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Windows 2000 Gripes |
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Gripes on this page: Scheduled Tasks, Desktop Icons, Two Networks, Issues with Service Pack 4, My Experiences with Service Pack 3, Lifespan, My Experiences with no Service Packs, My Experiences with Service Pack 1, Installation, 28,000 bugs, Registering the OS, Disk Space Requirements, Software Incompatibility, My Experiences with Service Pack 2 and Other Opinions
Update Rollup 1 for Windows 2000 SP4 and known
issues Bug fixes for six month old bug fixes. September 15, 2005.
January 19, 2005. Three things:
-Windows 2000 does not include the System Restore feature that Windows Me and XP have. While not a major issue, it's better to have this than not.
-When you plug a USB 2.0 device into a USB 1.1. port, Windows XP warns you about
this. Windows 2000 does not.
-When you right click on the My Computer icon on the
desktop and get the Properties, Windows 2000 tells you the rated speed of the
processor. Windows XP also tells you how fast the processor is actually
running.
May 22, 2005. I
finally figured out the problem described below. The scheduled tasks were
copying files from the main hard disk in the computer to a second hard disk in
the computer. The second disk is used only for backup purposes. As such, it
spins down after a while. The first scheduled backup that writes to the sleeping
hard disk always fails. The second, third, etc all work because they run shortly
after the first one and the destination hard disk is still spinning. Whew.
April 15, 2005.
SP4 with all patches applied. I have a Scheduled task that has been running
every day, once a day, for many months. Then it stopped running and the
scheduler says "unable to start". No reason is given. The system logs
have no errors from the scheduler. The job can be run manually just fine. As
below, I just re-entered the same password which has not changed in
years. However, this time, re-entering the password did not fix the
problem, the job failed to run again. Again, I re-entered the password and still
the job fails to run via the scheduler, but runs fine manually.
Update: I created a new scheduled event to run the exact same program. This
worked but only once or twice. Now the new scheduled item fails in the same way!
April 30, 2005.
Update: May 3, 2005. A reader of this page wrote to say he too, was having this
same problem.
August 5, 2004. SP4 with all patches applied. Some scheduled tasks stopped running. There are no errors in any three of the system logs. The programs the jobs run are just fine, they run outside of the scheduler without error. Right clicking on the scheduled task and saying to run it produces nothing - no running task, no error, no warning, nothing. The status only says "Could not start". Nothing about why it could not start.
I guessed that it might be the password associated with the user that runs the scheduled tasks and re-entered the password. This fixed the problem, despite the fact that the password for the userid in question had not changed in a very long time. The Windows store of the password for all the scheduled tasks in question had gotten corrupted.
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July 13, 2004. Windows 2000 SP4 with all patches applied. February 18, 2004. Every now and then (I can't determine a pattern) when the computer boots up, one or more of the desktop icons lose their icon. An illustration is shown here on the right. This can not happen for days, then will happen to six or more icons the next start-up. Windows thinks it is using the correct icon. That is, right clicking on the broken icon and selecting Properties shows that is using the normal icon, not the broken one shown here. Even the thumbnail of the correct icon displays correctly. The only thing that appears wrong is the desktop display of the icon. It can be fixed by either re-booting (and taking your chances) or by going through the "change icon" process and changing the icon to what it always was and is. |
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January 2004. Normally my computer is connected to the Internet via an internal Ethernet card connected to a hub which, in turn, is connected to a router that is connected to a cable modem. When I suspected the router was causing a problem, I unplugged the router from the cable modem and instead used a USB output from the cable modem into a USB port on the computer. In this setup, the computer is connected to two networks: my local LAN via the internal Ethernet card -> hub -> router (that now goes nowhere) and the Internet via USB -> Cable Modem.
The gripe is that, in this situation, Windows 2000 would not talk on the Internet. Both networks are configured to use TCP/IP and the machine had two IP addresses, one on each network. The router gives out local IP addresses via DHCP as most do. There seems to be no way to tell Windows 2000 to use TCP/IP on the USB->Cable modem network connection rather than TCP/IP on the internal Ethernet->Hub->Router connection. I got on the Internet only by disabling the LAN network connection.
Update: January 3, 2006. A reader of this page suggested that the solution
is the Advanced Options window. He said to try:
Start, Settings, Network and Dial-up Connections, Network and Dial-up Connections folder, then Advanced menu,
then Advanced Settings, then Connections
I have not yet tried this.
The computer is hooked to a network printer. In Network and Dialup
Connections, the LAN network connection was disabled for an unrelated reason.
When I tried to print a web page, Windows 2000 said that I did not have
permission to use the printer. I had permission, what I didn't have was a
working LAN connection. September 30, 2003.
Update: Two years later, this still happens. With a perfectly working LAN
connection, Windows 2000 again said I did not have permission to use the
printer. There was a problem with the printer - the Printers applet in the
Control Panel showed that it could not open well. September 23,
2005.
The version of Paint in Windows 2000 is not able to resize a large image such that it prints on a single page. I am told that this feature does exist in the Windows XP version of Paint. I haven't yet verified this in XP. August 8, 2003.
November 20, 2003. From Brian Livingston's newsletter, Brian's Buzz. Quoting: "A friend of mine was downloading Service Pack 4 for Windows 2000 on his laptop when his system locked up and gave him the Blue Screen of Death. Microsoft acknowledged that this does happen sometimes, and the only solution was to reformat his hard drive and reinstall Win2K".
| July 12, 2003. After upgrading from service pack 3 to 4 and restarting the machine, ZoneAlarm
asked this question immediately. I said NO. This was a mistake as I could
not access any web sites.
