Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

I need to get a notebook computer for my wife. She is very comfortable
with W2K (as am I) but all of the laptops seem to ship with XP. I have
never bought a name brand PC so I have always installed my own OS and
drivers. My question is, what kind of problems am I going to have
installing W2K on a laptop (an HP, Sony or ?) that already has XP
installed? Will I be able to "extract" the hardware drivers from the
bundled software that ships with the computer? Or would I be better
off to by a "non name brand" computer from an independent shop. These
computers seem to be more expensive than buying a "preconfigured" name
brand computer but it might be worth the extra dough if I can avoid a
lot of issues.
Thanx
DD
PS Sorry if this is a redundant question....I am new to this group.
"It's easy when you know how..."
Johnny Shines

Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

A little over a year ago I was in the market for a new laptop. BOTH
Dell and IBM at that time would install Win2k (Professional Edition).
However, I seem to recall that I may have had to stretch the truth just
a tad and tell them that I was a "small business." --They never
required verification on that.

However, I did have to be quite persistent and almost "demand" that they
give me Win2k. But the end result was that I won.

Mahl

David DeCristoforo wrote:
> I need to get a notebook computer for my wife. She is very comfortable
> with W2K (as am I) but all of the laptops seem to ship with XP. I have
> never bought a name brand PC so I have always installed my own OS and
> drivers. My question is, what kind of problems am I going to have
> installing W2K on a laptop (an HP, Sony or ?) that already has XP
> installed? Will I be able to "extract" the hardware drivers from the
> bundled software that ships with the computer? Or would I be better
> off to by a "non name brand" computer from an independent shop. These
> computers seem to be more expensive than buying a "preconfigured" name
> brand computer but it might be worth the extra dough if I can avoid a
> lot of issues.
> Thanx
> DD
> PS Sorry if this is a redundant question....I am new to this group.
> "It's easy when you know how..."
> Johnny Shines

Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

David DeCristoforo <david@privacy.net> wrote:
: I need to get a notebook computer for my wife. She is very comfortable
: with W2K (as am I) but all of the laptops seem to ship with XP. I have
: never bought a name brand PC so I have always installed my own OS and
: drivers. My question is, what kind of problems am I going to have
: installing W2K on a laptop (an HP, Sony or ?) that already has XP
: installed? Will I be able to "extract" the hardware drivers from the
: bundled software that ships with the computer? Or would I be better
: off to by a "non name brand" computer from an independent shop. These
: computers seem to be more expensive than buying a "preconfigured" name
: brand computer but it might be worth the extra dough if I can avoid a
: lot of issues.

I'm not quite sure why you are going to all this trouble? XP is a
very good OS, built on the same basic code stream as Windows NT and
Windows 2000. It is a far cry from Windows 95/98/ME which was
unstable and buggy.

If you don't like the look of XP, you can change it to look like
Windows 2000. Not sure why you and your wife would be uncomfortable
with an XP machine after changing the look to the way you want it.

If you need the "pro" features of Windows 2000, get XP Pro, which some
laptops do come with. The average user doesn't need Pro, but some
people do. After more than a year using my current laptop, I finally
found a reason a few weeks ago where I would have liked XP Pro on my
laptop insted of XP Home (trying to import a foreign disk in a USB
enclosure that was dynamic).

I think you will save yourself a lot of hassle (now and later) by not
bothering to re-install Windows 2000 on a new laptop. XP actually has
some cool features that 2000 doesn't have - like AutoPlay for USB
devices. E.g. you plug your camera in and it pops up a window and
helps you download the pics, etc. And future hardware and software
you get for your laptop is much more likely to have good support for
XP than for 2000.

Andrew
--
----> Portland, Oregon, USA <----
*******************************************************************
----> http://www.bizave.com <---- Photo Albums and Portland Info
----> To Email me remove "MYSHOES" from email address
*******************************************************************

Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

>I'm not quite sure why you are going to all this trouble?

Well, it's mostly because my wife is an idiot when it comes to
computers (no offense,Hon) and I am her "tech support". She is very
comfortable with W2K and the idea of changing even the desktop color
sends the poor dear into a fit. So I am mostly concerned with having
the new computer work EXACTLY like what she is used to. It's either
that or spend half my life on the phone!

> XP is avery good OS, built on the same basic code stream as Windows NT and
>Windows 2000. It is a far cry from Windows 95/98/ME which was
>unstable and buggy.

