternative email programs, firewalls, MP3 players ... again, too many to bother mentioning. In Win95, I would have averaged at least one major lockup, perhaps two, and rebooted the machine 40 times. That's not an exaggeration ... I have a lot of software! This includes, of course, all the necessary updates to the OS itself ... all of which is a bootable offense in Win9.X. But in Win2k, well, imagine installing DirectX 8, and not needing to reboot. It almost sounds too weird, huh? LOL!
My friend, you have yet to see a stable system if you are running Win95, even version OSR2.
There are some drawbacks. The OS is more complicated, and may take some getting used to. You'll have to learn how to manage things like Services, different Users and security protocols. A few things you are used to, like MSCONFIG, will be missing. Programs install differently, and work differently. It took me about two weeks to make the adjustment after doing some research and study to bring myself up-to-speed. But after using the OS for a couple of months, I know that I could never stand to go back to Win95, or ANY varient of Win9.X.
Note: If you are not comfortable working in the Registry, you might find Win2K a bit daunting. This doesn't bother me, but for some people, the Registry is a bewildering nightmare, or something they have never seen. That is something to consider, and may be the only drawback, unless you are an experienced user.
Because of this (and if you like to play older games) ... I have to agree with kremerAMD, you might want to consider dual-booting with both Win95/98 and Win2k. Then you can make the call, yourself. But I have rarely seen anyone use Win2K full-time and regret the decision.
That's my opinion. Commments?
Toejam31
<font color=purple>If there was a reason for everything, having faith would be redundant.</font color=purple>
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram