I do like the sound of a leaner OS with no activation technology for my next upgrade. Tell me your latest impressions on current Win2000 in a gaming and general purpose rig. I know in the past there were driver issues and so on, but how about now?Thanks,Noel

Win2000 has worked great for me!I had Win98 installed when I first purchased FS2K2 but ended up switching my OS over to Win2000 Pro for work (im a network engineer) and I, like you, was worried that I would lose the ability to play some of my games and was also worried about performance issues. Well, to sum it up my Win2000 setup not only still plays all my games but it also seemed to improve my FPS by about 5-10. It is true that Win2K does use more RAM but it also uses RAM more efficently. The best thing about Win2000, in my personal experiences, is the fact that I NEVER CTD, NEVER blue scree (BSOD), and my machine never locks up! Win98 wasn't quite the same experiences (lol).In your post you mentioned you heard that there were driver issues....are you sure your not talking about WinXP (XP used to have pretty bad driver issues)?? I personally know too many people that have issues with WinXP to use it myself but it does work for many people. However, you'll be hard pressed to find people complaining about Win2000 Pro stability.Basically, my FPS went up! my CTDs and BSODs are gone! and my lock-ups are gone!What's not to like! :)If you have any other questions feel free to post here and I'll write back :)Shane

I second shane's opinion. Yesterday I switched to Win2k to finally resolve my moving water texture issue in FS2002 and to start from scratch with a reliable OS, and Win2k is by no means a letdown in regard to gaming!On the contrary, it performs far better and smoother because the OS is so much better. True preemptive multitasking prevents lock-ups and memory management cant be compared to legacy-laden WinME (whose core technology is more that 10 years old -- imagine!). That has an overall noticeable positive effect on stability and performance.The only reason I would want to go back to WinME are two scenarios: First, a driver which is incompatible with /not available on Win2k (which is highly unlikely nowadays) and if I for some strage reason need backwards DOS compatibility. DOS is started as an emulation process in Win2k and is not present in the system core. Which is an advantage obviously :)Be suzre though to grab the latest DirectX driver (8.1 as of current) and Servikce Pack 2, then you're all set :)

Noel,Have you considered Win XP as an alternative? It's also an excellent o/s based between Win ME and Win 2000. I have never had a problem with it, it runs 24/7 without the need to reboot or have any hiccups. It runs MSFS just perfectly.If you're not too willing to go with XP, you'll certainly be happy with Win2000, it's also an excellent o/s.Just me 2 cents worth :)

Concur with ShaneI'm also Network Administrator/Programmer, and after comparing XP and 2000 at work I knew I'd never get XP for home use.Upgraded on Friday (Hardware and Software) and while I still have some hickups from the complete new setup there are no unusual problems.Yesterday Operation Flashpoint went very busy on the Harddrive, but although it was locked I could get out, and software-reboot. I'm pretty sure that would not have worked with the good old Win98, were often the reset key was my only option.Can't judge speed because I'm running a complete new rig, no comparison here.As for driver problems, FS2002 gives me some headaches with my Geforce 4 and DirectX 8.0 Upgrading to DX 8.1 didn't work so far...but these problems are related to the Nvidia Drivers, and I had similar errors with the same card in my old 98 rig. Can't blame 2K for that.

RS, I recommend the 28.32 drivers for your GeForce 4 as a pretty good starting point. They seem very stable and many I know seem to enjoy their performance.Hope this helps you out!:)Shane

HiI stopped using Win98 in....99. NT4 wouldn't play games but it meant I could work with 60MB 3DS files within Metacreations Bryce without the system complaining of "out of virtual memory" when RAM usage was 300MB/512MB.I'm currently running 2000 Pro on my FS machine simply because I don't have the diskspace on it for a bloated XP Pro insallation. This machine runs FS and PS1 and nothing else. My other machines run XP Pro because I paid for it and some of the features I like bettter, such as organisational improvements, slightly better NTFS performance, greater hardware support - meaning plug and play that works.I haven't had any compatability problems and the only thing bothering me about XP is the impending doom of Microsoft's Digital Rights Management, which I'm still mulling over.DOS is dead. 98 is dead. I can run PS1 - written for DOS - perfectly under 2K and XP including USB joystick support. I have no need for DOS whatsoever.Best regards//Neil