My first Windows 2003 exp.

[BXtreme]

OK, finally i'm now on the desktop. After many posts by ashensugar (more than 50), about 2k3's superiority over XP, I thought of trying it in practical use myself.
An os's first impression goes on by 'un-tweaked' performance, as i did w/ Vista which fared out well.
I ONLY use Tuneup Utilities 2007 for 1st run optimizations, and NO-else tweaks.
So far i'm downloading the video drivers.
Q: Will WinXP/2k drivers work on it, or any others?
A: yes.....
Didn't try the sound ones.

Visual:The desktop merely looks like 98 , but using 3rd party apps like Tune-up Winstyler was piece of cake, just put the XP theme 4now
The internet pages loaded far more quickly than expected, although i didn't like the "Warnings" on the first run of IE (and i still say ie sucks , lol).
As, i'm done w/ the drivers part (all of 'em) i'll put my 'Pratical' (not fps or synthetic) results in plain english here
After a reboot then

 

[BXtreme]

i encountered w/ a problem, when i updated to dx9.0c, at end of installation it said dx features are disabled, see dxdiag for info. ok i went there, and saw most video setting disabled, only test direct draw was visible, any ideas ?
EDIT: Got it! Hardware acceleration was disabled.

 

[Pinchy]

Lmao!

Tell us how it goes

If you want a skin for it, download the Vista theme pack (im using it on xp now...looks/works great)

 

[BXtreme]

sure , as for gaming can any1 give me some tweaked drivers cuz, heck!, the drivers are same so performance is almost same. only a thing to note that it consumes 120 ram on my pc w/ firefox i.e the window i'm typing this at! This helps in the games' ram. as the game gets more ram to use, and so ppl say that 2k3 is better in gaming.
Here's my vstyled 2k3 desktop btw, how is it ?

 

[Pinchy]

Looks awesome - Just like my comp with a different background

 

[BXtreme]

thx, i'll be tweaking that desktop so it doesn't look like a server os even 0.1 %
ok, now Data Transfer results-
Copying single files-Faster than XP but same as Vista (cuz they use the same core)
" Multiple " -Slower than XP, and more slower than Vista.

Responsiveness- seems quite gd, doesn't hang whenever like XP, i'm proud of Vista, it's the the same thing w/ lots of goods and bloatware and new 3d shell added .

Internet- Loading of web pages was in the blink of an eye w/ my 512 kbps connections.
Download speed was stable and fast as i tweaked it with tuneup.

Security- can't say about this, sticky thread of 2k3's security in software part of forum can be got there.

Program compatibility- I'm QUITE impressed at this one, most software i ran just got installed, without hitches. Vista must be perfected at this one

Ok, these are my results for now, i'll do some more installations and tests to judge the Crown of "The BEST OS's ".

 

[Pinchy]

Appreciate it, ive always wanted to know the diff in OS's

 

[BXtreme]

hmm, after 4 hours testing by practical and normal use. I have to declare the os occars(oscar mimicry)-
The Best stability award goes to- Microsoft Windows Vista for it's awesome stability and un-prone-ness to crashes.
The Best Beauty award goes to- (Jointly) Vista (for it's new interactive and intuitive interface) and XP ( for it's wide variety of Visual styles availability, pity vista doesn't have it....)
The Best Performance award goes to- Microsoft Windows 2003 for it's low ram usage, and gd responsiveness.
The Best Compatibility award goes to- Windows 2k3 again for it's backward compatibility with most it's predecessors and games compat.
The Best customizable award goes to- XP for (we know that ).
The Best Resource hog award goes to- Vista for consuming 15gb of crap for the os itself and 500(around) ram consumtion.

And this The best Windows award position holders are as follows-
1. Windows 2k3
2. Windows Vista
3. Windows XP

 

[Pinchy]

Awww you forgot about windows 95

Have you tried running a gaming bench, like 3dmark?

 

[BXtreme]

95! roflmao
but I Intended to make this a 'Practical' review of 2k3, by using it not by benchies
but since you tell me, i'll do that......later.

 

[Pinchy]

Ahhh ok then

If you can be bothered running the benchies, it will be appreciated

If not, dont worry about it

 

[mullered07]

really like that desktop good job, i have been tempted to try 2k3 also but cant be bothered now as i have a dual-boot with xp and vista. Im totally converted to vista btw, seems a lot faster than xp, more responsive, not a sign of any lockups (so far so good ) and no compatibility issues with any drivvers yet

 

[BXtreme]

the best combo would be, 2k3 with Vista "Gr8 os's act alike". hope ppl get my point

 

[Pinchy]

That might b 2k7

 

[BXtreme]

2k7 ?? ohh, 2k3 w/ wk7 , i get it.

 

[Pinchy]

Yeah....2k3 + Vista = 2k7

 

[BXtreme]

if we could just sticky this up, this could be a pre-buying guide to 2k3 newbs, that is it gd enough or what will they face when they first enter this os ? what do you think ?

 

[Pinchy]

Thats true - ask a mod to sticky it.

Lots of valuable info that im sure a lot of people would want to know.

 

[BXtreme]

pm'ed zek about it,

 

[Completely Bonkers]

Welcome onboard to the W2k3 club. Good innit?

 

[Alec§taar]

I'll "second that motion"...

Welcome onboard to the W2k3 club. Good innit?

BxTreme: Good choice, I think you'll REALLY like this OS build by Microsoft... it really has many improvements over Windows 2000 &/or XP, & mainly because of all those years of "Automatic Error Reporting" to MS that folks have done, imo...

I say this, because, my guess is that the databases MS must have maintained contributed a great deal to pointing out WHERE 2000 &/or XP were 'failing out' the most & with which types of applications typically.

(I got a pretty inside view on how it worked from MS, from having had an interview w/ the 'crash debug analysis team' for a job @ MS back in 2003 while I was in NYC working/living there, lol, which I DID NOT GET AS A JOB MIND YOU, but, they approached ME, not I they, which was cool!)

I think it is the best OS Microsoft has released to date (barring my having some time, hands-on for a LONG period, using VISTA that is)... best combination of features from 2000 &/or XP imo, as well as having a 'better-built foundation'...



* Enjoy it... the more you use it? THE MORE YOU WILL LIKE IT imo!

APK

P.S.=> QUESTION GUYS: Have ANY of you tried ZoneAlarm on Windows Server 2003? If so, does ZA have it working for Windows Server 2003 yet??

(See, last time I tried it @ least, sometime mid last year iirc?? It did not work right on it, but during installation ZA was pretty cool in that it said "Product not tested fully on this platform" etc. type of stuff)

So... curious, & asking... thanks for reply! apk

 

[Completely Bonkers]

Alec,

FYI McAfee Desktop Firewall (the corporate version) works OK on W2K3. Haven't tried ZoneAlarm. But in the end, I stripped MDF from the system and use the Netgear ProSafe FVL328 to do all the firewall work. with McAfee Antifirus 8.5i doing the system based management.

 

[randomperson21]

ashen turned me on to win2k right now, loaded it on a lappie to test it out this weekend. and i LOVE IT! its fast as heck, stable, etc, its absolutely amazing.

going to stuff it onto my desktop as soon as i do a backup. wooot~!

 

[Completely Bonkers]

@-1: I'm sure your post was a typo, but just in case... it's W2k3, not w2k which is no where near as good.

P.S. Don't of rget to run it in "classic desktop mode". Much faster to navigate.

 

[BXtreme]

w00t, i'm online now.
I'll do some firewall and security programs tests on 2k3, and za too
Edit:downloading ZA pro now.