The machine is on a LAN and uses DHCP to get an internal IP address from the router. This worked. It could ping the router and access the web based setup application on the router. It could ping the DNS servers of my ISP, but could not ping web sites by name. It could ping web sites by IP address. The same thing occurred with the web browser, web sites could be access by IP address, but not by name. The ZoneAlarm log showed that it was blocking many accesses to port 53 on the DNS servers of my ISP. I re-booted and said Yes this time and was able to access all web sites. But, my old nemesis, the Spooler Subsystem App cropped up again (see the ZoneAlarm gripes). Previously I had told ZoneAlarm not to allow the Spooler Subsystem App to access the network, but SP4 upgraded the application version so ZoneAlarm had to be told again. Text version of the question: Do you want to allow Services and Controller app to access the Internet? The destination IP address is 255.255.255.255 and the port is DHCP. The application is services.exe. |
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Windows Update: July 12, 2003. FYI: SP4 was released at the end of June 2003. After installing it, I ran Windows update and it found 2 critical updates. One (330994) was to Outlook Express 6 SP1 and dated April 2003. Why was this not in SP4?
FYI: If you opt to save files so that the service pack can be
un-installed, this will create a 160 MB directory in the Windows system
folder.
Update: This can later be removed: HOW TO: Remove the Service Pack Restore Files and Folders in Windows
from Microsoft
Less than obvious System Changes from installing SP4: (1)The automatic update service now starts automatically. My preferred option was disabled, it's easily changed back. (2)The first time NetMeeting was run, it wanted to go through all the configuration options again. The previous values were all there. (3)As with previous Service Packs, despite telling the installer program not to archive old files, it created a directory called C/WINNT/ServicePackFiles. This time the directory is 211 megabytes, with 1,244 files. All the files are dated June 19, 2003. See Installing Windows 2000 Service Packs from Anandtech for information on this directory. Also, Microsoft has a KB article with information about relocating the ServicePackFiles folder without losing functionality of the Windows File Protection system and the updated Service Pack files. As of the June 2003 update, it said virtually nothing. Try instead this MS KB article. (4) The Spooler Subsystem App program changed, so ZoneAlarm again asked permission to let it access a network. I had previously told ZoneAlarm never to allow it as I have no idea what it is or does (this is documented with ZoneAlarm gripes).
Known issues afflict Windows 2000 SP4 from Brian Livingston July 10, 2003.
January 3, 2004.
After upgrading a Windows 2000 Sharp laptop from SP3 to SP4, I created a .bat
file that did nothing more than "ipconfig /all". I've done this before
on many computers. For some reason, when I run this .bat file, it loops forever.
There is no output from the ipconfig command, just the command, over and over.
Clicking in the window, stops the looping. The problem is not with ipconfig, it
runs fine when typed into an already open command window.
Update: March
10, 2004. A reader of this page (thanks Bill) wrote wrote to say that he had the same problem running a
ping command within a bat file. He fixed it by moving focus to the root directory prior to
running DOS commands. For example:
cd..
ping xx.xx.xx.xx
Taskbar June 14, , 2003. When running a lot of concurrent programs, the taskbar can get crowded. Shrinking the icons for each program so they fit in the allotted space means that at a certain point it's hard to tell them apart, and especially hard to distinguish between multiple instances of the same program. Windows 2000, like other versions of Windows, lets you expand the task bar to two rows. In a no-gripe world, this would result in a taskbar like the one below, where the icons for each running program are spread across two lines. However, Windows 2000 SP3 does not spread out the icons as shown here when the taskbar is vertically expanded. To get the desired effect, you have to expand the taskbar to three rows, then shrink it back down to two rows. |
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| Below is an example of program icons that do not expand to fill the newly available vertical space after expanding the taskbar. |
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| FYI: I also tried this on two Windows 2000 SP2 machines. Nothing I did
on either machine could get the program icons to fill up all the available
vertical rows. The top row always consisted of nothing but the quick launch
bar icons. Update. January 24, 2005. A reader of this page wrote to say: "if you grab the handle to the left of the quick launch toolbar and drag it all the way over to the right, the task bar will pop up and use both rows, as will the quick launch toolbar. " |
USB Printing May 30, 2003. Previously I had used an HP DeskJet 880C printer with Windows 2000 by plugging it into the USB port. No problems. A few weeks later, I again plugged the same printer into the USB port. Windows 2000 did not realize it was the same printer and invoked the New Hardware Found wizard. Now I have two definitions for the same printer. The first one is using virtual printer port USB001, the second is using port USB002. It prints fine. |
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USB Devices April 23, 2003. I had been using a USB keyboard with a mouse built into it under Windows 2000 SP3 for a few weeks. It uses one USB port and I plug two other USB devices into the other port often. All was well until I tried to plug a Sony Clié into the other USB port. The Clié had been used on the computer before, but not since I started using the USB keyboard. The computer failed to find a driver for the Clié. The long story is documented with my Clié gripes (Hotsync Manager section), but in a nutshell, I had to remove the USB keyboard to get any other USB devices to work.
USB Keyboard April 13, 2003. I was merrily typing away on a USB keyboard. Then I plugged in a USB keychain storage device. It was detected and worked fine. However, it knocked out the keyboard. Device manager showed no devices with errors, but it also no longer showed the USB keyboard. Unplugging the keyboard and re-plugging it back in fixed the problem. I have done the exact same operation before, with the same keychain storage device, without problems. I did not accidentally unplug the keyboard; the keychain storage device was plugged into a USB extension cord - my fingers were never anywhere near where the actual USB port used by the keyboard.
