I've heard of it, but never used it although my parents did when I wasn't even born yet or I was a baby. Heard it was a great OS back then. It had support until 2010 which is a long time!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_2000
That was a generation of Windows NT, mainly set for businesses. Not to be confused with Windows ME, a disaster of an operating system.
Quote from: Big John on May 12, 2021, 10:26:19 PM
That was a generation of Windows NT, mainly set for businesses. Not to be confused with Windows ME, a disaster of an operating system.
Luckily we never used that. Support for that one ended in 2006.
And it was part of the 9x.
I had it for a little bit on an older computer after XP was current. It was fine as far as Windows OSes go, I guess. Nothing really stuck out about it as particularly good or bad at the time.
Throughout the 90s, Microsoft had two different "forks" of the Windows OS family, the regular home-based Windows, which ran as a shell on top of DOS, and the more business-oriented Windows NT, which was based on the work Microsoft did with IBM on the OS/2 operating system. What became Windows NT 3.1 was actually supposed to be the next version of OS/2, but Microsoft basically kept it to themselves instead and cut IBM out of the loop. (Bill Gates had little integrity at the time he was running Microsoft.)
As the 90s went on, Windows NT went through various point releases, and the DOS-based home Windows branch released Windows 95 and Windows 98. Around the turn of the century, the newest NT release, version 5.0, was dubbed Windows 2000, and the newest DOS branch was Windows ME. The problem was that Windows ME was a complete horror show, crashing much more frequently than previous versions of Windows. Home users refused to upgrade, staying on Windows 98, although some took the leap over to Windows 2000, which, although it came with lots of expensive networking features that they didn't need, was at least stable.
Needing to save face, Microsoft killed off further ME development and shifted everything over to the NT branch, issuing a new NT 5.1 release called Windows XP, which came in Home and Professional versions. All further Windows releases are based off of the NT codebase, including Vista (NT 6.0), and further releases after Vista were actually branded with their NT version numbers.
Quote from: tolbs17 on May 12, 2021, 10:17:09 PM
I've heard of it, but never used it although my parents did when I wasn't even born yet or I was a baby. Heard it was a great OS back then. It had support until 2010 which is a long time!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_2000
I thought 10 years of support is standard for older Windows OS. Windows 7 (another popular one) had support until last year, which is just a bit more than 10 years.
We had several towers (all thrown away) that had 98, and 2000.
Quote from: Scott5114 on May 12, 2021, 10:31:53 PM
I had it for a little bit on an older computer after XP was current. It was fine as far as Windows OSes go, I guess. Nothing really stuck out about it as particularly good or bad at the time.
Throughout the 90s, Microsoft had two different "forks" of the Windows OS family, the regular home-based Windows, which ran as a shell on top of DOS, and the more business-oriented Windows NT, which was based on the work Microsoft did with IBM on the OS/2 operating system. What became Windows NT 3.1 was actually supposed to be the next version of OS/2, but Microsoft basically kept it to themselves instead and cut IBM out of the loop. (Bill Gates had little integrity at the time he was running Microsoft.)
As the 90s went on, Windows NT went through various point releases, and the DOS-based home Windows branch released Windows 95 and Windows 98. Around the turn of the century, the newest NT release, version 5.0, was dubbed Windows 2000, and the newest DOS branch was Windows ME. The problem was that Windows ME was a complete horror show, crashing much more frequently than previous versions of Windows. Home users refused to upgrade, staying on Windows 98, although some took the leap over to Windows 2000, which, although it came with lots of expensive networking features that they didn't need, was at least stable.
Needing to save face, Microsoft killed off further ME development and shifted everything over to the NT branch, issuing a new NT 5.1 release called Windows XP, which came in Home and Professional versions. All further Windows releases are based off of the NT codebase, including Vista (NT 6.0), and further releases after Vista were actually branded with their NT version numbers.
I thought ME was conceived at the last second after the 2000 Home Edition didn't pan out?
7 is actually version 6.1. 10 was 6.4, but Microsoft apparently decided to bring branding to the version number and make it 10.
I still have it today. It is on a Toshiba Tecra 8100. I use it to type and for install vintage software, games, and screen savers. How ever, I also have installed OPEN G.L. Screen Savers such as 3D MAZE ... ssmaze.scr ... on newer operating systems.
I make the newer operating systems look as old as possible, and also turn on High Contrast. Windows 2000 has every thing that Windows XP has with out extra things such as the annoying Rover from Microsoft Bob.
