3 ms·

Windows 2000 was based on NT. While it had the Windows 98 interface it was very different underneath. It's a bit bonkers, but MS sold two superficially-identi

by retrac 3y ago

Windows 2000 was based on NT. While it had the Windows 98 interface it was very different underneath. It's a bit bonkers, but MS sold two superficially-identical operating systems for five plus years, that were in reality, about as different as two OSes could be; different histories, different underlying architecture, little code shared between the kernels and only part of the userland. And yet the two OS families had almost exactly the same UI and API.

nikau 3y ago
it made sense at the time, pcs had limited ram and win98 ran much better.
- EvanAnderson 3y ago
  With a decent amount of RAM, though, 2000 was far more stable.
  - Dalewyn 3y ago
    I think you need to understand that most people maybe had 16~32MB of system RAM on average circa 1999, while Windows 2000 ideally wanted at least a staggering 128MB as just a sysreq recommendation. Windows 98 was fine with 16MB minimum or even 8MB with some wizardry. How much did 128MB of RAM cost in 1999? According to a Reddit thread that Copilot found, about $370 in 2020 dollars[1]. Copilot also dug up another thread[2] where people reminisced about RAM capacity and pricing in the 90s. So in very basic terms, 128MB of RAM (let alone more!) back then would be like buying 128GB of RAM today. Most people simply aren't going to buy ~$400 of RAM just like that, especially when upgrade cycles were also much shorter than today. There was a very practical reason Windows 9x existed alongside Windows NT until XP merged the lines in 2001 when 256~512MB of RAM and more became much more affordable. [1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/mac/comments/finsjm/how_much_did_128mb_of_ram_cost_in_1999/ https://www.reddit.com/r/mac/comments/finsjm/how_much_did_12... [2]: https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?t=62239 https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?t=62239
    - kiwijamo 3y ago
      Indeed. I remember running Windows 95 on a 32MB machine and stayed on Windows 95 even after 98, 98SE, ME, 2000 were released simply because that's what worked well on the machines I had at the time. IRRC I had a P166MMX with 32MB of RAM from 1997 which remained my main machine for some years. Win95 only needed the correct drivers for the newer post-1995 hardware. I ended up skipping 98, 98SE, ME, 2000 and going straight to XP for my next upgrade at some point in the early 2000's as I had acquired a new machine which couldn't run Windows 95 without a whole lot of patches and Firefox eventually dropped support for Windows 95. By then the hardware I had was good enough that XP worked fine.
    - EvanAnderson 3y ago
      > I think you need to understand that most people maybe had 16~32MB of system RAM on average circa 1999, while Windows 2000 ideally wanted at least a staggering 128MB as just a sysreq recommendation. I do understand. I was there. My personal PCs from that time had 16MB (a getting old AMD 5x86 133) and 32MB (Celeron 300A w/ the 450Mhz "mod"), and I ran Linux and Windows 95/98 on them. I didn't get W2K at home until late 2001 and that was only because I splurged. Windows 2000 was a ridiculous luxury item for home users at the time, but for business PCs it was a real winner. It was so much more stable than Windows 95/98. The "we build PCs" shop I worked at did a good job of convincing business Customers to spend the extra money for stability. Only a minority bit on the idea, but people definitely talked about seeing fewer reboots and better multitasking w/ the W2K machines. It helped sell itself. (We also did least-privilege user accounts all the way back in the NT 4.0 days. "Cleaning up" the malware of the day was so easy because, by and large, you could just blow away the user's profile and start with a fresh registry. Since the user didn't have Administrator rights making machine-wide changes was "off limits" for most malware of the time.)
      - Dalewyn 3y ago
        Indeed. When Microsoft called them Windows NT 4.0 Workstation and Windows 2000 Professional, they damn well meant it. You said "decent amount of RAM" in a very nonchalant fashion, so I felt that maybe a reorienting of the focal lens was necessary. RAM today is so mundane everyone wastes it without a care in the world[1], but it wasn't always this way. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39920226 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39920226
- reactordev 3y ago
  2000 is what you ran if you were hosting your lan party. 98 is what you had if you were invited to your friends lan party.
- afavour 3y ago
  Driver support was also terrible for a long time.
johnwalkr 3y ago
It was an interesting time. Until NT4.0, NT supported intel, Power PC, Alpha and MIPS architectures. And until Windows 2000, NT could run OS/2 apps.

by retrac 3y ago

nikau 3y ago

it made sense at the time, pcs had limited ram and win98 ran much better.

