On February 17, Microsoft released Windows 2000, the successor of Windows NT 4. Windows 2000 combines the best features of Windows 98 and NT 4, and adds lots of new ones as well.

New multimon features

• you can set the primary monitor from Windows. Useful if your BIOS doesn't let you choose the primary card or if you want to play a game on a secondary card.
• accelerated OpenGL on multiple monitors is possible. See the OpenGL FAQ for more information.
• Display properties shows top-left coordinates of monitors, a minor but useful feature.

Note that some cards which work as secondary on Win98 don't work on 2000, especially S3-based cards. See the FAQ for more information.

My favorite features

I've been using Windows 98 primarily before switching to 2000, these are the new features that I like most.

Support for multiple processors
Professional supports up to 2 processors, Server up to 4. I could finally make use of my second CPU! I'm still not sure how much benefit I'm getting from it, but it is a cool feature anyway. And with the advent of the Abit BP6, a dual CPU system doesn't have to be expensive: a BP6 and 2 Celeron 400 will cost you less than US$ 400.

NTFS file system

• Small cluster size: if you have lots of small files, you know how much disk space gets wasted by the large cluster size of FAT and FAT32. With NTFS, you can have cluster sizes as small as 512 bytes, a big improvement.
• Compression: to compress a file, simply right-click and turn compression on! It doesn't get easier than this. You can also compress directories and whole drives. The space savings can be impressive.
• Encryption: if you have a paranoid side, you'll like to know that you can now encrypt files, and it is just as simple as compressing them. Working with encrypted files is just like working with normal files: they get decrypted when you open them, and encrypted upon saving, all automatically. Sleep calmly even if government agents have confiscated your hard disk!
• Security: if you have files you don't want anyone else to change or even read, simply deny that person access to the file. You can set up a distinct user account for each member of your household, and give everyone just the rights they need. Great for control freaks!

Stability
If all drivers are working well, Windows 2000 is a very stable system. In the 6 months of using Win2000, I had a single crash (when installing Flight Simulator 2000...). Whereas with Win98, I was used to a crash now and then. I can now leave files open unsaved the whole day, without fear of losing data.

User interface
A great new Explorer feature is the thumbnails view: it shows you a preview of each file, very convenient for folders with images. It is also easier to open files with multiple applications: select Open With from the right-click menu and choose the application you want to use. The next time this application will be listed on the right-click menu. Last but not least: the mouse pointer shadow, everybody loves it!

Web server
Very handy if you do web development: even Professional includes IIS 5.0 (with some limitations: only one website, limited to 10 concurrent connections). You can configure every aspect of the web server, compared to the Win98 Personal Web Server which has a very limited administrative interface.

Command prompt
The new scroll feature is great for reading the output of dir or dumpbin. You can adjust the size of the scroll buffer under Properties. Use the arrow keys to switch to a previously used command, just like on Unix. Even command completion can be turned on optionally. Best of all, all the commands are fully documented in the online help. And they finally got rid of the stupid MS-DOS icon!

Problems

There is hardware which is not or only partially supported, and some applications simply don't work. Usually the only option is to wait for the manufacturer to release updated drivers for the device or an update for the application. Hardware-wise, I had to dump my Turtle Beach Montego sound card, the drivers weren't stable on multiprocessor machines (no idea if this has been fixed with later drivers). And the driver for my Permedia 2 video card has no OpenGL acceleration. Software-wise, I had to upgrade Picture Publisher 6 (very old, from '95), the application had several problems on Win2000. Most other apps work just fine.

Should I upgrade?

If you are happy with Win98, and you use your system mostly for Internet and gaming, there's no need to upgrade. Otherwise, I can only recommend Win2000, it is a great OS, simply the best Microsoft OS so far. Just make sure that your hardware and software is supported. You should have at least 64 MB RAM and 600 MB free disk space. It works with 32 MB RAM, but runs very slowly.

More information

Windows 2000 @ Microsoft
Links to various reviews