I am with you here. This is why we use W2K

>If you don't like the look of XP, you can change it to look like
>Windows 2000. Not sure why you and your wife would be uncomfortable
>with an XP machine after changing the look to the way you want it.

This would be the big issue...can I make XP (pro) look and work
EXACTLY like 2K? I have messed around with XP and, on the surface it
looks like 2K with six or seven additional layers of crud between the
user and the "meat" I have also boycotted XP in protest of the MS
activation scheme but this would not be nearly as much of an issue on
a laptop which would most likely never be altered.

>I think you will save yourself a lot of hassle (now and later) by not
>bothering to re-install Windows 2000 on a new laptop. XP actually has
>some cool features that 2000 doesn't have - like AutoPlay for USB
>devices. E.g. you plug your camera in and it pops up a window and
>helps you download the pics, etc. And future hardware and software
>you get for your laptop is much more likely to have good support for
>XP than for 2000.

Good points

Thanx
DD
"It's easy when you know how..."
Johnny Shines

Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

David DeCristoforo <david@privacy.net> wrote:
: >I'm not quite sure why you are going to all this trouble?

: Well, it's mostly because my wife is an idiot when it comes to
: computers (no offense,Hon) and I am her "tech support". She is very
: comfortable with W2K and the idea of changing even the desktop color
: sends the poor dear into a fit. So I am mostly concerned with having
: the new computer work EXACTLY like what she is used to. It's either
: that or spend half my life on the phone!

For what it's worth, I just did something similar by building a new
computer for a relative. She lives long-distance and I shipped her a new
computer with XP on it, replacing a dying Windows 98 computer. I
spent time customizing the computer for her though the only thing I
changed in XP's look was the Start menu - I changed it to the
"classic" menu found on 98 (and 2000 basically).

This relative is basically computer illiterate, too, so I was worried
about that (asking her to cut-and-paste something is not all that
clear to her!). So far, though, she has loved the new computer and had
no real problems switching from 98 to XP. In fact, XP's handling of
digital photos is far superior to any previous Windows OS. You plug
in the camera and it automatically brings up a wizard to download
them, email them, and even order prints. It's infinitely easier than
in 2000 and 98.

I think you'll be just fine with XP for your wife - trust me. Just
spend some time customizing the look for her as I did and she'll be
fine, and if she uses digital photography at all, she'll be much
happier with it. Don't worry about the internal differences that
she'll never even notice.

: This would be the big issue...can I make XP (pro) look and work
: EXACTLY like 2K? I have messed around with XP and, on the surface it
: looks like 2K with six or seven additional layers of crud between the
: user and the "meat" I have also boycotted XP in protest of the MS
: activation scheme but this would not be nearly as much of an issue on
: a laptop which would most likely never be altered.

Plus, laptops with XP have the OS tied to the BIOS, I believe, so they
don't have to be activated. Actually, I had the same beef with XP's
activiation when I installed on that realtive's desktop recently, but
honestly, activation was not as big a worry as everyone made it out to
be. I think the bru-haha over activation was overblown.

Andrew
--
----> Portland, Oregon, USA <----
*******************************************************************
----> http://www.bizave.com <---- Photo Albums and Portland Info
----> To Email me remove "MYSHOES" from email address
*******************************************************************

Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

Check with the manufacturer for drivers regarding the laptop you want
to run Win 2k on. Alot of newer machines will not have drivers for
this OS. (video and audio are the hard ones to get corretly installed
with a non OEM os)

==============
Posted through www.HowToFixComputers.com/bb - free access to hardware troubleshooting newsgroups.

Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

You really don't want to do that. XP is a better OS than 2K, and the
drivers necessary to install 2K on any given notebook might not exist
(although the odds are that they do, but it may take some effort to find
them).

The user interface to XP can be made so similar to 2000 that you will
have to go into control panel to find out which OS it is. Between
tweakui (which you need to download -- the XP version, of course) and
the setting built into XP, just install XP and configure it to look like
2000.

It's 4 years newer (with SP2), and it really is a better OS.

[However, all of the OEM installations of any OS seem to always have
tons and tons of junk software that in most cases is better removed.]