Even earlier than Windows 2000 I remember Active Desktop which lets me save .gif files and display them. One I am trying to find is of a vintage Noir Style office with ceiling fan set on low speed and the view seems like you are sitting from the desk. It might be a crystal ball but that makes no sense since the reflection of a crystal ball is supposed to be different.
My other memories of computers includes ancient Apple Computes, mostly Pizza Boxes. That evolved to my collection of Clamshell iBooks with Ancient Operating System 9.2.2 ...
There were also plenty of I.B.M. Model 25s every where. I have not yet used O.S. / 2 ... only DOS SHELL and various Windows. Model 25s seem to be much too slow to run Windows 3.X ...
Another computer I was surrounded by is D.E.C. / Digital Equipment Corporation / Digital Credit Union ( | d | i | g | i | t | a | l | ) which I remember the LK201 Keyboards having Compose Character instead of ALT. These are minicomputers that have networked terminals communicating through wall outlets resembling Parallel Ports.
Computers that I did not know about until recently are Commodore / Amiga computers, which has spiritual successor operating systems Morph OS and A.R.O.S. ... And also Acorns and Pi Devices with R.I.S.C. O.S. which can be easily found and used today.
(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6d/Windows_Logo_%281992-2001%29.svg)
(https://www.funny-pics.biz/fun/pic332.jpg)
Since we're in the business of posting random Windows images now:
(https://i.imgur.com/iqfVr8w.png)
(https://pics.me.me/the-software-said-install-windows-2000-or-better-so-i-61787226.png)
My county's public schools had Dell OptiPlex GX270 computers a while back. They were the ones where the Dell logo was on a door that opened up to reveal USB ports. Many of these, such as the ones in my school's computer lab, initially had Windows 2000. Midway through the 2004-05 school year these computers were upgraded to Windows XP. A similar situation occurred midway through my high school senior year of 2012-13, where a newer slate of OptiPlexes at my high school were upgraded from XP to 7.
Quote from: vdeane on May 12, 2021, 10:48:02 PM
Quote from: Scott5114 on May 12, 2021, 10:31:53 PM
I had it for a little bit on an older computer after XP was current. It was fine as far as Windows OSes go, I guess. Nothing really stuck out about it as particularly good or bad at the time.
Throughout the 90s, Microsoft had two different "forks" of the Windows OS family, the regular home-based Windows, which ran as a shell on top of DOS, and the more business-oriented Windows NT, which was based on the work Microsoft did with IBM on the OS/2 operating system. What became Windows NT 3.1 was actually supposed to be the next version of OS/2, but Microsoft basically kept it to themselves instead and cut IBM out of the loop. (Bill Gates had little integrity at the time he was running Microsoft.)
As the 90s went on, Windows NT went through various point releases, and the DOS-based home Windows branch released Windows 95 and Windows 98. Around the turn of the century, the newest NT release, version 5.0, was dubbed Windows 2000, and the newest DOS branch was Windows ME. The problem was that Windows ME was a complete horror show, crashing much more frequently than previous versions of Windows. Home users refused to upgrade, staying on Windows 98, although some took the leap over to Windows 2000, which, although it came with lots of expensive networking features that they didn't need, was at least stable.
Needing to save face, Microsoft killed off further ME development and shifted everything over to the NT branch, issuing a new NT 5.1 release called Windows XP, which came in Home and Professional versions. All further Windows releases are based off of the NT codebase, including Vista (NT 6.0), and further releases after Vista were actually branded with their NT version numbers.
I thought ME was conceived at the last second after the 2000 Home Edition didn't pan out?
7 is actually version 6.1. 10 was 6.4, but Microsoft apparently decided to bring branding to the version number and make it 10.
Microsoft wanted to have a home operating system to tide people over between 98 and XP, but they didn't want it to be released too close to XP. Thus, Windows ME was rushed onto the market.
Quote from: Scott5114 on May 12, 2021, 10:31:53 PM
Throughout the 90s, Microsoft had two different "forks" of the Windows OS family, the regular home-based Windows, which ran as a shell on top of DOS ...
Yep. I still remember booting up and typing
win in DOS. At some point, I also remember adding it to the
startup.bat file.
Quote from: In_Correct on May 12, 2021, 10:58:49 PM
Computers that I did not know about until recently are Commodore / Amiga computers, which has spiritual successor operating systems Morph OS and A.R.O.S. ... And also Acorns and Pi Devices with R.I.S.C. O.S. which can be easily found and used today.
My first ever computer programming was writing BASIC commands on a Commodore 64 when I was 5 or so.
