If you haven't tried Windows 2000 yet, then you don't know what you are missing. Gone are the days of pulling your hair out for hours over the problems Windows 98 is causing you.

The first thing I should mention, although very minute, is the change in the Windows startup sound. It is less annoying, and much more pleasing to the ear. Maybe I'm picky, but I don't want to have to box my ears every time Windows starts up. The user interface in Windows 2000 is not much different than that of Windows 98, except for the fact that they made special features easier to find. However, looks are deceiving. The core of the OS is the biggest change you will not notice right away. The stability and performance of Windows 2000 is absolutely outstanding. I was shocked by how stable it runs. I have left my computer on for 3-4 days straight at a time without restarting, and it runs as well the first hour as it does the last. It is very rare that my system EVER crashes. The other big change is the speed of the system. Although it takes just as long to boot up as Windows 98, all the functions of Windows 2000 are completed quicker than ever. Internet Explorer, Outlook Express, and Windows Explorer for example, appear almost 2-3 times as fast as they did on the same computer using Windows 98. Even better, it is very rare that any of them malfunction. The final thing I should mention is that Plug-and-Play has been drastically improved to be more successful and accurate, making new hardware easier than ever to install.

All in all, Windows 2000 is the complete package. Microsoft has finally offered us what we have been waiting for from them for years now -an Operating System that provides us with reliability and performance.

*NOTE: This review was done based on the results of testing with Windows 2000 Release Candidate 2, Build 2128.



Recommended: Yes