Me being the young hasty idiot that I am, ripped open the plastic wrapping shoved the CD in the drive and let it go. Now, normal clever people would take some time look at the Internet or other people’s recommendations, it was definitely a case of ’’It’s new it should be better therefore what can go wrong?’’ I’m pretty sure that was my exact thought process.
Hey this is going quite smoothly, wait what was that something about check these drivers for updates and these programmes may not work, oh it doesn’t matter I will get a patch of the internet and all will be good.
WRONG
Firstly I must admit that I am not an IT professional and there is no real reason for me to get the professional edition other than Windows 98 crashes and makes you want to commit computer rage (I think that term has actually been included in a dictionary). The whole basis on NT did give me a small jolt but there is nothing to be afraid about. But I have to admit that it can be fun if you are the person in the household with the know how, as you can construct user profiles which can allow/restrict certain programmes to be used. So if you ever needed the upper hand in an argument with siblings just say that..... Woh shouldn’t go there, as that is bad.
The whole installation took a good 3-4hrs but that was mainly because I have a big hard drive and it asked whether I wanted it converted to
Anyway back to W2K It looked smooth flash and fast it was the new car and I was getting ready for one helluva test drive. Stop, my graphics cards not working, oh that file about things that won’t work. Ok, back on to the Internet and downloaded the latest drivers. My sound and control pads have gone haywire, well back to the Internet.
By now I’m really frustrated with all the downloading and restarting but I was still waiting for the moment of enlightenment when everything worked and my computer won’t crash for no reason. Soundcard has now been done but here is nothing for my gamepad, come on Microsoft provide win2000 updates for all you products!! The gamepad does work but every now and then it goes wonky,
It’s a slight set back but at least I can use it. Hang on my scanners not working and my webcam’s not working and more importantly Brian Lara cricket not’s working what is going on oh Microsoft why art thou forsaken me yet again. For my scanner, which I had been, running through one parallel port with my printer it told me to get a parallel port card and use that for my scanner. Luckily when I bought my scanner came with this card and I had not thrown it away. Shutdown PC and install the card hey the scanner’s back up.
Now we come to my webcam I am searching endlessly and sill can’t find the driver so I have sent off E-mails to Microsoft, Logitech (webcam maker) and hopefully they will come up with a good idea.
And now for the devastating news I sent an E-mail to codemasters (makers of Brian Lara Cricket) and they said sorry BLC does not run under Win2000prof sorry for the inconvenience.
Then there were bells ringing in my head why don’t I create a dual boot so I can still play my game and when I am not and actually working use win2000, absolute genius. Well no because if I wasn’t an idiot and hasty you can find out from most newsgroups and BBS that it is near impossible to reinstall a previous version of windows without first having to uninstall W2K then install the previous version and then reinstall WIN2K. I guess I am going to have to add that to my to do list if I am ever going to play BLC again.
Next problem I think Win2000 is secretly taking the mickey out of me. It has messed up my DVD drive. My dvd’s work fine and even the auto startup works but when you press run it says that there is no CD, but if there isn’t a CD why did the autorun start. Again this has resulted in me sending barrages of E-mails to Toshiba (CD-Rom manufacturer) and Microsoft. Toshiba have already come back to me saying it’s not their fault. So now I have to run any programmes which require a CD via my CD-writer, which is so sllloooowww http://www.
Granted I could have not had any of these problems if I did my researching and checked that all my programmes and add-ons are compliant so now listen carefully as I am going to have to shout:
BEFORE INSTALLING WINDOWS 2000 PRFESSIONAL EITHER KEEP YOUR COMPUTER AS A DUALL BOOT WHEN IT ASKS YOU OR MAKE SURE ALL YOUR EQUIPMENT GAMES ARE COMPLIANT DO NOT MAKE THE SAME IDIOTIC (yet totally understandable) MISTAKES I MADE!!!!
Please remember that. Manufacturers can be helpful and easily contacted to see if their product works with W2K or if they have any patches so far everyone I have phoned has been very helpful (except Toshiba)
BTW if anyone knows the solutions to any of my problems please tell me as I think I am going to uninstall this in two weeks and do the whole thing again so the time is ticking.
You are probably thinking there are an awful lot of drawbacks so why have I recommended this product? Well, it fast efficient hasn’t crashed yet when my Win98se crashed at least twice a day and even the Internet seems better and for some strange reason you feel more at ease with it. I would recommend this product but remember the warning I have given. Also, the programme is easy to use and its help files can be useful especially if you are not very technically minded.