2k usp5>xp sp2>vistaQUOTE]
What are you basing your perceptions of the OS's on?
Why is 2ksp5 better than the newer OS's?
im basing it off os my 12+ years of experiance as a computer tech, the ammounts of problems i see with each personaly and from cleints as well as friends, many people i know have gone back to 2k dispite it nolonger being officialy supported.
first, 2k is VERY light on the system, unless you have a p4 with hyperthreding enabled it will be faster then xp or vista.
xp is just 2k with ALOT of bloat added if you get down to it, some of the "fetures" ms added are handy for noobs, but some of the crap they added makes it HARDER to do stuff, like that simple shares bs, cant tell you how many times i have had to go in and manualy dissable that and just setup a normal workgroup based network in order for people to share files in their homes.
I cant tell you how many times I have spent HOURS trying to track down problems with xp that ended up tracking back to a singel critical hotfix that broke something the user needs(like the video drivers!!!)
XP was rushed out to replace ME/98se because MS had already marketed 2k as a buisness only os, now i agree with some of their logic, 2k dosnt have a bunch of excess wizzards, its not friendly to people who cant deal with reading a guide on how to setup a network or enable file sharing(cake for anybody who has google).
but thats part of what makes 2k better in many ways, it dosnt have all that CRAP getting in your way, you can just dive in and get stuff done.
2k uses less memory, dosnt backup viruses(system restore is known to backup viruses and even allow them to reinfect the system from said backups)
now xp is better then vista for the same reasions 2k is better then xp.
it has less bloat, uses less ram, and runs FASTER ON THE SAME HARDWARE, it also has FAR more stable/mature drivers and software support, xp isnt exectly golden in my eyes but its better then vista.
as to vista, i have had no less then 200 people come to me to have their shiney new vista install/system removed and have xp or even 2k put back on the system, because it dosnt work with alot of software, it is LESS STABLE AND RELIABLE then xp or 2k, it uses alot more ram, it dosnt let them do stuff they are use to doing without making them say "yes im sure i really want to do this" 15 times(ok not quite that many but u get the point)
ms has effectivly admited that vista=fail, they have acctualy detocated more resorces to getting windows 7 out on time because of it.
oh and add to the above negitives of vista the fact that its designed from the core out to be a drm monster catering to the riaa/mpaa to stop you from using your system as you see fit, soon you wont beable to watch a movie at full res if u dont have hardware the mpaa approves of, you wont beable to listen to high quility music without hardware/speekers that the riaa approve of, vista has a built in system to degrade video and audio quility on systems that dont match the **aa specs.
oh as to 2003/xp64, they are really what xp should have been from the start, fast, stable, reliable, very few buggs that are os related.
i have a system in the other room thats been running 2003 since about 2 weeks b4 it hit the market, no reinstalls, i just updated to sp1 then sp2, it sits there so people can check their email or whatever with it, never crashes, never errors out, show me an xp system that in the past 5 years has the same track record?
i can show you win 2k systems with a better record then that!!!
there are still millions of windows 2000 servers in use allover the world, and 2k pro is THE SAME EXECT OS AS SERVER, they use the same updates, only diffrance is a few reg keys.
there are still companys paying MS for extended 2k support, no joke, one in this area still uses 2k on ALL their systems, they get new computers from dell or whoever and wipe then and install 2k because ITS 100% reliable and JUST WORKS.
how that answers your question why i say 2k>xp>vista