Win2K - Pros - Cons

[Liquid Snake]

It's better to do a clean install of Win2K.

[Easty]

If your not 100% Sure you don't need WinME and You don't want to have split partitions(these can be a hassle, because anything created under NTFS won't be viewable by the WINME OS).. Go with the Duel Boot on the Same Partition under Fat32. The best way is to install totally independantly from WINME.. Copy the I386 Directory onto Your HD then boot in dos safe..Using a win98/95 boot disk if possible. Then run the winnt.exe from the I386 Directory (this passes the problem of needed cd-rom drivers ect.. This gives you the duel boot and two clean OS's.. Remember to back up your Outlook express Information.. Because NT always stores the New OE in the same place.. Overwriting previous data.. Don't choose to convert the partition to NTFS when during install or you will loose WINME (what a pitty that would be).. my opinion of NTFS is not really a massive advantage on a home user system..I C very little comparison against My NTFS/FAT32.. I think the main advantage is that win9X writes in minimum 32kb clusters..where NTFS does 2KB Clusters.. If you have 100,000's of tiny 2KB sized files this would make a massive difference, as they'd all take up 32KB of space.. So for servers storing E-mails..yep big gain..for me storing games and project files..nope.. I'll soon stop using my WIN9X OS and go with a NTFS partition becuase all my games work are better in NT now it's finally maturing in the Direct X environment.. But if you really need WinME...then try reverting BAck to Win98..It's much better!!

[Alec]

Easty,

I think you can resize the clusters at your pleasure if you have the tool for it (Partition Magic, for example). I have Win ME and 4K clusters by default (used Fdisk).

Now back on topic, W2K is WAY better than W9x/ME Harddisk-wise... by my personal experience, the drive was more silent and much faster than in W9x/ME... Photoshop and Illustrator would load in half the time. If you have more than 128 Mb RAM, W2K is generally faster. Don´t know about gaming, though, just UT, which I thought was about in the same speed than Windows ME.

[fds]

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size="2">Originally posted by Easty:
The best way is to install totally independantly from WINME.. Copy the I386 Directory onto Your HD then boot in dos safe..Using a win98/95 boot disk if possible. Then run the winnt.exe from the I386 Directory (this passes the problem of needed cd-rom drivers ect.. This gives you the duel boot and two clean OS's..
</font>

The same can be achieved by simply booting from the Windows 2000 CD.
I believe dual-booting is activated even if you run setup from Win9x/Me if you tell it not to upgrade but install elsewhere.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size="2">Originally posted by Easty:
my opinion of NTFS is not really a massive advantage on a home user system..I C very little comparison against My NTFS/FAT32..
</font>

NTFS is not even comparable to what you could do with FAT32.

The biggest plus is security. This should be important for end-users too. Learn to manage access rights and do not log in with Administrator rights when you do not need to. Do you really want any application you run to freely tamper with all your files?
Security is also very useful if you are sharing your computer with others.

Then you get features like compression or encryption (all selectable on a file base) or NTFS junctions (much like Unix symbolic links).

Bigger limits on both partition and file sizes.

And then I didn't even mention Dynamic Disks.
(Which you can't use if you have any other OS installed.)

[Gurm]

DO NOT, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, INSTALL TWO OS'es ON THE SAME PARTITION.

- Gurm

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Listen up, you primitive screwheads! See this? This is my BOOMSTICK! Etc. etc.

[Pace]

Argh, wtf!

[xortam]

I'm loving my removable boot disks these days.

[Jazza]

You can not upgrade WinME to Win2k, as WinME was realeased after it, and the Win2k software doesn't regonise it

Which is a shame, as I'm in the same situation. I think I'm gonna bit the bullent soon though.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size="2">Originally posted by omegaRED:
Ok, sofar all of the people who replied are for Win2K ... next question ... can i upgrade from WinME ( keep my installed progs ) or should i make a clean install?</font>

[omegaRED]

HELP! I installed Win2K (clean), it went without bigger problems ( the #$@%ing HPT366 Driver is NOT for Win2K, although it says it is), installed some progs, all went rather well. So i turned off my PC and went to sleep, next morning i wake up, do a bit of studying, and thought i`d check the comp. WTF!

Stop: c000218 ( or something ) Registry file error, cannot load hive Systemroot\System32\Config\Software ...

And then it restarts. Nothing of the advanced W2K boot options help. No safe mode, no nothing. Worst thing is, i dont have a primary DOS partition, my other partition was Extended DOS, so cant install Me to install 2k ...

Please help! What caused this? What can i do?

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Seth, are you ok ?
I`m peachy, Kate. The world is my oyster.

[Rags]

I get that error if I have my processor overclocked too much. Are you running at default speed? Double check your memory timings in your bios.

Rags

[omegaRED]

Ok Rags, i`ll try that as soon as i get home. I had problems istalling W2K while my CPU was oc`d, and i have set it to default speed, and IIRC, i havent changed my mem timings ... How can i reinstall Win2K with reainstalling WinMe or 98?

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Seth, are you ok ?
I`m peachy, Kate. The world is my oyster.

[Rags]

You should be okay once you back your clock settings down, but if you aren't, then all you have to do is boot with your win2k cdrom (you will have to set this in the bios), choose install and select repair when you get prompted to do so.

Rags

[omegaRED]

Uhh ... thanks, i havent thought of that ... thanks Rags, you`re a real life-saver ... ok, i`m off to repair this thing. If all is well, you`ll see me here tonight.

Thanks again Rags.

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Seth, are you ok ?
I`m peachy, Kate. The world is my oyster.

[xortam]

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size="2">Originally posted by Rags:
... all you have to do is boot with your win2k cdrom (you will have to set this in the bios) ...</font>

... or make the boot diskettes (run app in the BOOTDISK folder on your W2K CD) and boot from them.

[Easty]

FDS! The reason I explained this method above.. I thought booting from the CD was the best way initialy and I had the problem after it copies the files over it rebooted then for some stupid reason said it couldn't access files on the CD (Obviously because the CD drivers wasn't loaded) I don't know why it did it..But it stopped me installing!
Therefore I would only advise on the trouble free process!