CD Player April 11, 2003. The computer can play sound just fine. The Sounds and Multimedia applet in the control panel plays all the system sounds. Real One Player (version 2) can play an audio CD in the CD-ROM drive. However, the Windows CD player (version 5.0) is mute when playing an audio CD. It says it is playing the CD; the time changes, the volume control works, but there is no sound. The same audio CD plays fine with Real One Player. All the volume controls are in a normal range and nothing is muted. Device Manager says all the devices are happy (no yellow exclamation points). I have no idea what the problem is or how to fix it.
Spooler Subsystem App April 11, 2003. While using the computer off-line for hours, I kept noticing that ZoneAlarm (v3.7.143) was blinking, which indicates traffic on the Internet. Since the machine was off-line, it could only mean that a program on my computer was trying to phone home. The log showed the source of the outbound Internet request was from the "Spooler Subsystem App". It is pretty persistent too, ZoneAlarm had blocked about a dozen outbound requests. Some of the requests were to my DNS server, but many had no target IP address. The Print Spooler service is auto-started at boot time, but I'm not sure this is the culprit.
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Show Desktop Like many Windows users, I often have multiple applications running and multiple windows open. As such, I'm a frequent clicker on the Show Desktop icon on the quick launch bar. This almost always works. Sometimes however, I get the warning shown here on the right. I've always clicked on the Cancel button and then re-clicked on Show Desktop and it has always worked fine the second time. January 9, 2003. |
STOP Error. January 8, 2003. My Windows 2000 crashed with the Blue Screen of Death today. The STOP error was IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL and the specific code was 0x0000000A. I found an article about this from Microsoft: Troubleshooting "Stop 0x0A" Messages in Windows 2000 and Windows NT, but it wasn't particularly helpful. Microsoft blames hardware and device drivers written by any company other than themselves. The error message includes four parameters, in my case they were: parameter 1=0, parameter2=2, parameter3=1 and parameter4 = 0x80431B08. Debugging this requires more Windows technical knowledge than I have. Specifically, how do you relate the address of the offending instruction to a specific driver, component or routine? Beats me.
The STOP error also effected my cable modem based Internet connection. At the time of the crash, a VPN was in use on the machine, on top of my normal, standard, plain vanilla net connection. The VPN zaps its own DNS servers into the net connection profile and then unzaps them when it shuts down. Since it never got to shut down normally, I was left with the wrong DNS servers when I tried to re-connect after rebooting both the cable modem and Windows. To make a long story short (this page is long enough after all) the net connection was configured to always use the DNS servers required by the VPN software. Its normal state is to dynamically accept DNS server addresses when the initial connection is made. Changing TCP/IP to use dynamically assigned DNS servers fixed everything.
 Defrag.
After defragmenting a couple partitions, I "X"d out of the defrag
window (really the Microsoft Management Console) and saw this error. I
have no idea what it means. See below for another defrag issue.
January 6, 2003.
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One time, in the Physical Memory section of the Performance tab, it showed 350 meg of available physical memory. The swapfile was defined with an initial size of 50 meg and a max of 100. This message caused it to increase to 75 meg according to the performance options on the Advanced tab of the system properties. However, the actual swap file (pagefile.sys in the root directory of the C drive) was 100 meg. In response to this warning, I upped the swap file to 100 meg initially with a max of 200. The gripe is why, with over 300 meg of free ram, is the OS concerned with the swap file at all? After making these changes and rebooting, the message appeared again. Task Manager showed 405 meg of available physical memory just after Windows displayed this message. The performance options on the Advanced tab of the system properties at first showed a total paging file size of 136 meg, then it showed 146, then 166, then 167 and finally 173. The actual file in the root directory of the C disk was 170 meg the first time I looked and 178 meg a minute later. FYI: After a later reboot, the swapfile (pagefile.sys) was back to it's initial size of 100 MB, the expansion of the file is apparently temporary, just for the single booted instance of the OS. Update: This may be a VMware problem, not a Windows 2000 problem. Still investigating. December 22, 2002. |
Shutdown. Pre-emptive
multi-tasking is a core feature of Windows 2000 (and NT4 and XP). I recently had
a problem with ZoneAlarm where a program was looping and consuming 99% (probably
more) of the cpu cycles. The UI was brutally sluggish, I can only assume that it
runs at a priority equal to the looping program. It took about 30 seconds for
the system to respond to a Ctl-Alt-Delete. The UI should run at a higher
priority than all application programs. Task Manager could not be used to shut
down the looping program because it was too slow. Just switching tabs in Task
Manager took a very long time. Getting focus on the problem program and right
clicking on it to bring up the context menu with the End Process option took
forever. The actual shut down process is also problematical when a program is
looping a burning cpu cycles. Windows 2000 only does a polite shutdown. In other
contexts, this is known as a quiesce shutdown. Every running program is asked to
shut itself down. In a case like this, the program does not respond back to the
OS and Windows 2000 puts out a warning message window asking the user if they
want to wait a bit or kill the looping application immediately. In this case, it
took a very long time to get this window and even giving it focus to click on
its buttons took a very long time. The gripe is that Windows 2000 does not have
a force shutdown option for cases like this. Instead of trying to communicate
with a running program, a forced shutdown just kills everything. November 27, 2002.
Update: The same thing happened again on March 29, 2003. Windows 2000 SP3
was again brought to its knees by a looping program. This time, Windows 2000
(actually Task Manager) refused to kill the looping task and then refused to
even lower its priority. I did not note the exact error message. Fortunately,
Task Manager was eventually able to shut the system down, but it took a long
time. All in all, a disgraceful example of pre-emptive
multi-tasking.
