WinXP pro

XP pro

XP Pro Sp1 all the way.
 
Dont forget the Via chipset drivers and the Catalyst 3.5's!

hmm Im surprised, I thought I would see a lot of win2k pro posts

Quote:hmm Im surprised, I thought I would see a lot of win2k pro posts

Windows 2000 Professional!!

win xp pro sp1

Depends there are many factors:
 
1. Do you support product activation? If you do not and you buy the product then yes you do support product activation.
 
2. Do you need XP's superficial compatibility over 2k? When it comes down to people they usually like things to be as simple as possible and what MS did with he compatibility in 2k vs XP was great for marketing. Only allow compatibility to be accessed through a shortcut in 2K versus being able to access it directly on the exeutable itself in XP? Brilliant from a marketing standpoint....but not really that brilliant on the goodwill of your current MS users (assuming they care). I've seen people "switch" over just this one thing.
 
3. Do you need more updates and undoubtedly more focus by MS on XP than 2K for security/updates?
 
4. Are you short on cash? Do you REALLY need to buy/use Windows XP? What exactly is it going to do for you that Windows 2000 cannot?
 
5. Do you have a P4 with hyperthreading? MS in it's brilliant marketing scheme has enabled better performance in XP than 2k with hyperthreading enabled. Obviously your asking about your Athlon XP but undoubtedly you've been looking at those 3ghz P4's and drooling over 'em (well not really since the performace jump over the XP's isn't THAT drastic)
 
Really it depends on what you want. I simply setup a dual-boot (well quadruple boot really) and jump between the two. That's really the best option. Then you do not have to be tied down to any one operating system.
 
 
P.S. I haven't tried out SP4 for 2k yet (just the beta's) so am unaware of the changes in 2k because of this.

Win 2k all the way for me!
S

Win2k for Life!

Windows 2K, why settle for Bloatware XP?

The guy just said he had a non intel CPU there isn't any hyperthreading. I know AMD has something similar, but an 1800MHZ (Class) CPU probably isn't going to feature that anyways. Furthermore Win2K does hyperthreading I think it would just less stable since it's not "supported".

Hyperthreading is no reason for OS choice. It is not all that great, trust me. If you want a nice stable, non bloated OS, go 2K SP4. If you want bells and whistles and a lotta sh%t you may never use go XP. Either is a goood, stable OS.

In Windows 2000's favor I have gotta say that Windows XP is still a rapidly evolving code base. Windows 2000 is now on Service Pack 4 and just about all the major issues have been fixed. Windows XP on the other hand has been plagued by hardware specific and UI feature specific problems that caused considerable slowdowns, memory leaks, or the inability to boot. I don't recall Windows 2000 having such an epic level of these problems during it's infancy. Not to say that it didn't have similar problems, but they weren't nearly as widespread. I'm sure this is both the fault of Microsoft, hardware manufacturers and their drivers, and of course the ever increasing chaos related to computers.
 
Did anyone ever own a nintendo entertainment system it was a perfect example of an almost foolproof system. Sure mine froze every now and again, but for the most part it just worked. There was only one MAJOR joystick/controller, one CPU, one drive type, and one monitor type (well signal anyways). This meant that developers could focus on functionality rather than supporting a plethora of hardware and software options.
 
In the computer world however things aren't nearly so squeaky clean there are literally 1,000 of version combinations that simply comprise a given operating system. That is to say due to all the updates, versions, and security hotfixes users can find themselves with a Windows 2000 operating system with a different core code base than 99.9% percent of everyone else out there.
 
Then you have to take into consideration all the different motherboards, CPUs, RAM quantities, hard drive capacities, and an almost infinitely variable combination of drives and other internal and external expansion hardware.
 
Okay now things are sounding pretty ugly and chaotic, so let's make it worse. Every piece of hardware may be of one revision or another, have one bios version or another, one driver version or another, and one IRQ address or other hardware addressing location or another.
 
Okay so the OS, and the hardware are crazy, but that's just the tip of the iceberg, now let's take a varied line of software of variable versions, updates, and configurations, and run them in variable simultaneous quantity and combination. Now let's see what breaks .
 
That being said Windows 2000 has been out for some time now about 3 years. During that time it has been widely adopted by users, hardware manufacturers, and software development companies alike. If it's really important to have the software you download and or buy off the shelf work when you get home I strongly encourage you to buy Windows 2000 now since it's had more time to be supported by hardware and software vendors alike and in the future when the same is true of XP then that would be a prudent time to switch. Not only will more 3rd parties support XP, but Microsoft will have improved the stability and functional quality of the operating system considerably. Why be bleeding edge when no-one enjoys even the slightest cut or scrape?

i just bought a new computer and installed win xp sp1 (b4 i was using win2k sp3) now atleast ONCE a day winxp has been crashing in the middle of the night and i waste some download time. while my other computer has been randomly restarting in the middle of a game or when doing some word processing. i dont know if its the hardware or the software but its really starting to get frustrating!!

does anyone have any recent game and system performance comparisons between win2k pro and winxp pro?

A lot of people always blame windows for instability, but the fact is that most of the time it's hardware's problem rather then windows itself........for example linux was known for stability, but if you have some shitty ram/PSU then it'll still crash/freeze
 
So always check if you have latest bios/driver/service pack/updates before blaming windows.......
 
I'll recommend Windows XP Professional for newer machine and Windows 2000 Professional for older machines...
 
btw win2k and winxp should offer very similar performance (provided that you have adequate hardware)

hmm this 2002 article seesm to show no big advantage gaming score wise for winxp
 
http://www17.tomshardware.com/consumer/20020930/index.html

Quote:does anyone have any recent game and system performance comparisons between win2k pro and winxp pro?

I have never had any gaming problems with XP Pro or Home. I cant' say about 2000 though.

Hey guys, ok I took a chance and formatted winXP pro off anf have fresh install of win2k sp4 ( i may dualboot xp also) Now problem im having is that I have the latest driver for my Promise Ultra100TX2 controller card but im getting stuttering in mp3's and also any other sounds. I have the latest drivers for my TB Santa Cruz also. Thx
 
PS I noticed also that I have an "other device" listed in device manager which win2k cannot seem to figure out what it is. Any ideas?

Also check where it's at using Device Manager. Like what it's connected to (ISA or PCI Bus) where it's situated on those buse's PCI1/2/3/4/5 etc etc and what IRQ/DMA if possible....Also check Windows Update to see if it finds the drivers.