Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Remembering Windows 2000

howtogeek.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 243 posts

Re: Remembering Windows 2000

#161

Post by ajtjp »

ogre_codes wrote: post #67
zozbot234 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

XP introduced a "new" control panel arrangement by default, but you could easily revert to a simple folder view. Windows 10 is a mess today because of the overlap between the classic Control Panel and the new settings app, but there was nothing like this back then.

> XP introduced a "new" control panel arrangement by default, but you could easily revert to a simple folder view. It's been 15+ years? since I regularly used Windows so maybe I'm mis-remembering this, but I definitely remember there being quite a few WTF moments working with the Windows XP Control Panel. Lots of changes for no apparent reason, and many weird/ jarring things. Its definitely not a Windows 10 thing bec…

The proper thing to do in the Windows XP control panel is to switch it to Classic View. No more trying to figure out what category something is in and being wrong half the time, just the same options as you had in Windows 98, plus a few new ones.

Even in Classic View, there are admittedly some items that have user interface styles that date back to Windows 3.1 (one example being part of the Fonts area), so there are some oddities. But switching to Classic View takes care of a lot of them.

Re: Remembering Windows 2000

#162

Post by ajtjp »

mattkevan wrote: post #144
Wistar wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone once remarked "On XP everything looks as though it should go MOO! when you click on it."

Ha, that’s so true. After growing up with Amiga and then MacOS, I only really encountered Windows XP when I started my first proper job. Couldn’t believe that that was the default OS for professionals and businesses. With all the chunky graphics and bright colours it looked so childish - like it was designed for preschoolers, not 98% of the world’s computing. There was even a puppy animation when doing a search.

And you could switch the puppy animation to a cat, or a wizard, or probably several other options!

You could easily switch it to look like earlier versions of Windows, however. I miss that ability in 8.1 and 10; up through Window 7, I could make my desktop look like Windows 95 if I wanted to, and sometimes I did. Nothing like having a colleague walk up to you in 2017 and asking you, "is that Windows 2000?"

Re: Remembering Windows 2000

#163

Post by ajtjp »

marcosdumay wrote: post #102
airstrike wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm still rather baffled about how people look back fondly on XP, it looked like a toy for toddlers Agreed, yet somehow its Start menu is still better than what you get on Windows 10 these days: https://i.stack.imgur.com/rwZqf.jpg > ...installing the Zune theme was the first thing I did after a fresh install to try and tone it down. Everyone knows the best XP theme was Royale Noir! https://www.istartedsomething.com…

That's beating a dead horse. Anything is better than the Windows 10 start menu, with the only exception of the Windows 8 (and a Server version, don't remember what) (lack of) one... Or, maybe the Win8 one was better. It's a bit hard to be sure about this, but the first half of the comment stands.

That would be Server 2012. Took me months to figure out how to restart it via the GUI.

I actually came to like the 8.1 Start screen, though it took awhile. Basically my most-used programs are pinned to the start screen, so I can tap Windows, and use the mouse to select one, with a large margin for error. Or I can search based on the name of the program, and unlike Windows 10, it's only to match local items, and not include any web results.

Re: Remembering Windows 2000

#164

Post by htk »

There’s a great book on the history of Windows NT (precursor of Windows 2000) called “Show Stopper!: The Breakneck Race to Create Windows NT and the Next Generation at Microsoft”.

Re: Remembering Windows 2000

#165

Post by ajtjp »

octorian wrote: post #64
amiga-workbench wrote: post #17

Windows 2000 also represents the zenith of UI design for Microsoft software. I'm still rather baffled about how people look back fondly on XP, it looked like a toy for toddlers, and installing the Zune theme was the first thing I did after a fresh install to try and tone it down. The in-your-face over decoration of UI's thankfully hasn't persisted, but instead we're seeing a similar kind of decadence among our suppos…

> I'm still rather baffled about how people look back fondly on XP, it looked like a toy for toddlers I think a big part of this is a combination of two factors: First, most non-tech people never ran Win2k. They went straight from 98/ME to XP. Second, no one remembers WinXP before SP2. (You know, when it was a complete trainwreck.) FWIW, when I was doing software development in the latter days of XP, I found that I a…

Unpopular opinion: I liked XP SP1. Perhaps it's because I used it mostly offline, so its security issues were far less visible than if I had used it on a T1 line. But from a stability standpoint, XP SP1 was a huge step up from 98.

Re: Remembering Windows 2000

#166

Post by ajtjp »

zozbot234 wrote: post #51
derefr wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no real way to translate the classic theme "as designed" to hi-DPI systems, AFAIK; let alone to allow it to freely morph between desktop and tablet interaction paradigms when you dock/undock a two-in-one. You could in theory design a modern UI that resembles the classic UI, but it wouldn't really be "the classic UI". A large part of what makes the classic UI have the particular look it does is that it has cus…

> There's no real way to translate the classic theme "as designed" to hi-DPI systems, AFAIK The classic theme supports arbitrary sizes (in px or "device-independent" units) for both text and widgets, which addresses HiDPI and touch readiness. What it might have trouble with however is mixed DPI, where moving a window across two screens requires rendering it with different pixel densities. But that was not on the hori…

Indeed, and there also is a DPI scaling option at least as early as Windows 98, on top of the text/widget size configuration. I've used it on a 1200p monitor connected to a Windows 98 box, and it works.