Defrag.
November 20, 2002. After a defrag, the report showed the following files that
did not fragment. I'm pretty sure that is impossible for a 1 KB file to be in 16
or 41 fragments. The cluster size in this partition was 512K.
File System: When displaying the properties of a disk volume, Windows 2000 SP3 (and SP2) reports the file system as FAT for both FAT12 and FAT16 file systems. I had occasion to use a USB based removable storage device that was formatted as FAT12. The disk defragmenter could tell it was FAT12 because it refused to defrag the device. However, the fact that it was FAT12 is not indicated in the drive properties. October 26, 2002.
Running Windows update on a Windows 2000 SP3 computer with IE 5.50.4807.2300IS with update versions SP2; Q323759, Q328389 resulted in a critical update of IE6 SP1. Why is IE6 SP1 considered a critical update to this pretty recent version of IE 5.5? Beats me. October 26, 2002.
Installing Service Pack 3 does not upgrade Internet Explorer. If you start with a virgin copy of Windows 2000 and immediately apply SP3, IE remains at v5.0, so old that it does not have the Print Preview feature. IE will say that its update versions are SP3 in response to a Help->About, but that is referring to the Windows 2000 Service Pack, not to an IE Service Pack. Microsoft could not make this any more confusing if they tried. October 23, 2002.
Modem Speaker: Using the modem applet in the Control Panel, I get the Properties for an external modem, go to the General tab and turn off the speaker volume. Despite this, the modem squeaks and squeals when it dials. Actually disabling the modem speaker requires instead fiddling with the properties of the DUN connection in Network and Dial-up connections. The same thing was true with SP2. The modem is connected to the computer via a serial port and is configured to use COM1. October 17, 2002.
Installing SP3. October 19, 2002. Same gripe as noted previously with SP2. I told the installer program not to archive old files (intended for backing out the service pack). Nonetheless, it created a directory called C/WINNT/ServicePackFiles. This time the directory is 197 megabytes, with 1,107 files in 5 folders. All the files are dated July 22, 2002. As with SP2, I renamed the directory to test that these files are not, in fact, needed. In SP2, they were not needed.
Interestingly, installing SP3 caused disk space usage on the C disk to increase by 79.8 megabytes, despite the creation of the new 197 megabyte directory. Obviously, a lot of files were also deleted by the SP3 installation.
After installing SP3, I ran Windows Update. There were 12 critical updates and 6 updates for Windows 2000. Among the pre-selected updates were both IE 5.5 SP2 and IE 6 SP1. If this was not bad enough, IE 5.5 SP2 must be chosen all by itself, it can not be applied in conjunction with any other updates. The documentation says so. Despite this, Windows Update had pre-selected it along with many other updates.
The install of SP3 stopped mid-stream on a machine where the C disk had 211 MB of free space. The error message said that it did not have enough free space and that it needed 15 MB if you are not archiving old files to allow for the back-out of SP3 (which I was not). November 16, 2002.
FYI: The install of SP3 added Outlook Express to the quick launch bar and added shortcuts to OE and IE under START -> Programs on one machine, but not on another. It added a new item to the START button: Set Program Access and Defaults.
FYI: The day after installing SP3, there was a new icon in the system tray for Automatic Updates.
My biggest gripe with Windows 2000 is its lifespan. As I write this in May 20001, the next operating system in the pipeline is due out in a few months. This will give Windows 2000 a lifespan of between 1.5 and 2 years. Not much. Of course you don't have to run the latest and greatest operating system, but over time, operating systems slowly die. No new service packs are released for them, new software is no longer tested or supported on them, new features are not added to them. In general upgrading an operating system is a major pain in the neck involving time, effort and cash. Often he gain fails to equal the pain. I'll hang on to Windows 2000 as long as I can, much like I did with Windows NT4 (I didn't upgrade to Windows 2000 until 15 months and two service packs after its release). Microsoft should spend more time getting each OS working correctly and less time churning out more of them. Of course this won't happen because it doesn't generate enough $$$.
Jerry Pournelle mentioned in Byte Magazine on July 29, 2002 that Microsoft has "served notice that after April 2003, you won't be able to buy Windows 2000 preinstalled by a major OEM". He said they will still sell individual copies. The handwriting is on the wall. August 13, 2002.
Is Microsoft Delivering Operating Systems Too Fast Now? ENT Magazine February 11, 2002. It took Microsoft more than four years to deliver Windows 2000. Since then, the software giant has set a snappier pace for operating system releases. Analysts and users are saying that Microsoft could do its customers a favor by reining-in its aggressive product development and marketing timetables.
Update: I read that Windows 2000 will be supported by Microsoft until March 31, 2005 for general users. Corporations that pay extra will get support until March 31, 2007.
Windows 2000 installs itself into a directory/folder called WINNT.
I logon as user1, a member of the Administrators group. When I look for the old NT4 Administrative Tools with Start -> Programs its not there. It's now in the Control Panel. As an NT4 user, I'm used to it being in a certain place, so I modify the programs list (right click on the Start button) to include a shortcut to the Administrator Tools group of programs. I see the shortcut there. Despite this, and despite a reboot, user1 still does not see Administrative Tools off the Start -> Programs list. January 28, 2001
I start IIS using the Personal Web Manager application. After it says that
the server is running, I click on the link to see my home page at http://mycomputername
It doesn't work. The error message says that the web page is unavailable while
offline. I'm asked if I want to retry or work off-line. January 28,
2001
The first time I tried to use dial-up networking to dial my ISP it did not work. I could make a connection to the ISP just fine. I could ping computers by IP address. I could reference web pages by IP address. However, nothing worked by name -- DNS was not working at all. There are quite a few parameters and options related to dial-up networking and I spent a lot of time tweaking them and redialing all to no effect.
