Speeding up Windows 2000

[Brice Manuel]

Title kinda says it. I recently bought Windows 2000 (sp4 I believe). I have found it to be slower than XP and XP SP2. I was wondering if anybody had any tips to speed up Windows 2000?

[vanbeck]

That's strange, in most cases I've found Win2000Pro to be faster than XP - maybe that's more to do with the PC's I've installed it on being a bit lacking for XP though. e.g. a 1ghz AMD PC is always faster with 2000Pro in my experience.

The only thing I can think of is the drivers are maybe not right, 2000 really hates it when your not using the exact right driver, especially video.

[PB]

I agree with vanbeck. 2000 is always faster than XP, in my experience.
Where did you get it? In other words, it's a legit product and not some
shoddy version from eBay or something?

[Joakim Christiansen]

Disable unneeded services:
http://www.tech-recipes.com/windows_tips1036.html

Search around for more information.

[yoxola]

Same as vanbeck.

However, it's possible to be caused by:
- Dirver Issue
- Virtual Memory Arranging
- Background Services

It's a guesswork and may need some workarounds, recommend to test on afe mode if you have a little time.

[Brice Manuel]

FWIW, my system is:

Intel Core 2 Duo 6400 (2.13GHz)
2 GB RAM
Nvidia GeForce 7300 LE PCIE 256 MB

It is a 100% legit copy, was factory sealed when I bought it and I bought it from a reputable computer shop. Downloaded the SP4 and installed it. Drivers are updated.

It is slower than XP (even a default install) on the same system, which shocked me as 2000 has lower system requirements. A quick google does show that 2000 Pro is considered slower than XP by some folks. I was hoping there were some tweaks to get it faster.

I might give X-Setup a try.

[BasicGuy]

If I remember correctly, NT's multi-threading is not optimized for Dual Core processors. It worked fine with DUAL processors, but the pipes and instruction queues on dual core chips are not the same as those for dual processors...

XP was patched some time ago for dual cores, but I don't think NT was or ever will be...

[Num3]

I've always found XP faster than 2KSP4... even though it uses more resources...

And trust me, all my OS's get hand tuned and performance tweaked!

[blueznl]

XP was, in general, faster on my machines then Win2K. However, most slowdowns are caused by drivers, so check.

Biggest slowdown on Windows XP was the bloody indexing service. Shut that one down immediately.

Also, Windows XP needs a bit more memory than Win2K, but for all other aspects it was faster for me. And definitely easier to use

[Brice Manuel]

If I remember correctly, NT's multi-threading is not optimized for Dual Core processors. It worked fine with DUAL processors, but the pipes and instruction queues on dual core chips are not the same as those for dual processors...

XP was patched some time ago for dual cores, but I don't think NT was or ever will be...

This sounds like the problem.

FWIW, My XP install is always tweaked to the max, but even on a standard XP install, 2000 was slower.

I might give 2000 a try on one of my other PCs that isn't a dual core.

[pdwyer]

sounds like a driver issue, is there some updated driver for win2k with your motherboard?

What do you mean by "slow" though? in what way? UI, Disk IO?

[Thalius]

Win2k has no CPU Driver buildin. Which speeds up ALOT on XP - due the use of all the extra features a Dualcore or Newer Brand CPU has to Offer. win2k is good for older CPUs but you cant upgrade it for all new features anymore .. *sniff* ! Am a W2k user aswell btw.

Thalius