David DeCristoforo wrote:
> I need to get a notebook computer for my wife. She is very comfortable
> with W2K (as am I) but all of the laptops seem to ship with XP. I have
> never bought a name brand PC so I have always installed my own OS and
> drivers. My question is, what kind of problems am I going to have
> installing W2K on a laptop (an HP, Sony or ?) that already has XP
> installed? Will I be able to "extract" the hardware drivers from the
> bundled software that ships with the computer? Or would I be better
> off to by a "non name brand" computer from an independent shop. These
> computers seem to be more expensive than buying a "preconfigured" name
> brand computer but it might be worth the extra dough if I can avoid a
> lot of issues.
> Thanx
> DD
> PS Sorry if this is a redundant question....I am new to this group.
> "It's easy when you know how..."
> Johnny Shines

Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

No, you may have gotten what you wanted -- e.g. 2000 instead of XP --,
but the end result was that you lost. And the sad part is that since
you have not used XP, you don't even know it.



Mahlon Wagner wrote:

> A little over a year ago I was in the market for a new laptop. BOTH
> Dell and IBM at that time would install Win2k (Professional Edition).
> However, I seem to recall that I may have had to stretch the truth just
> a tad and tell them that I was a "small business." --They never
> required verification on that.
>
> However, I did have to be quite persistent and almost "demand" that they
> give me Win2k. But the end result was that I won.
>
> Mahl
>
> David DeCristoforo wrote:
>
>> I need to get a notebook computer for my wife. She is very comfortable
>> with W2K (as am I) but all of the laptops seem to ship with XP. I have
>> never bought a name brand PC so I have always installed my own OS and
>> drivers. My question is, what kind of problems am I going to have
>> installing W2K on a laptop (an HP, Sony or ?) that already has XP
>> installed? Will I be able to "extract" the hardware drivers from the
>> bundled software that ships with the computer? Or would I be better
>> off to by a "non name brand" computer from an independent shop. These
>> computers seem to be more expensive than buying a "preconfigured" name
>> brand computer but it might be worth the extra dough if I can avoid a
>> lot of issues.
>> Thanx
>> DD
>> PS Sorry if this is a redundant question....I am new to this group.
>> "It's easy when you know how..."
>> Johnny Shines
>
>

Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

"David DeCristoforo" <david@privacy.net> wrote in message
news:fsf9j017rsaj117i0oldptig46tr5bdcqs@4ax.com...
>I need to get a notebook computer for my wife. She is very comfortable
> with W2K (as am I) but all of the laptops seem to ship with XP. I have
> never bought a name brand PC so I have always installed my own OS and
> drivers. My question is, what kind of problems am I going to have
> installing W2K on a laptop (an HP, Sony or ?) that already has XP
> installed? Will I be able to "extract" the hardware drivers from the
> bundled software that ships with the computer? Or would I be better
> off to by a "non name brand" computer from an independent shop. These
> computers seem to be more expensive than buying a "preconfigured" name
> brand computer but it might be worth the extra dough if I can avoid a
> lot of issues.
> Thanx
> DD
> PS Sorry if this is a redundant question....I am new to this group.
> "It's easy when you know how..."
> Johnny Shines

One of my friends had an Acer laptop and tried installing 2000 on it, Win
2000 had most of the drivers, others like the chipset & video were generic,
but the LAN drivers were more difficult, Acer didn't support 2000 at all;
eventually he found the drivers after searching all over driver sites on the
'net.

If you can't get 2K on a laptop then settle for XP, it does the job very
well, and on classic mode it's much the same as 2000, though not identical
(more "features" )

Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

Really, David, XP is better than 2K in almost every way, and it's VERY
highly configurable, although much of the configuration options are
burried and many people don't know that they are there. You can make XP
look and behave EXACTLY like 2000 if you want.

[The biggest single thing that you can do is to right click on the start
button, "Properties", select "Classic Start Menu", and customize it the
way that you want (use the "customize" button -- you will see it). Then
use Tweakui as well to set things the way that you want, be sure to
select "classic search" for both Internet Explorer and Windows Explorer
(2 different settings).]


