SunSpot - re: It really surprises me, that Microsoft didn't focus more on making Windows 2000 do everything NT can (and more, of course)
One of MSFT's goals with the whole W2K development was to get at a set of fundamental problems which have plagued the company since the early days of Windows - namely the need to support a broad range of third party products, both hardware and software, without opening the door to the problems those products could introduce. A series of comprehensive studies of OS failures (blue screens) identified driver flaws and problems in controlling system DLL versioning as responsible for about 80% of those failures.
MSFT went after the driver problem by implementing "driver signing" - drivers which have been tested by MSFT are "signed" - and presumed to be free from flaws which could crash the OS. The approach to DLL version control was more sophisticated - essentially "aliasing" a special version of a DLL so that the application which installs it uses its own version, but other programs use the version provided with the OS.
This approach has a lot to do with the dramatically improved reliability of W2K, but it inevitably reduces "compatibility", especially early on in the cycle. Frankly, good drivers are hard to write, and lots of IHVs were used to just churning out any kind of crap which would talk to their hardware, and let the buyer sort it out. Now they either can't do that, or at a minimum the user will get a message saying the driver is un-signed and could be a potential problem.
Since the goal of W2K was not to provide "the next upgrade" to NT, but rather to establish a much higher baseline for reliability and stability, this was a reasonable choice, and IMO the only choice they could have made. Hardware and software which plays by the new rules will have much better uptime and performance than current systems, by an order of magnitude in terms of availability. Users who have configurations which don't play by the rules will just have to stick with their old software...
Solaris was a similar departure from SunOS, and created many of the same issues in the user base when it was introduced. Eventually, the changes introduced with W2K will benefit all users of MSFT products - initially, they will benefit buyers of new systems, and those lucky enough to have purchased systems which already contained good support for advanced features.
I have installed W2K on a variety of older systems from CPQ, HP, and a home-grown system using a Tyan motherboard. In one case I had to disable ACPI support (A CPQ Armada 6500, which was a re-branded DEC HiNote 2000 laptop) and I had one video setup that didn't fly - aside from that, I had no problems.
W2K was not designed as a general purpose upgrade for any MS OS and it is not intended for consumers or home users... I think the positioning by MSFT on who ought to use it and why, is pretty honest. Sounds like you are one of those folks who ought to stick with NT4 for a while. |