I called my ISP and configured the dial-up connection with all the right parameters, again to no effect. I installed Service Pack 2, to no effect.
I called Microsoft technical support. After well over an hour on the phone with Microsoft, the problem was resolved by un-installing the TCP/IP protocol and re-installing it. The technician explained that some TCP/IP errors have to be fixed this way but he had never before seen a case like mine.
The uninstall and re-install of TCP/IP was very quick and painless. No re-booting and no OS CD-ROM was needed. Some of the properties of my dial-up connection were stored in the registry and survived the un-install. However, I lost the hard coded IP address the computer was using when connected to a LAN which was not immediately obvious. (May 25, 2001)
Microsoft technical supported handled the problem quite well. They even sent
a follow-up message a few days later. However, this helpful message revealed
their corporate ego -- they never tested it with Netscape Messenger. The message
came with an attached file that Messenger v4.77 could not read. It appeared to
me as
Part 1.2 Type:
application/ms-tnef Encoding: base64
When I click on the attachment, its an unknown file type to
Messenger.
Included in the email message was this comment:
I want you to be delighted with the support service I provide. If you have any comments or feedback about the service you receive, please email me or
contact my manager, L... M... , at
followed by an email link. A long link. So long that it wrapped around to a
second line. Messenger only made the first line a link. This is probably a bug
with Messenger, but the point is that Microsoft never tested their tech support
email messages with it. It looked like this:
<mailto:xxxx@mssupport.microsoft.com?subject=Workstation_Professional_Cas
e_Feedback&body=Lxxx%20Mxxxxxx>
The managers name is not included in the subject. (May 29, 2001)
The problem re-occurred. The symptoms are that my email program complains it can't find the POP3 email server. When IE tries to load any web page it complains that it cannot find the server or there was a DNS error. Any and all attempts at PING result in an unknown host error. ZoneAlarm 2.6 was running before dialing onto the Internet. I got around the problem by hanging up, stopping ZoneAlarm and re-dialing my ISP with a different local access number. (June 6, 2001)
The problem re-occurred again today. I dialed into my ISP and went to a web site. After that however, nothing worked again. I couldn't pull up any other web sites and could not ping any web sites either. I logged off, dialed another phone number and was fine afterwards. ZoneAlarm v2.6 was running all along. (July 4, 2001)
I set up a computer for use by multiple people. Unfortunately, the size of the system fonts is not an attribute of a user, but rather an attribute of the computer itself. A computer shared by someone half-blind and someone with eagle eyes will require constant changing of the system font size.
Passwords: With NT4 it was very simple, easy and obvious how to configure a password so that it would never expire. Not so with Windows 2000. After creating a userid for myself, it eventually expired and setting the user attributes so that it would not expire again involved digging: Advanced tab -> Advanced Button -> Properties of the user. Whew. Also, Windows 2000 lets you change a password and then immediately change it back to what it just was. Poor security.
FYI: File associations are on a user by user basis, not on a system wide basis. I ran into this because a product installed Adobe Acrobat version 3 after version 4 was already installed, thus making v3 the default application. After uninstalling v3, I re-associated v4 with PDF files on one userid only to later find the association missing when using another userid.
If you install Windows 2000 on a computer running Windows NT4 at service pack 3 (or earlier) on an NTFS partition it will kill Windows NT4. This is mentioned very briefly in one of the two readme files on the Windows 2000 CD-ROM. When Windows 2000 sees an NTFS partition formatted using an old version of NTFS, it insists on upgrading it to a newer version of NTFS. Windows NT4 needs service pack 4 or later to deal with this newer version of the NTFS file system. Windows 2000 will change any NTFS partition it runs across, even those where it is not being installed and where it places no files of its own (sort of an "I know best what's good for you" attitude). As a result Windows NT4 at service pack 3 can no longer see or read its own files. It will blue screen when it's started. December 23, 2001.
When you install Windows 2000 from another version of Windows there is an option to do either an upgrade install or a clean install. A clean install however, is not very clean. Someone I know did the following with my assistance over the phone. The hard disk had one partition with a flaky version of Windows 2000 installed in it. He wanted a new clean copy of Windows 2000. The hard disk also had a large section that was unallocated, not assigned to any partition. He started from the existing flaky version of Windows 2000 and inserted the Windows 2000 CD-ROM. As usual it offered to install Windows 2000 and he opted for a clean install and instructed it to install itself in the unallocated region of the hard disk.
Windows 2000 creates a partition for itself in the unallocated region. It takes the entire unallocated region even though it asks the user how big to make the new partition. There seems to be a bug in the installer, in that after asking the user this question, the user can't actually enter anything. Also, the user is not given a chance to assign a label to this newly created partition.
After the new copy of Windows 2000 was installed, the resulting environment was confusing and not clean at all. When running the old, flaky copy of Windows 2000 it sees the files on the new partition as a new drive letter. This is an accident waiting to happen. Files in the other copy of Windows 2000 can be accidentally deleted or files can be put there by mistake. Also a virus in the old copy of the OS can effect the new copy. When running the new copy of Windows 2000, the C disk is the old copy of the OS. The new copy of the OS was installed on the H drive. Not having the OS reside on the C disk is confusing and every time a new program is installed, you have be vigilant and put it on the H drive, not the C drive. Ugh.
