How Good Is Windows 2000?

Recently I read a message on a popular webmaster forum which asked if people actually use Internet Explorer and Windows anymore.  The person was asking this question due to the supposedly vast number of security patches released by Microsoft lately.

I've used virtually all of the flavors of Windows during the last six years. I began with Windows 3.5.1, which was a primitive but promising operating system. We were analyzing the various operating systems available on desktop computers in an attempt to find out which would be best for our company. We had been running on Macintosh computer systems for eight years and they had served us well.

However, we had concerns about the viability of the Macintosh platform due to the increasing instability of Apple Computer Systems. At the time, it was beginning to be obvious that Apple was operating with a full deck, or, in other words, their top management had the common sense of a small soap dish. If that sounds like we were frustrated, well, it's true. In our view, Apple had by far the best hardware and software, but since the company was obviously run by a group of baboons (sorry for insulting the poor primates), we couldn't chose their platform.

We were actually not all that happy with Windows 3.5.1, but Windows NT 4.0 came out at about that time. After we installed the operating system on a desktop system, we realized it would work just fine. It was most definitely not as good as the Macintosh computer system at the time, but it appeared to us that Microsoft would be around a lot longer than Apple Computer Systems.

As the service packs came out over the following years, Windows NT became better and better. It became rock solid stable and easy to manage, especially as we became more and more trained. Since we still had Macintosh computers left in our company, we learned over time that Windows is actually far more stable than anything Apple has ever produced - again, when managed by competent people.

After a few years of waiting, Windows 2000 was finally released, and after we installed it we realized that it was probably the best desktop operating system ever created. Yes, we've used Unix, Linux and the Macintosh, and they simply cannot compare to Windows 2000.

Windows 2000 Pro and it successor Windows XP are finally excellent desktop operating systems. We run thousands of them at our company and the failure rate is exceptionally low. In addition, Internet Explorer has proven to be a superior product for our users. 

We have performed testing on Linux, Unix and the Mac OS. Windows NT 4.0 and later 2000 was by far preferred by the users, was by far more stable, and had by far more products available. That actually was the main problem with the other operating systems - much less software was available.

As far as security and such are concerned, we use automated tools to keep the software up-to-date on all of the desktops. By using competent administration techniques and procedures, we have kept our systems secure and performing well.

Our systems are stable partially because they are totally locked down. We found that users who install their own products have many orders of magnitude more problems with the OS than those who don't. So when we rolled out new systems at Y2K we locked them down and the problems almost went away. The statistics changed by the same order of magnitude regardless of the OS.

I hear lots of complaining about windows, but in my experience when competently managed 2000 and XP are very good indeed. And that's the result of hard experience.