It doesn't always produce the most beautiful results, but it's serviceable. And to be fair, it's taken a long time for high-DPI to consistently look beautiful even on recent versions of Windows. I shudder to remember looking at Device Manager on a display set to 125% in the DPI settings.

Re: Remembering Windows 2000

#167

Post by ajtjp »

thought_alarm wrote: post #135
amiga-workbench wrote: post #17

Windows 2000 also represents the zenith of UI design for Microsoft software. I'm still rather baffled about how people look back fondly on XP, it looked like a toy for toddlers, and installing the Zune theme was the first thing I did after a fresh install to try and tone it down. The in-your-face over decoration of UI's thankfully hasn't persisted, but instead we're seeing a similar kind of decadence among our suppos…

I actually hated Win2K when it came out and tried to hold to NT 4.0 as long as I could, although I'm sure some of that was just youthful arrogance. If I recall correctly, Win2K was a lot slower than NT 4.0 on the same hardware, and it featured some really bad UI ideas, like menus that auto-hide advanced menu items. By the time XP was released I gave up the fight. The initial XP theme was just awful; clearly a knee-je…

I remember those menus. Office 2000 had them as well. You had a menu with the options, but there was also an option to expand the menu, which revealed more options, with a lighter gray background than the main options.

It was an interesting idea about how to combat the problem of having too many menu items, but it wasn't great for discoverability. I can understand why it faded out.

Re: Remembering Windows 2000

#168

Post by jacobush »

Koshkin wrote: post #154
proverbialbunny wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yah 95-Me era ran pretty slow and horrible. Though 95 was pretty revolutionary when it came out.

The actual revolution came with Windows Game SDK (later known as DirectX) which allowed Windows to finally surpass MS-DOS as a gaming platform.

Yeah... imagine if they would have shipped that in a single task version, sort of like a DOS / XBOX1 hybrid. Games would have rocked, even on frugal hardware.

Re: Remembering Windows 2000

#169

Post by ajtjp »

ndespres wrote: post #79
EvanAnderson wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with the Windows 2000 UI being great, but Windows XP ran better for me. To get the best of both worlds I ran a spare copy of Windows Server 2003 as my "daily driver" on a Thinkpad back in the early 2000's. It had the Windows 2000 UI with the behind-the-scenes updates that came with Windows XP. Most software that installed on XP installed fine on Server 2003. It was nice.

I also ran Windows Server 2003 as my regular desktop OS for a few years. I got an evaluation copy in the mail at some point and just kept using it. Even with the extra overhead of running network services on it for my household, it was still more performant than Windows XP on that same computer.

I ran it for awhile too, on my laptop. I think that was back in my post-Vista try-all-the-other-options-out-there days, as I cannot remember what advantage it gave me that XP didn't have, but I do remember it being a pain to get set up for DirectX and other things that you generally wouldn't use on a server. Still, it did look cool to see my laptop displaying its "Windows Server 2003" screensaver in the library.

Re: Remembering Windows 2000

#170

Post by ajtjp »

ladzoppelin wrote: post #82
core-questions wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, despite the "fisher-price" UI, XP did build upon 2000 in many good ways - much better 9x compatibility, newer DirectX, lots of small UI improvements, and then SP3's firewall which finally made Windows somewhat safe to use, despite the continual security war and dangerous IE 6. XP stuck around because Vista simply wasn't compelling. A technical failure by MS, released too early, for no good reason; it never had…

But Vista was not a technical failure but more a commercial failure. I am not an expert but I am pretty sure massive chunks of the OS were updated in Vista that took years to debug and smooth out to what is now Windows 10. You are also correct that XP was technically more advanced than 2000 but I am not sure of the specifics. All I remember is pro audio applications and audio device drive drivers ran much better in W…

"massive chunks of the OS were updated in Vista that took years to debug and smooth out to what is now Windows 10"

This is key, and also shows why, at least at release, the technical failures of Vista were what drove its commercial failure.

Part of it was the jump in specs - the infamous Intel chipsets that were Windows Vista certified, but couldn't run Aero, and in general the huge boost in requirements from XP.

Part of it was changes with in the OS, such as protecting the Program Files folder(s), and Vista's Shadow Copy system, which wrecked havoc with programs that stored user-modifiable configuration files (and more) in their install directory. Yes, Microsoft had been recommending against that for awhile, but it still broke a lot.

But as much of it was ecosystem readiness due to changes to changes to the driver model. There was some support for XP drivers, but it was still painful. I used Vista without service packs. It was bad, bad enough that I switched back to XP. Let's just say there's a reason that I didn't buy another nVIDIA graphics card for another decade.

Post reply on HN