Finally, the new copy of the OS is dependent on the old one. At boot time, Windows 2000 depends on a file called boot.ini (among others). The computer had a single copy of this file on the partition with the old flaky version of the OS. This means that the new, clean copy of the OS can not boot without access to the partition and files of the old copy of the OS. Not very clean. December 26, 2001.
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If you install Windows 2000 on a new hard disk, you are presented with screen like the one shown here at the left which has an option to create a partition in the un-partitioned space. Fine.
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However, should you chose to create a partition, it always creates one the full size of the un-partitioned space. It appears that you should be able to specify the size of the new partition, but you can't. |
On February 11, 2000 there was a story about an internal Microsoft memo that discussed the thousands of bugs in the shipping version of Windows 2000. The memo quoted a Microsoft employee as saying that the final version of Windows 2000 had over 63,000 "potential known defects".
Then there was a breakdown of just what is included in this 63,000 number. There are some real problems and some items that reflect confusion about how something is supposed to work. There are 21,000 "postponed" bugs (Microsoft lingo). There are 27,000 "bugbug" comments (more Microsoft lingo) that represent "unfinished work" or "long forgotten problems"
The killer number however (to me at least) is that by Microsoft's own estimates there are 28,000 are real problems. Let me say that again: 28,000 real problems.
This really looks bad for Microsoft because of all the bragging they did about how reliable Windows 2000 is.
In response, a Microsoft spokesman said that all software has bugs, other people say Windows 2000 is good and that Windows 2000 was rigorously tested. They did not mention about its being rigorously fixed.
I find it interesting that well before this story broke, market researchers have been advising their customers not to depend on Windows 2000 until the first or second bunch of big fixes (service packs).
Bugfest! Win2000 has 63,000 'defects'
from Sm@rt
Reseller Magazine February 11, 2000
Can Microsoft squash 63,000 bugs in Win2K? from
PC Week Magazine.
"How many of you would spend $500 on a piece of software with over 63,000 potential
known defects?"
On February 15, 2000 Microsoft issued an official response to this story: An Open Letter to Microsoft Customers on Windows 2000
As the original story noted, Microsoft said that the bug database tracks more than just bugs. It also includes: feature requests, potential problems and potential areas for code improvement. Okay. Everyone agrees there are not really 63,000 bugs (as the word is commonly used).
However, the Microsoft response does not own up to just how many known bugs there are in the final version of Windows 2000. Microsoft denied having 63,000 bugs, but the initial story was clear that there were not really 63,000 bugs, but instead there were 28,000 by their own estimate. This response from Microsoft did not deny having 28,000 bugs.
On February 16, 2000 (more or less) ZDnet had more to say on this subject.
The February 21, 2000 issue of PC Week magazine had a story about this with a different
take: Win2K Rollout
Asks 63,000-Bug Question
The author claims that Microsoft stockholders should be troubled by "the notion
that defects are acceptable in a shipping software product" for two reasons. One is
how much more expensive it is to fix a bug after the product has shipped as opposed to
finding and fixing it beforehand. Quoting the story for the second reason: "Microsoft
faces revenue delays due to poor customer confidence in the company's initial releases -
not to mention loss of customers to other platforms, such as the AS/400, that have solid
reputations for getting it right the first time."
Way before any of this even came up, two weeks before the general release of Windows 2000, CNet had a story on January 26, 2000 that said service pack 1 for Windows 2000 is expected in June 2000. Microsoft prepares fixes, updates for Windows 2000. This leads credence to the idea that Windows 2000 shipped with many known bugs. The article says that "many large companies have indicated they will not consider adopting the new operating system until it [the first service pack] has been released."
August 3, 2000. Who was right about the number of bugs? The knowledge base article about service pack 1 (last updated July 31, 2000) lists all the fixed bugs. It takes three links to cover them all.
February 2000. When I got my retail copy of Windows 2000, I went to register it with Microsoft before even looking at the CD. The small yellow card that you mail back to Microsoft requires the user to fill in the Microsoft address. There is booklet in the box with Microsoft Subsidiary Information in which you look up the address to mail the registration card. The North America section seems to have switched the U.S.A. and Canada (I'm not sure).
Canadians are instructed to mail the registration card to P.O. Box 7932 in San Francisco. U.S.A. customers are to mail the card back to Microsoft in Redmond, WA to the attention of "International Customer Service".
When the disk space requirements for Windows 2000 are given by Microsoft, they say you need a two gig hard disk with 650 megabytes of free space. Why does Windows 2000 or Microsoft care about how big the total size of the hard disk is? An article on the ZDnet web site recommended a six gig hard disk with one gig of free space for use with Windows 2000. Why does ZDnet care how big the total size of the hard disk is?
To see the official Microsoft web page with the requirements for Windows 2000, click here. My experience is that it needs more than 650 megabytes of free space. A clean install onto a FAT partition took 886 megabytes.
January 4, 2002. Windows 2000 Professional SP2. ZoneAlarm 2.6.362. I could not get Internet Connection Sharing (ICS) to work with ZoneAlarm running. It worked fine without ZoneAlarm. See the ZoneAlarm page for details.
There were two computers on the workgroup based LAN and a printer server. The other pc was running Windows NT4. From the Windows 2000 machine, My Network Places could not find any other network nodes. It said the workgroup was not accessible and that the list of servers for the workgroup was not currently available. The hub showed a live connection and device manager showed no errors with the NIC card. File and printer sharing was enabled for the LAN connection.
