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To XP, or not to XP, that is the question...


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I am part of the "Inhouse" study group selected to decided if we should upgrade our 5 servers and 45 PCs (plus some remote Laptops) to XP (or win2000) from NT4.

Our tech wants to upgrade to XP...

My tech mates suggest he has shares in Microsoft...

Win 2000 was added to the selection process by me, to try to get them to look at it.

The problem is, I can not seem to convenice anyone that win 2000 is better (Does the job, and is cheaper) the XP.

Any comments?

Suggestions?

Anyone in a similar position?

Should we just wait for a few months till the bugs are gone or what?

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Im woundering why you think 2000 is better than XP. Personally if your company is going to upgrade it would be better if you were to pick XP due to the new NTFS system. Not to mention haveing that many PC you have a great advantage in fetures as rolling back drivers, rolling back the OS, and the repair option. Your going to get better support if you choose XP and the upgrade will last longer.

-XPerties

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In an office you will love the Remote desktop!!! you can control and computer with the master server..And its fast! not like the most of them..like Pc anywhere, it would be ideal for the laptops that have small hard drives, or just easy access. I have used Win2k, its a flop! buggy, slow, etc. Xp has got most of the fuctions of 2000...but they actually work! Trust me you want Xp. Dont skimp on money just to save, if you get Xp you will be saving yourself, everyone at the office and especially the network techs ALOT of troble!

-drew

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I have seen in several benchmarks that Win 2000 is better than XP for office working. XP is certainly better for multimedia aplications and games. But the differences are rather small and certainly unsignificant for the end user.

Now, the future is XP, if you don't want to change your OS the next year....

Hope that helps

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You could give us the specs of the equipment that may help with the desision....?

I have always found if the platform you are using is working ok then just put a couple of machines on the network with the newly selected OS installed and test them until you are happy its what you want, rather than the big bang approach and swapping them all over one weekend and find on monday morning its all gone to s***.

Regards,

BAH

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win2k is, excellent, but the points people bring up here should make you think.. personally id go for XP... but then as BAH points out your machines need to be upto it, as they would with win2k... its similar to XP in its quirks with older equipment and strange OEM parts such as modems etc

BAH is the man to ask.. he deals with this kind of scenario a lot :)

it will also depend on what you plan to use it for [?]

Tris

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Guest LouCypher

I am part of the "Inhouse" study group selected to decided if we should upgrade our 5 servers and 45 PCs (plus some remote Laptops) to XP (or win2000) from NT4.

Our tech wants to upgrade to XP...

My tech mates suggest he has shares in Microsoft...

Win 2000 was added to the selection process by me, to try to get them to look at it.

The problem is, I can not seem to convenice anyone that win 2000 is better (Does the job, and is cheaper) the XP.

Any comments?

Suggestions?

Anyone in a similar position?

Should we just wait for a few months till the bugs are gone or what? [/quote:00ee958e75]

I'd upgrade the servers to Windows 2000 Advanced or better and the rest to Windows XP. I think Windows XP Professional is definately usable for workstations, but .NET I wouldn't trust just yet as it hasn't been released and the beta hasn't gotten the same test from hackers like IIS in Windows 2000. (not to say either is THAT secure)

When .NET has been out awhile you've had a chance to see how it holds up too attacks, then replace the Windows 2000 Servers. i would definately see the benefits to at least getting everything off of NT4. It is so much easier from a management perspective with the PnP and better interfaces.

Of course, you could also save them a ton of money and convert to [b:00ee958e75]Linux[/b:00ee958e75] and run your legacy win32 apps in WINE :) Then you wouldn't have the $$$$ for licensing fees and the what not.

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I tried WIn2k in its early stages..i sappose geting all the updates and bug patches Win2k could work great for your office enviorment. Xp is much faster then 2000(in my opinion) and i like alot of the integrated funtions of Xp..like remote desktop(which would kick a** in a ofice). Its hibernate fuction would also be nice for the office.

It has many of the nice fuctions like debuging, multiple users etc..i just think Xp exicutes them better. Yor probley would save out on some bucks..just make sure you wont be updating to Xp anytime soon...otherwise you should just do it now..no point in spending money on lience fees on all those systems ..just to update in a few years.

I think puting win200 and xp on a few systems and seeing which perfomes better for your office would be a good idea. that way you would know it first hand, rather then just hearing tips and recomendations from us:D

-drew

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Guest LouCypher

Windows 2000 Advanced Server has Terminal Services and allows Admin access w/o having to install Terminal Services Licensing. This is the equivalent of Remote Desktop in Windows XP. Windows XP comes with Remote Desktop for access by any one user at a time, which is great for remote administration.

If you had Windows 2000 on the servers you'd have more patches available than trying to run a .NET beta. The XP clients wouldn't have any problems communicating with the Win2k servers.

You could even try running XP Pro on the server, depending on what the server is doing. Maybe run Win32 apache? I dunno.

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Thanks for the comments so far.

Specks for the machines are as follows:

Desktops:

IBM300GL, PIII 450, 10Gb HDD, 124MB

IBM300GL 2, PIII 450, 10Gb HDD, 124MB

Servers:

Compaq Proliant 1600, PII 266, 12Gb, 128MB

Compaq Proliant 1600, PIII 550, 36Gb, 524MB

Compaq Proliant ML370, PIII 733, 22Gb, 640MB

Compaq Proliant ML370, PIII 733, 68Gb, 640MB

Compaq Proliant 2500, DUAL Pent Pro 200, 10Gb, 384MB

SOE:

Desktops: NT4.0 (SP6a), Office 97 SR-2

Servers: NT4.0 (SP6a)

The systems should be able to run 2k or XP without too much trouble.

The main reasons for upgrading seem to be minor Image problems and remote login times. (All of which could be fixed by proper installs of our current OS, I think...)

My Job is to try to find all the reasons to stay away from either 2k or XP, and as such, suggest the one with the least hassels/bugs/security holes etc.

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Both Xp and 2000 have thier bugs and gliches. To see which one works better for your office, run one destop on Xp and another 2000, update them both to the max, then see which causes more problems. Although 2000 has many more updates..im not sure which is still left with more problems...so just test it out..that sould solve your problem. just run them for a few weeks do normal office stuff and see which is more effective

:beer

-drew

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The real answer to your question has more to do with HOW you will be aquiring either OS. If your org has a volume license agreement with Micro$oft - then it really doesn't matter - but you should really consider Windows 2000 2nd Edition er, um I mean Windows XP for the client machines. If you are buying new software - definitely buy Windows XP - which will allow you to 'downgrade' to Windows 2000 should you decide that XP is not for you - or if some client systems cannot handle the XP requirements. For the servers - I absolutely agree with Lou- go with W2K advanced server and be done with it.

LS

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