Win2000 or XP?

I need a Windows OS for a small server(500MHz-800MHz) and it must be the least ressource hungry solution possible.


Andy

Windows 2000 is less resource hungry and will work just fine.

However, although I'm no fan of Linux for home use I'd personally go down that route if I ever wanted to do a cheap home server which is on 24/7.

XP might be fine if you turn off the theming and all of the extra stuff. It seems fairly obvious though that the older OS would be the least resource intensive.

> it must be the least ressource hungry solution possible.

Clearly Windows 2000 then.

Windows 2000 support expires March 31 2009, and XP probably sometime shortly thereafter. So if it needs to run more than 2 years, you're prety much screwed.

I'd also suggest Linux, unless you really, really need to run a particular Windows application that doesn't have a Linux alternative, or doesn't work under Wine.

Thanks guys!

>Windows 2000 is less resource hungry and will work just
>fine.

Oki, gonna get me one of those then. Can it be miniaturized?

>However, although I'm no fan of Linux for home use I'd
>personally go down that route if I ever wanted to do a
>cheap home server which is on 24/7.

Bought a server 2003 for that.

>Windows 2000 support expires March 31 2009, and XP
>probably sometime shortly thereafter. So if it needs to
>run more than 2 years, you're prety much screwed.

It'll run for much longer than that, but it's not connected to the internet and all non essentialservices will be turned off. It just needs to run with a small footprint.

>I'd also suggest Linux, unless you really, really need to
>run a particular Windows application that doesn't have a
>Linux alternative, or doesn't work under Wine.

I don't know if it works under Wine, but with the driver hell it's been putting me through so far, I don't dare trying anything but Windows. I know it'll work on both 2K and XP, so I'll go with that.

Now I'll go look for info on what can be removed from the 2k installation to free up space.

Thanks again!

Andy

Xp unless the HD is smaller than 4gig

As said 2000 will be less intensive, but if you can run XP I think you should.

(Mind you that might just be cos I think 2000 is the worst of all the windows os's)

Get 2000lite.

Interesting but it looks like the server components are removed in the LITE versions...

XP is so much better than 2000 it isn't funny, and XP runs better on my 400 mhz Pentium 2 so long as it has 500mb+ of ram.

Get a cool little program called nLite http://www.nliteos.com You can strip a full installation down to around 100MB.

NLite never worked for me.

My vote goes for XP.

>My vote goes for XP.

Why?


Andy

XP has some nice features like the "system restore", but 2000 is definitely needs less resources.

Pretty much all complaints regarding instrability of one (or the other) OS boil down to hardware drivers, so the real question is whether or not there are good (preferably signed) drivers available for all your hardware components, including the motherboard.

(The latter one might seem optional in a lot of cases, but it's insane how much difference a good set of motherboard drivers can make vs. using whatever windows detects and installs by default. My old P400 was very unstable until it got the IDE busmastering drivers installed, after that it was steady as a rock.)

Linux Debian, best choice.

Qestion
Windows 2000 support Has expired Summer 2005 ?
why do you said it expire in 2009 ??

by Windows 2000 you mean workstation i suppose cause XP is not server OS.

Windows 2000 entered extended support in 2005. It has another five years of support, since it is a corporate product (there is no Windows 2000 Home, only Profesional and Server). Thus it's extended support will expire in 2009. Windows XP will expire 2 years after Vista is generally available (which is also likely to be sometime in 2009).

But even expired support isn't really an issue. Besides security updates, how much support do we use from MS?

To the original question: I had an emergency where a server died and I had to get something up immediately. I had an old Pentium 200MMX with I think 128MB RAM and I got 2000 going and it did the trick on a short term basis. That has been many years ago, but it was cool!

> how much support do we use from MS?


True enough, I've never called them for support on anything. Downloading patches is as far as it goes.

Support goes way beyond "downloading patches" or "phoneing them up". Support is a matter of when your own application is going to stop working. Any application that relies on MSDE for instance isn't going to work with Vista. Why? Because it's unsupported.

Support from Microsoft is a measure of "When should I switch to Linux".

>by Windows 2000 you mean workstation i suppose cause XP is
>not server OS.

I will be running a workstation OS as a server. It will be unaccesible, have no internet and be loaded with only one program, running 24/7. It will never be upgraded, never be updated and will run until it dies.

Andy

My sister still run on a P166 with windows 95.. And still She dose not have Modem and no Internet.

The machine is still lighning fast as it was from sale date. at 1997.

http://www.hno.harvard.edu/gazette/1999/02.18/light.html

;-)