Wow! Windows 98 is realy instable!

[KillerBug]

I have a dual boot setup with windows 2k and windows 98se, I had not been in windows 98 for over a week, I just went in, got a blue screen of death, and my keyboard stopped responding, I actualy forgot what the blue screen of death looked like using windows 2000, I have not yet crashed it! I know this place has a policy against warez, but if you can get your hands on a warez of windows 2k, try it out, if you like it, buy it, if you don't, then you are messed up.

[welsh wizard]

I have found the w2k don't like to dual boot with most things, ended up removing it from the system as it did not like printer (Lexmark 5700 or Pragmatic 56k v90 modem) each time I booted up it had to be reconfigured to so that modem would work and uninstall printer.
Mos of the problem is that the drivers to work under w2k arn't out there, the last time I was in the MS OEM site BBS it was full of postings with people having trouble with Printers, video cards, and modems that would not work as no driver was out there that would work with it, did find that if some thing had a driver that worked in w2k ( new driver ) it altered 98's setup so 98 would not work.
Maybe you have the same problem.JAT
WW

[SoopaStar]

Windows 2000 is a very stable OS. I ran it for 2 weeks without a reboot. Like windows NT 4, it is not ment for all hardware configurations--and its not necessarily Microsoft's fault that there are not drivers. I'm sure a large portion of hardware vendors and other software companies were offered beta copies--or could have purchased teh $60 Beta 3 microsoft was offering--to get a general idea or worked on some drivers.
I personally feel it is somewhat inexcusable that these companies don't offer even a beta version of their drivers yet. The operating system has been out for over a month and has been ready for release since December.
I am hoping by Late april 85% or so will have at LEAST a beta driver for download.
I was happy that the majority of my hardware had drivers built in. I was even more enthused when I plugged in my USB zip100 for the first time and I didn't even have to reboot when it assigned a drive letter!!

Paul

[welsh wizard]

I agree that the hardware companies should have up to date drivers, when I e-mailed Lexmark about a driver for the 5700 printers all I got was "we don't plan to release a driver for this printer under W2K and then they tried to get me to buy other Lexmark printers that did have a driver" needless to say I am now looking to replace the companies Lexmark printers, but not with Lexmark.
WW

[NoCtrl]

I have a Lexmark 5700 printer. Win200 is not some obscure OS. Not providing drivers is just plain stupid.

[BBA]

Ummm...you can use some of the other lexmark drivers and it will work in W2K.

I've seen it done on a few Lexmark printers.

Besides, Lexmark has historically always produced the crappiest drivers available...whenever posible, use default Windows drivers in preference to Lexmarks drivers.

[Richard_Cranium72]

IMO, MS should make new OS's backwards compatible to previous versions, if they don't intend to make this company policy they should release this info so consumers would be informed. Granted MS provides a website to check for compatability. =>> http://support.microsoft.com/support/Win2000dev/guide.asp and application stability.. DrVette

[welsh wizard]

BBA I always found the driver from Lexmark for the 5700 under 98 the best for the job,

As for the W2K driver by MS for this printer,one of my customers tried this driver ended up bringing in the printer for service, as system kept report the printer was erroring out, when I plugged it in to check out on a 98 system ended up haveing to uninstall driver and reinstall, http://www.sysopt.com/forum/frown.gif

still don't know how it currupted the driver in the system that had been running another 5700 printer fine before this was installed, however after reboot the printer worked fine again under 98, but customer now as mad as hell as showed him a copy of Lexmarks reply to my email about drivers.

Also it's Lexmarks problem to supply a driver if there is not one in W2K that works, IMO Lexmark are trying to usethese problems to make new sales, but in the end it will lose them customer Loyalty.
WW

[KillerBug]

A lot of windows nt 4 drivers work under win2k, my sound would not fly with windows 2k, but I just flipped in the cd that came with it and forced it to install the nt4 drivers, worked just fine. My video was also being an a*s hole to me, just got the nt4 drivers and it all worked fine, I am not saying that the hardware people should be let off the hook, but in all reality, about 95% of the stuff out there has some kind of driver that works just perfect with windows 2000, just gives you a lot of bull about it not being officialy compliant.

[ytay]

after installing win2k the only two hardware devices that didnt work were both made by Hewlett Packard......my ScanJet 3300C and my Colorado 8 gig external tape back-up.....after visiting their site, they have no plans to write drivers for the scanner, but the tape back-up you can purchase software for it for $29.95 sometime in the spring.......what an arrogant attitude, and i will never buy another piece of hardware made by them again. my two printers, my sound card, my video card and everything else had drivers written by their respective companies very quickly.......Hp seems to think they are special