Chris
Quote from: kphoger on May 13, 2021, 10:08:41 AM
Quote from: Scott5114 on May 12, 2021, 10:31:53 PM
Throughout the 90s, Microsoft had two different "forks" of the Windows OS family, the regular home-based Windows, which ran as a shell on top of DOS ...
Yep. I still remember booting up and typing win in DOS. At some point, I also remember adding it to the startup.bat file.
Windows 95 and 98 would boot up straight to DOS, but on the "Shutdown" menu there was an entry for "Exit to DOS". This would return you to a real DOS prompt, with no Windows shell on top. I did this fairly regularly to run a number of DOS games that ran better without Windows running.
Confusingly, there was also a menu entry for a "DOS prompt", which was a DOS shell running on top of Windows running on top of a DOS shell. Under XP this became the only command-line interface to the OS, since there was no actual DOS infrastructure undergirding Windows at that point.
I never realized what a crock DOS was until I switched to Linux and learned the bash shell, which DOS tried to copy, but ended up making an awkward mess instead.
Quote from: In_Correct on May 12, 2021, 10:58:49 PM
Computers that I did not know about until recently are Commodore / Amiga computers, which has spiritual successor operating systems Morph OS and A.R.O.S. ... And also Acorns and Pi Devices with R.I.S.C. O.S. which can be easily found and used today.
Quote from: jayhawkco on May 13, 2021, 12:42:14 PM
My first ever computer programming was writing BASIC commands on a Commodore 64 when I was 5 or so.
I had a TRS-80 equipped with a modem and a cassette tape deck storage, perfect for remote access to Virginia Tech's computer network. It all worked well until they upped the maximum number of users on the primary VAX 11/780 to 110 persons. Remote usage was cancelled and it was nearly impossible to work on their computers. It would take about 30 seconds for each letter to get repeated onto your monitor. I came up with a system to type in two lines of code "in the dark" and then press the infamous CNTL-G (the bell command on ancient IBM keyboards). I could nap for about 10 minutes, then get a wakeup alarm when all the code was finally displayed. The ancient PDP-11/70 used on the railroad seemed so much faster.
Quote from: Scott5114 on May 13, 2021, 02:27:32 PM
Quote from: kphoger on May 13, 2021, 10:08:41 AM
Quote from: Scott5114 on May 12, 2021, 10:31:53 PM
Throughout the 90s, Microsoft had two different "forks" of the Windows OS family, the regular home-based Windows, which ran as a shell on top of DOS ...
Yep. I still remember booting up and typing win in DOS. At some point, I also remember adding it to the startup.bat file.
Windows 95 and 98 would boot up straight to DOS, but on the "Shutdown" menu there was an entry for "Exit to DOS". This would return you to a real DOS prompt, with no Windows shell on top. I did this fairly regularly to run a number of DOS games that ran better without Windows running.
Confusingly, there was also a menu entry for a "DOS prompt", which was a DOS shell running on top of Windows running on top of a DOS shell. Under XP this became the only command-line interface to the OS, since there was no actual DOS infrastructure undergirding Windows at that point.
I never realized what a crock DOS was until I switched to Linux and learned the bash shell, which DOS tried to copy, but ended up making an awkward mess instead.
Yeah, my dad got into the Windows game back in the 3.0 days, so our first two iterations didn't boot up straight to Windows. Of course, back then, Windows isn't all we used the computer for. Usually, we were sitting down to open up WordPerfect or to run a game on floppy disk (the kind that were actually floppy).
Quote from: kphoger on May 13, 2021, 02:35:17 PM
Yeah, my dad got into the Windows game back in the 3.0 days, so our first two iterations didn't boot up straight to Windows. Of course, back then, Windows isn't all we used the computer for. Usually, we were sitting down to open up WordPerfect or to run a game on floppy disk (the kind that were actually floppy).
I miss those actual floppy disks, as well as the cartridges that we used with our Commodore.
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/proxy/qxaGKyCwDdSY5cQe8V36dMd4pVJVA6Kc83UjBxl1SIAe_k6BzcBltigV9664HZ7sGmHWnVEDJTUlBEU26vBAJS0sd9nQTKoAT9ZxF22HzXnZmG9lKXaVwHUDGd8z1yPOb0AQHFz2SJ4zXN_duQCuVujcYyMH-OztA3YLuRudDY3_W7IrlAqEEA)
Chris
First home computer was an Apple IIe, but my school had IIcs and I believe a single Apple III at one point.
Ended up taking a Zenith laptop to college with DOS 6.0 and Windows 3.1. Hardly ever used Windows, though.
Can't remember if we ever had a computer that ran Windows 2000, though. Still pine for the XP days. Windows seems so much more bloated now.