[bphlpt]

@Kurt_Aust, I thought that the purpose of the work of BWC, Wild Bill, and tomasz86 was to try and add back both the security and the utility that you are talking about Win2K losing over the years. Don't you see it that way? And I thought your guide was a pretty general purpose one for anyone who wanted to continue using Win2K for whatever reason. That's why I have been encouraging tomasz86 to get in touch with you to combine your work. Maybe I had misunderstood something along the way.

Cheers and Regards

[Kurt_Aust]

I certainly admire their efforts in that regard and of course one can use this guide anyway one sees fit but I for one would not recommend Windows 2000 for front line use these days.

To use the infamous car analogy, if you took a 1930's car that had been sealed away and was in mint condition it wouldn't be as safe to drive as an equivalent brand new model. Sure you could retrofit some things, seat belts shouldn't be too hard for instance, but good luck retrofitting crumple zones. By the way I usually use this analogy to describe why the ****ashima reactor partial meltdown is a poor reason to write off nuclear power.

At one stage I was considering taking an old box and using W2K on it as the basis of a media PC, but 10 minutes down the road they're selling ex-lease Core2 quad machines for $230. At that price it simply isn't worth mucking around with a box from 2003 running W2K that I wouldn't really trust on the internet.

Edit:
What is with the censoring on this site, that wasn't even a dirty word, at least not in English.

This post has been edited by Kurt_Aust: 14 April 2012 - 03:11 AM

[tomasz86]

Windows 2000 is not that old

Spoiler

[Kurt_Aust]

May update .Net only

Delete RunOnce\dotNet20SP2_UH_Apr12.exe and

Download from MediaFire Hotfix_2000sp5_N_date.7z (.Net 1.1 SP1 & .Net 2.0 SP2) and extract it into the same directory that you chose to extract the Config archive into (see notes part 4 for other options).
MD5: 1F533A3554563213E71226596A5B0EF9
SHA-1: 8E41C9CE2BCDB2C3130EF7CC133851A4026B4FF7


Also added a security warning to the start of the main post.

[Kurt_Aust]

June update

Deletions:
RunOnce\dotNet11SP1_UH_Apr12.exe
RunOnce\dotNet20SP2_UH_May12.exe

Replace: (optional)
Runonce\WindowsUpdateAgent30-x86.exe . 6,761,832

Download from MediaFire Hotfix_2000sp5_N_date.7z (.Net 1.1 SP1 & .Net 2.0 SP2) and extract it into the same directory that you chose to extract the Config archive into (see notes part 4 for other options).
MD5: 24E94B2C94CE2D3A77F95C7A5167CD08
SHA-1: 59CBFBAD1DD1B5FDEFB169C847E9B077F4DC37A3


Unfortunately over the last month Mozilla and Opera have dropped support for Windows 2000 meaning that no current mainstream web browser works properly on Windows 2000.

[tomasz86]

Opera still officially supports Win2k...

http://www.opera.com...d/requirements/ (Minimum configuration)

[Kurt_Aust]

Officially yes, try running it in a limited account though.

[tomasz86]

What do you mean by a limited account? I've just tried it while being logged in as a normal "User" and it seems to work OK. The browser itself is extremely unstable but it's another story...

[Kurt_Aust]

That might be due to the unofficial kernel you use, with a standard kernel launching Opera as a member of the Users group brings up the following message box:

Startup error
Opera has failed to access or upgrade your profile. This may have occurred because your computer has insufficient resources available or because some files are locked by other applications. You may have to restart your computer before Opera will start again.
OK

[tomasz86]

I did a test using a VM with only official updates installed.

In my opinion what you experience seems to be a bug rather than "dropping support for Windows 2000".

[Kurt_Aust]

OK, I've altered the security warning to:
As Windows 2000 has been out of support since July 2010 and no current major web browser (or plugin) works reliably on it, it is not safe to use Windows 2000 on an Internet facing machine.

[tomasz86]

I still think it's just a bug in the new version (which is known to be very buggy). I've seen many people reporting in the Opera forums that Opera 12.00 works fine in Windows 2000. Have you tested it on more than one machine?

Saying that

Quote

Opera have dropped support for Windows 2000

while the company (Opera Software) officially says that Windows 2000 is supported and doesn't say anything about leaving it is just not true...

It is not a new situation that early versions of a major release are buggy/unstable. It was like that in case of Opera 10 & 11 too. I'd just wait for a while until they fix the bugs and then see if the problem still persists.

This post has been edited by tomasz86: 22 June 2012 - 04:16 AM

[Kurt_Aust]

OK, I've changed the notice to indicate that Opera is buggy while Firefox no longer supports Windows 2000.

If Opera gets their act together I'll indicate that they're the only major browser to still support Windows 2000.

[tomasz86]

The bugs (freezes, etc.) seem to be gone in the new development snapshot of Opera Next so there's hope that the next version of Opera 12 will work fine in Win2k.

This post has been edited by tomasz86: 01 July 2012 - 03:55 AM

[Kurt_Aust]

July updates

Deletions:
Hotfix\770-msxml4-KB973685-enu.exe
Hotfix\780-msxml6-KB973686-enu-x86.exe

Additions:
Hotfix\770-msxml4-KB2721691-enu.exe . . . . . 2,053,704 . Optional, Microsoft XML Core Services 4.0 sp3
Hotfix\780-msxml6-KB2721693-enu-x86.exe . . . 958,536 . Optional, Microsoft XML Core Services 6.0 sp2

[tomasz86]

Kurt_Aust, on 22 June 2012 - 04:49 PM, said:

OK, I've changed the notice to indicate that Opera is buggy while Firefox no longer supports Windows 2000.

If Opera gets their act together I'll indicate that they're the only major browser to still support Windows 2000.

Well, the Win2k support has been dropped in the latest development snapshot of Opera 12 released yesterday
It does work after changing the dependencies (no unofficial kernel/updates required) but the browser itself is still extremely buggy.

Actually, it seems that Firefox 10 ESR is the only (stable) major browser officially supporting the system. Firefox 10 ESR is going to be supported until Firefox 19 is released (info). Standard versions of Firefox starting from v13 require the unofficial kernel to run. On the other hand, if someone doesn't want to / cannot use the unofficial kernel then there are other small browsers like Qupzilla which are actively developed and do work in a stock Win2k (Qupzilla uses Webkit engine so it's also very fast).

Spoiler

I don't mention Chromium and its clones because they are still not 100% functional even with the unofficial kernel and all other unofficial updates installed.

Edit: If someone still wants to install the newest development build of Opera 12 without too much hassle then install BWC kernel first, and after that you will be able to run the Opera 12.50 alpha installer normally. One good thing is that the UI freezes so common in all previous builds of Opera 12 seem to be really gone in this one.

Edit2: By the way, this development snapshot is way more stable then the "official" release.

This post has been edited by tomasz86: 20 July 2012 - 11:13 AM

[tomasz86]

Opera 12.01 is ready... but still buggy (the UI freezes completely from time to time, at least in Win2k).

@Kurt_Aust
What do you think about adding information about Firefox ESR 10 to the guide? It officially supports Win2k and is going to be updated until February 2013.

[Kurt_Aust]

Yep, I plan to add info and script install support for Opera 12.01 and Firefox ESR next time I update it.

[tomasz86]

I'm writing now from Windows 8 Enterprise (trial) + Opera 12.01 and I've experienced exactly the same bug (frozen UI) as when the browser was used in Windows 2000. Initially I thought that the bug was somewhat related to Win2k but now can say for sure that Opera 12 is just buggy in general

[Kurt_Aust]

OK, so Firefox ESR it is.