The NT4 machine could see the Windows 2000 machine using Network Neighborhood. However, it could not list any of the shared directories on the Win2K machine. The NT4 machine can not ping the Win2K machine by name, but can ping it by IP address.
The Windows 2000 machine can ping the NT4 machine by name and it even resolves the static IP address of the NT4 machine. Event viewer on the Windows 2000 machine shows errors: duplicate name on the network. The error pointed up the fact that the Windows 2000 machine was using NetBios over TCP/IP. I had never installed the NetBEUI protocol.
I installed NetBEUI and now the Windows 2000 machine can see itself and its shares in My Network Places. However, it can't see anything else on the LAN. Even worse, the NT4 machine can no longer see the Windows 2000 machine.
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After downloading one file, it reported a transfer rate of 8.2 kilobytes per second or 67, 174 bits per second. At the time, I had dialed onto the Internet at a connection speed of 49,200 bits per second. The answer is not incoming compression either. The dial-up status display showed only a 3% inbound compression ratio. (May 30, 2001) |
 November
28, 2001. After pasting some HTML text into Word, Word wanted to dial out
to the Internet many times. After repeatedly telling the dialer not to
dial, I used task manager to kill Word. The next time I tried to dial out
to the Internet, I got the error shown here on the right. The message is
not true. The modem was indeed found. The modem applet in Control panel
found it and talked to it. I re-booted and all was well. |
Coming to Windows 2000 from NT4, I did not like the START button menus that are initially collapsed, eliminating choices that were not recently used. Fortunately, I stumbled across the option that controls this by getting the properties of the task bar where there in an option "Use Personalized Menus". Turning this off, yielded constant START button menus. (May 29, 2001)
Dial-up Errors: Windows NT4 has a dial-up status monitor that shows six different types of errors and how may times each type of error occurred. In Windows 2000, the six types of errors are no longer shown, instead there is a single error counter. (May 30, 2001)
Boot time programs: Windows 98, Me and XP have a system configuration utility
(MSCONFIG.EXE) that shows
you all the programs that run automatically at boot time and lets you easily
prevent them from running by just clicking a check box. Windows 2000 has no
equivalent program. Windows 2000 can report on the start up programs using the system information
utility, but it does not let you
prevent them from running. (May 28, 2001)
This was mentioned in the December
20, 2001 issue of Scot Finnie's newsletter.
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Keyboard shortcuts: Unlike previous versions of Windows, Windows 2000 does
not visually indicate keyboard shortcuts when you right click on something. The
picture shown here is the popup window from right clicking on the task bar. None
of the options has the keyboard shortcut underlined. Previous versions of
Windows would underline the "r" in "Properties" to indicate
that the "r" key could be used instead of the mouse to bring up the
properties. (May 31, 2001) |
I read that Microsoft stated that Service Pack 2 fixed 500 bugs. Remember that the next time they tout an operating system for stability. Microsoft certainly made an issue of stability with Windows 2000 on its initial release, which was delayed for quite a long time. Then they had Service Pack 1 to fix a bunch of bugs. However, SP1 left over 500 bugs and that is without adding new functionality to the operating system. Stability is not the same as correct operation.
The Telnet client included in Windows 2000 is command line only (activated by entering "telnet" at a command prompt). Older versions of windows have a better GUI based Telnet client. Reading a Windows 2000 book brought to light the fact that HyperTerminal can also be used as a telnet client and it has a graphical user interface. For Telnet you have to tell HyperTerminal to connect using TCP/IP Winsock.
Prior to using Windows 2000, I'd read nothing but praise for its power
management capability, specifically that the suspend function (called
"Stand By" in the Windows 2000 shutdown dialog) finally worked
reliably. After using Windows 2000 daily for about three weeks, it has
failed to wake up from suspend mode three times so far (I suspend a few times
each day) June 11, 2001.
After using Windows 2000 for months, the sporadic hangs during suspend have
continued. About 10% or 20% of the time the computer fails to wake up from
suspend mode. The computer it is running on, an IBM ThinkPad, did not ship with
Windows 2000 but is certified to run it. There is a label on the machine saying
it was designed for Windows 2000. When the machine is suspended there is an
indicator light with a half moon. When it fails to wake up, this indicator light
goes off, showing that it got the wake-up call. However, the hard disk never
kicks in. The only way out of the hang is to hold the on/off button for a while
and eventually the machine reboots itself. I never leave open program when
suspending so I haven't lost any data. November 14, 2001.
I sometimes make a copy of a file in the same directory using Copy and Paste in Windows Explorer. Like previous versions of Windows, a duplicate name is avoided by prefixing the new file with "Copy of". However, previous versions of Windows would put focus on the new file just after it was created. Windows 2000 leaves focus on the original file and puts the new file at the bottom of the Windows Explorer listing. The net effect is that you have no idea if the copy worked and to see the new file you have to either refresh the display or scroll to the bottom. June 13, 2001.
Personal Web Server (PWS). Every time I use the Personal Web Manager to start PWS it fails. The first time I click on the START button, nothing happens. There are no error messages. Clicking on the START button a second time immediately starts the web server.
On a related subject, Windows 2000
Internet Services depends on a default document being present. Without it, a
warning is produced:
You do not currently have a default document set for
your users. Any users attempting to connect to this site
are currently receiving an "Under
Construction page"
This is not true in my case, users connecting to HTTP://localhost
are getting a listing of all the files in the default directory because I
enabled directory browsing. July 8, 2001.
PC World magazine reports that SP2 created a new problem for users of Logitech mice. September 2001 issue. July 30,2001
After resizing the C disk using Partition Magic from a DOS boot disk, this
message was displayed at the next boot. What new devices? There was nothing
in the event log about this. July
31, 2001.
