Windows 2000 Pro: No excuses
On a Windows NT 4 network, there's nothing that Windows NT 4 Workstation does that Windows 2000 Professional doesn't do at least as well. Windows 2000 Professional logs right on as a client of Windows NT 4 networks. There probably are a few applications that NT 4 users run that won't run on a Windows 2000 Professional system, but they are exceedingly rare. For example, version 3.5b and earlier of Adaptec Easy CD Creator are incompatible enough with Windows 2000 that they can cause it to blue screen, but the current version works fine. Additionally, Windows NT 4 has trouble with a considerable number of devices — such as Iomega Zip drives — but Windows 2000 handles them with ease.
As I mentioned in a previous column, the number one reason to choose Windows 2000 is stability: It is far more stable than Windows NT 4 and infinitely more stable than Windows 9x. Mobile computing is another area where Windows 2000's advantages are undeniable, with the proviso that not every notebook computer can run Windows 2000 successfully. Any notebook on the market (not sold by Apple) can run Windows 9x -- it's that dominant a standard. But the hardware requirements for Windows 2000 involve power management support as well as a minimum amount of memory that are beyond the capabilities of many notebooks. (You can install Windows 2000 with a switch to support the old standard Advanced Power management (APM) instead of Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI), but it doesn't work as well.) All the best notebook companies, such as IBM, Dell, and Toshiba, offer models preloaded with and optimized for Windows 2000.
Windows NT 4 support for notebooks was always second-rate, and required special driver support from the notebook vendor. With Windows 2000, standard ACPI-based support for power management is built into the operating system. And with Windows 2000's Encrypting File System (EFS), notebook users have an unbeatable security advantage: If the notebook ever falls into the wrong hands, its contents are unreadable without the proper passwords.
A technical side effect of ACPI support makes plug-and-play possible in Windows 2000. Driver support in Windows NT 4 is good, but it's still a nasty manual process. In Windows 2000 you physically install a device and, possibly after asking for its driver disk, it just works. And those devices can be USB and other types of devices not supported by Windows NT 4. All this adds up to far easier administration and setup, and better utilization of hardware that you already own.
Windows 2000's only caveats are its minimum hardware requirements, which are greater than Windows NT 4's. Migrating to Windows 2000 will force many businesses to purchase new systems or upgrade existing ones. For example, you can run Windows NT 4 comfortably (depending on your applications) with 32MB of RAM, perhaps even in 24MB. Windows 2000's requirement of 64MB is really a minimum. You can run it in 64MB, but you probably want more.
There are also many devices, such as graphics cards, that as yet have no driver support under Windows 2000. These tend to be higher-end cards targeted at gamers. Likewise, there is software that does not run on Windows 2000, although this too tends not to be business software.
In the long term, you're better off with Windows 2000 Server too. Migrating to Windows 2000 Professional now will make that migration easier.
Larry Seltzer is a freelance writer and software developer and the author of "ADMIN911:Windows 2000 Terminal Services." He can be reached at larry@larryseltzer.com.