EvanAnderson 3y ago
With a decent amount of RAM, though, 2000 was far more stable.
- Dalewyn 3y ago
  I think you need to understand that most people maybe had 16~32MB of system RAM on average circa 1999, while Windows 2000 ideally wanted at least a staggering 128MB as just a sysreq recommendation. Windows 98 was fine with 16MB minimum or even 8MB with some wizardry. How much did 128MB of RAM cost in 1999? According to a Reddit thread that Copilot found, about $370 in 2020 dollars[1]. Copilot also dug up another thread[2] where people reminisced about RAM capacity and pricing in the 90s. So in very basic terms, 128MB of RAM (let alone more!) back then would be like buying 128GB of RAM today. Most people simply aren't going to buy ~$400 of RAM just like that, especially when upgrade cycles were also much shorter than today. There was a very practical reason Windows 9x existed alongside Windows NT until XP merged the lines in 2001 when 256~512MB of RAM and more became much more affordable. [1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/mac/comments/finsjm/how_much_did_128mb_of_ram_cost_in_1999/ https://www.reddit.com/r/mac/comments/finsjm/how_much_did_12... [2]: https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?t=62239 https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?t=62239
  - kiwijamo 3y ago
    Indeed. I remember running Windows 95 on a 32MB machine and stayed on Windows 95 even after 98, 98SE, ME, 2000 were released simply because that's what worked well on the machines I had at the time. IRRC I had a P166MMX with 32MB of RAM from 1997 which remained my main machine for some years. Win95 only needed the correct drivers for the newer post-1995 hardware. I ended up skipping 98, 98SE, ME, 2000 and going straight to XP for my next upgrade at some point in the early 2000's as I had acquired a new machine which couldn't run Windows 95 without a whole lot of patches and Firefox eventually dropped support for Windows 95. By then the hardware I had was good enough that XP worked fine.
  - EvanAnderson 3y ago
    > I think you need to understand that most people maybe had 16~32MB of system RAM on average circa 1999, while Windows 2000 ideally wanted at least a staggering 128MB as just a sysreq recommendation. I do understand. I was there. My personal PCs from that time had 16MB (a getting old AMD 5x86 133) and 32MB (Celeron 300A w/ the 450Mhz "mod"), and I ran Linux and Windows 95/98 on them. I didn't get W2K at home until late 2001 and that was only because I splurged. Windows 2000 was a ridiculous luxury item for home users at the time, but for business PCs it was a real winner. It was so much more stable than Windows 95/98. The "we build PCs" shop I worked at did a good job of convincing business Customers to spend the extra money for stability. Only a minority bit on the idea, but people definitely talked about seeing fewer reboots and better multitasking w/ the W2K machines. It helped sell itself. (We also did least-privilege user accounts all the way back in the NT 4.0 days. "Cleaning up" the malware of the day was so easy because, by and large, you could just blow away the user's profile and start with a fresh registry. Since the user didn't have Administrator rights making machine-wide changes was "off limits" for most malware of the time.)
    - Dalewyn 3y ago
      Indeed. When Microsoft called them Windows NT 4.0 Workstation and Windows 2000 Professional, they damn well meant it. You said "decent amount of RAM" in a very nonchalant fashion, so I felt that maybe a reorienting of the focal lens was necessary. RAM today is so mundane everyone wastes it without a care in the world[1], but it wasn't always this way. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39920226 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39920226
reactordev 3y ago
2000 is what you ran if you were hosting your lan party. 98 is what you had if you were invited to your friends lan party.
afavour 3y ago
Driver support was also terrible for a long time.

johnwalkr 3y ago

It was an interesting time. Until NT4.0, NT supported intel, Power PC, Alpha and MIPS architectures. And until Windows 2000, NT could run OS/2 apps.