David DeCristoforo wrote:

>>I'm not quite sure why you are going to all this trouble?
>
>
> Well, it's mostly because my wife is an idiot when it comes to
> computers (no offense,Hon) and I am her "tech support". She is very
> comfortable with W2K and the idea of changing even the desktop color
> sends the poor dear into a fit. So I am mostly concerned with having
> the new computer work EXACTLY like what she is used to. It's either
> that or spend half my life on the phone!
>
>
>>XP is avery good OS, built on the same basic code stream as Windows NT and
>>Windows 2000. It is a far cry from Windows 95/98/ME which was
>>unstable and buggy.
>
>
> I am with you here. This is why we use W2K
>
>
>>If you don't like the look of XP, you can change it to look like
>>Windows 2000. Not sure why you and your wife would be uncomfortable
>>with an XP machine after changing the look to the way you want it.
>
>
> This would be the big issue...can I make XP (pro) look and work
> EXACTLY like 2K? I have messed around with XP and, on the surface it
> looks like 2K with six or seven additional layers of crud between the
> user and the "meat" I have also boycotted XP in protest of the MS
> activation scheme but this would not be nearly as much of an issue on
> a laptop which would most likely never be altered.
>
>
>>I think you will save yourself a lot of hassle (now and later) by not
>>bothering to re-install Windows 2000 on a new laptop. XP actually has
>>some cool features that 2000 doesn't have - like AutoPlay for USB
>>devices. E.g. you plug your camera in and it pops up a window and
>>helps you download the pics, etc. And future hardware and software
>>you get for your laptop is much more likely to have good support for
>>XP than for 2000.
>
>
> Good points
>
> Thanx
> DD
> "It's easy when you know how..."
> Johnny Shines

Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

Barry Watzman <WatzmanNOSPAM@neo.rr.com> wrote:
: No, you may have gotten what you wanted -- e.g. 2000 instead of XP --,
: but the end result was that you lost. And the sad part is that since
: you have not used XP, you don't even know it.

If they were offering XP Home or Windows 2000, but not XP Pro, maybe
he did get what he wanted. In some circumstances, I would make that
choice, too.

Andrew
--
----> Portland, Oregon, USA <----
*******************************************************************
----> http://www.bizave.com <---- Photo Albums and Portland Info
----> To Email me remove "MYSHOES" from email address
*******************************************************************

Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

David DeCristoforo wrote:

> I need to get a notebook computer for my wife. She is very comfortable
> with W2K (as am I) but all of the laptops seem to ship with XP. I have
> never bought a name brand PC so I have always installed my own OS and
> drivers. My question is, what kind of problems am I going to have
> installing W2K on a laptop (an HP, Sony or ?) that already has XP
> installed?

Well, it might happen that some devices won't work or work as expected. And
while XP knows Speedstep for W2k You need an additional update...

> Will I be able to "extract" the hardware drivers from the
> bundled software that ships with the computer?

No.

> Or would I be better
> off to by a "non name brand" computer from an independent shop. These
> computers seem to be more expensive than buying a "preconfigured" name
> brand computer but it might be worth the extra dough if I can avoid a
> lot of issues.

Honestly, I don't understand Your problem. Within XP You simply switch to
the standard Windows layout, and You and Your wife won't see any difference.
I see absolutely no reason to go back to an older operating system that has
less good support than XP...

Benjamin

Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

>I think you'll be just fine with XP for your wife - trust me. Just
>spend some time customizing the look for her as I did and she'll be
>fine, and if she uses digital photography at all, she'll be much
>happier with it. Don't worry about the internal differences that
>she'll never even notice.
>
>: This would be the big issue...can I make XP (pro) look and work
>: EXACTLY like 2K? I have messed around with XP and, on the surface it
>: looks like 2K with six or seven additional layers of crud between the
>: user and the "meat" I have also boycotted XP in protest of the MS
>: activation scheme but this would not be nearly as much of an issue on
>: a laptop which would most likely never be altered.

OK...I'm convinced. Actually, this makes it a lot easier since I don't
have to mess around with installing the OS.
>
>Plus, laptops with XP have the OS tied to the BIOS, I believe, so they
>don't have to be activated. Actually, I had the same beef with XP's
>activiation when I installed on that realtive's desktop recently, but
>honestly, activation was not as big a worry as everyone made it out to
>be. I think the bru-haha over activation was overblown.

You may be right here too. It's just that I have a real problem with
the concept. I have always felt that software should be licensed to
the user, not the machine. But, that's just my iconoclastic side. I
have always had a problem with licensing agreements too. I mean, if
you went to buy a car and you were told that you had to pay for the
car before you could even read the contract and that the car could not
be driven until the contract had been signed and that you could not
read the contract until you opened the door but once you opened the
door, you could not return the car....whew...Well I know it's not
really the same but it's still pretty heavy handed.

Anyway, thanks to all for the good advice.

DD
"It's easy when you know how..."
Johnny Shines