What's Weak in Windows 2000

Although there are many advances in Windows 2000, there are some features that will be very annoying to those familiar with Windows 95 or 98. Windows 2000 is built upon NT technology and, as such, shares some of the limitations and idiosyncrasies of its predecessor. Most notably, a hard drive loaded with Windows 2000 is absolutely inept at adapting to a different motherboard configuration (even a clean installation may require additional work to get multiprocessor support working properly). We've tried this several times and even the same class of motherboard (BX to BX, for instance) gives the OS such fits, it won't even start. Installing version 5.0 of Internet Explorer with 128-bit encryption can cause problems. Even adding a second drive can cause problems, as can the manual assignment of COM ports. In each of these cases, the plug-and-play capabilities of Windows 95 and 98 are far superior.

However, if you are keeping the same computer, but moving to Windows 2000 due to frustrations or seemingly unsolvable problems with Windows 95 or 98 and you haven't yet reformatted your hard drive, don't! We've had remarkably good luck with installing Windows 2000 over top of a sick Windows 9x (or Windows Me) installation. In the majority of cases, there's a little tweaking required to remove old, incompatible programs, but it beats reinstalling everything.

It's probably best to reinstall Windows 2000 if your hardware configuration changes so substantially that the Desktop doesn't boot. If it does, chances are good that Win2K's plug-and-play feature will detect the changes. Then, good luck finding the required drivers, if the ones you need aren't part of the batch that Microsoft loads onto the hard drive as part of the standard Win2K installation. Which brings us to beef #2....

Also weak in Win2K is the support for 3D graphics cards, sound cards and other multimedia devices. DirectX, while better supported than it was in Windows NT (which never got beyond support for DirectX 3, when Windows 98 was running DirectX 7.0) is still apparently problematic for graphics driver programmers, who typically don't support Windows 2000 at all with their drivers -- heck, most video capture cards and TV tuners don't even support Windows NT fully, and that product's been on the market for several years.

But DirectX issues are nothing compared to the state of OpenGL support in Windows 2000. Simply put, the onus is on the graphics card vendors. Although The Register (which, it should be noted, tends to grandstand in these matters) overstated the issue, the official release Windows 2000 (build 2195) does not ship with any graphics drivers that are OpenGL enabled; this is left up to third-parties (e.g., the graphics card vendors) to supply. It appears that Microsoft plans to make OpenGL 1.2 support in a service pack after the Feb. 17th release of Win2K. Fortunately, some vendors, such as Matrox, have already released beta drivers for Windows 2000 with both DirectX 7.0 and OpenGL 1.2 ICD support. Ars Technica elaborates on the Open GL issues, while Active Windows enthuses over the industry’s most advanced beta driver for Microsoft Windows 2000.

Windows NT application compatibility with Windows 2000 isn't assured, either. There are enough changes that some programs, such as Allaire Cold Fusion 4.0 and the Ethernet functionality of Basilisk II (prior to Build 115), wouldn't run at all, and many others have problems ranging from solvable (Creative Labs Encore DVD drivers, Adaptec Direct CD, etc.) to severe (e-on's Vue d'Esprit, many games). Fortunately, most companies are hard at work on fixes, or have already released updates to address compatibility issues.

There are also some issues with some USB devices. Although the HP ScanJet 5200C and a few other popular scanner and camera models are supported, many aren't. Check manufacturers' websites for updated drivers or workaround information, and check the NTCompatible website's Windows 2000 database for compatibility info on products you are considering purchasing. Put bluntly: Windows 2000 is a bigger change from NT 4.0 than Windows 98 was from Windows 95. While perhaps not as extreme a change as was required during the days when Windows 95 first appeared, and many of the 16-bit programs designed for Windows 3.x were problematic, Windows 2000 represents a big change. Expect issues, particularly if your computer contains obscure components or older software titles.

Microsoft has, from time to time, released patches for Windows 2000. With these patches, Microsoft is attempting to make this primarily business-oriented OS more user-friendly by ensuring that it works properly with home productivity and entertainment software. There have, at this writing, been several such patches, with the latest major collection of bug-fixes released in October 2000.

An alternative to the Windows Update mechanism is Microsoft's Corporate Update site. It's at http://corporate.windowsupdate.microsoft.com/en/default.asp

For Further Reading

Here's a collection of links to disaster recovery tools.
NTCompatible provides a list of Windows 2000 compatible hardware and software.
Thinking of upgrading? Here are the Top Ten advances in Windows 2000.
Windows 2000 Expert Tips
Use our search engine to find specific tips on modems, graphics cards, printers and other Windows 2000 hardware.

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What's Weak in Windows 2000

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