Why I like Windows 2000 Professional so much

    Microsoft has been around long enough to learn from its mistakes, but like any software company, if you put something out on the market before it's complete, expect a few bugs.  If you buy software, prepare to download updates and patches to fix the bugs.

    At least with Windows 2000 Professional, you could do an install and have it working very well before you go to download your first service pack.  I ran my laptop for about a year before doing that, and have had virtually no problems.  It is superbly stable!

    One of the great things about Win2k is the networking.  Currently I have 3 machines at home, all running Win2k and I can plug in my laptop, and have 3-way gaming, transfer files, and surf the internet using one of the machines as a host.  The only thing I needed for all 3 machines to surf is "Enable Internet Connection Sharing for this connection" checked for my Dial-Up Networking connection, and there I go.  I've seen the Internet Connection Sharing option in Windows 98 SE not consistently perform, so it's a great relief to see Win2k handle this so smoothly.  I've seen other people pay extra for a device that I won't name here that is suppose to do the same thing, and then have it not perform consistently.  It's great to know that for an upgrade of less than $200 you can get consistent performance with your net connection by doing it this way.

    I also download and create files at work (while doing Windows re-installations on machines, usually) and it's great to bring the laptop home, plug it in, and happily transfer files back and forth between the machines without a hitch.  I can easily do this by changing a setting in my Network Neighborhood option, and when I hit ok, it takes usually less than a 30 seconds to change it, and glory be, I don't have to reboot the machine for the settings to take effect.

    I've noticed other program installations that say you must restart the machine actually not be necessary.  I usually just go ahead and run the program without restarting, with no problem.

    I'll be adding other things here when I think of them.