Further experience has shown that this message occurs every time the size of a
visible partition (drive letter) changes. December 28, 2001.
Dialer problems. The Windows NT4 dialer was capable of beeping when there were data transmission errors and/or when the line was disconnected. The Windows 2000 dialer can not do this.
After a dial-up Internet connection dies on its own, I sometimes lose the password built into the dialer profile (aka connectoid). Adding insult to injury, the dialer does not prompt me to enter the password, but instead fails a new connection request with an error message that the userid and password provided were not correct. This has happened a few times. November 19, 2001.
Update: July 13, 2003. A reader of this site with the same problem suggested it might be an ISP issue. He found that when suddenly disconnected, his ISPs authentication server still considers him an online user and doesn't allow him to connect again. After getting the error about an invalid password, he too found it deleted from the dialer profile. He uses Windows 2000 Advanced Server.
After trying to dial onto the Internet with the modem not plugged in, I lost the password that was saved in my DUN connection. (December 12, 2001) This was no fluke, quite a few times, the dialer has lost the saved password. I used to only have the dialer window show me the phone number list, but since the password is so often lost, I know have to display both the userid and password to insure the password is still there. (March 5, 2002)Turning off the computer: Someone
I know installed Windows 2000 on a computer that shipped with Windows 95. The
machine dated from early 1997 or late 1996. Windows 2000 runs fine except for
one quirk. When it is shut down, the computer does not turn itself off. When
Windows 95 was shut down, the computer turned off. I tried to research this
using the Microsoft Knowledge Base on their web site but came up empty. I looked
in two books on Windows 2000 but neither addressed this issue. One gripe here is
that getting information on such a brutally obvious and trivial issue should not
be so hard. Another gripe is that, in this respect at least, Windows 95 was
better than Windows 2000. Eventually, I asked this as a question in a free
"expert" web site and was told that unless the BIOS supports ACPI,
Windows 2000 will not turn off the computer when it shuts down. I can't verify
this, but from the date of the computer, it is safe to say that the BIOS does
not support ACPI. March 31, 2002.
Update: A reader wrote in with advice about this. Windows 2000 can
be configured at install time to use either ACPI or APM. During the OS
installation, near the beginning, you are asked to press F6. If instead you
press F5 you will get an extra menu. Selecting "Standard PC" (which is not the
default) will cause Windows 20000 to use APM instead of ACPI. After
installation, you have to enable APM with CONTROL PANEL -> POWER OPTIONS
-> APM and then check "Enable Advanced Power Management support". I have not
verified this. July 15, 2002.
Magnifier: September 9, 2002. Windows 2000 SP2. For no particular reason, I used the Magnifier utility today. It chops the screen in half, with the top part showing a magnified view of whatever is near the mouse pointer on the bottom part. It seemed to work fine. However, the next day I used Windows Explorer to view a directory that had been opened while using the Magnifier. The Windows Explorer window would maximize to fit half the screen. That is, it was locked in to the screen display used with the Magnifier. I could not move the Windows Explorer window so that any part of it occupied the top part of the screen. I shut down Windows Explorer and restarted it - same thing. I used it view other directories (ones that I had not viewed with the magnifier on) and there was no problem. Eventually the problem went away on its own.
O'Reilly publishes a book called Windows 2000 Quick Fixes that they claim provides fixes to common problems. Quoting the author: "The book focuses on very specific problems or situations that many users will run across when working with Windows 2000." To get a flavor of the book, O'Reilly provides 10 quick fixes as a sample on their web site.
Windows 2000 is my favorite version of Windows.
FYI: If you need a quick reference as to what the various Windows 2000 services are, Microsoft has one.
FYI: Windows 2000 FAQ. The 20 most vexing problems with Windows 2000 from PCWorld Magazine. September 14, 2001.
FYI: While knocking Windows XP, Brian Livingston, best known as the author of the Windows Secrets books for Windows 95, 98, 2000 and Me, recommends using Windows 2000 in the October 8, 2001 issue of InfoWorld magazine.
FYI: Bug fixes that came out after Service Pack 2 can be found here. It's quite a long list - 663 bugs. The oldest one is dated January 25, 2001. Alternate Link
FYI: Release Notes for Windows 2000 Service Pack 4 including problems it causes. July 2003
February 7, 2002. Around the end of January 2002 Microsoft released fixes for 22 security bugs in Windows 2000 after Service Pack 2. It is referred to as Security Rollup Package 1 (SRP1). However, these bug fixes cause their own problems. W2Knews wrote about this on February 7, 2002 in Warning: SRP1 Problems. On one computer of theirs, it fouled up the paging file necessitating a re-install of Windows 2000.
August 13, 2002. After applying bug fixes to Windows 2000 Jerry Pournelle described a new problem in Byte Magazine on July 29, 2002. With the new bug fixes applied he found that Windows 2000 Workstation no longer worked properly with a network. Quoting: "If your workstation has a drive mapped to a machine that is not running, it can take up to five minutes to open My Computer, and much longer to actually break the connection and end that silliness."
FYI: Windows 2000 does not support different screen resolutions for different users. A free program, MultiUserRes lets you do this. I have not tried it. November 20, 2002. Update: A $15 shareware program, Display Resolution Manager also does it. December 15, 2002.
| Page created: May 2000 | Page last updated: January 6, 2006 |
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Virtual
Memory. A
lightly stressed computer with 654 meg of ram, has warned a few times
about virtual memory. Each time Task Manager has shown there to be quite a
bit of free memory. 
