# I just bought a used computer with windows 2000 professional



## Jude Prudence (Oct 8, 2009)

Now what do I do?


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## Runefox (Oct 8, 2009)

Uh... Use it? It's basically XP, without the themes and built-in firewall. And WGA. And activation. Etc.

I guess _what you use it *for*_ depends largely on what kind of hardware's in the computer.


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## Jude Prudence (Oct 8, 2009)

I'll be more specific:

What do I do in the way of a free firewall, anti-virus, and a browser?


Only thing I can get out this pc is that it has 92 megabytes of memory.


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## net-cat (Oct 8, 2009)

You don't have the memory for a modern firewall or anti-virus. Eight years ago, you could have found something. Not so much today.

You'll want a router to act as your firewall. You _might_ be able to get away with one of the free ones, avast! or AVG, but you won't be running much else on the system...

As for browser, Firefox.

Also, update to SP4 if you haven't already done so.


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## Duality Jack (Oct 9, 2009)

Also note that you will have little games that work on it, ITs very stable on the plus though.


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## Volpino (Oct 9, 2009)

check http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com

They have some products that will run on older systems, but I don't remember all their specs.


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## Jude Prudence (Oct 9, 2009)

The Drunken Ace said:


> Also note that you will have little games that work on it, ITs very stable on the plus though.


 
I don't need it to play games. I don't need it to do anything but surf the web until I can get my dell working.


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## Duality Jack (Oct 9, 2009)

Jude Prudence said:


> I don't need it to play games. I don't need it to do anything but surf the web until I can get my dell working.


Then you have the perfect machine. Stable. Reliable. And with Firefox, a good firewall and some tuning it will be a Tank.


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## feathery (Oct 9, 2009)

2000 is the most stable of all OS's even more then XP is. It may look like a beefed up 98 but its still a very good computer. Just depends what the use of it will be.


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## Carenath (Oct 9, 2009)

2000 is okay, I wouldnt call it more stable than Windows XP, they're both about the same in my experience, after all XP was built on top of 2000's codebase anyway.  With 92MB of memory, Im going to go out on a limb and say the machine has onboard graphics that's pinching a chunk of RAM for itself. You should be able to lower the amount of memory eaten by the graphics chip from the BIOS. Assuming you're just looking to browse the web and other basic things... I'd lower the memory used to 8MB leaving more for system memory.


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## Aden (Oct 9, 2009)

You know RAM is like 10 cents for 2 GB nowadays right?


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## The Blue Fox (Oct 9, 2009)

Jude Prudence said:


> I'll be more specific:
> 
> What do I do in the way of a free firewall, anti-virus, and a browser?
> 
> ...



Anti-virus. There are lots of free ones out there. My favorite AVG.
http://free.avg.com/ww-en/download-avg-anti-virus-free-edition

Firewall. Zone alarm.. There are outheres but i cant think of there names.

browser... Firefox.

As for Ram it it's all redy been said that it's dirt cheap. Just make sure you get the right type


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## Carenath (Oct 9, 2009)

Aden said:


> You know RAM is like 10 cents for 2 GB nowadays right?


SDRAM, is not cheap anymore, it's not mass made, even DDR1 RAM is getting that way.


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## Aurali (Oct 9, 2009)

Carenath said:


> SDRAM, is not cheap anymore, it's not mass made, even DDR1 RAM is getting that way.



was going to say...

The older ram is a lot more expensive than the newer stuff nowadays.


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## net-cat (Oct 9, 2009)

Aden said:


> You know RAM is like 10 cents for 2 GB nowadays right?


I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that it's probably not DDR2.



Carenath said:


> With 92MB of memory, Im going to go out on a limb and say the machine has onboard graphics that's pinching a chunk of RAM for itself. You should be able to lower the amount of memory eaten by the graphics chip from the BIOS. Assuming you're just looking to browse the web and other basic things... I'd lower the memory used to 8MB leaving more for system memory.


I'm guessing SDRAM, either 3x32MB or 64MB+32MB with a 4MB video allotment.

Of course, it could also be 256MB DDR1 with 36MB allotment, but that's kind of a strange number.


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## FaSMaN (Oct 14, 2009)

If its still running 2000 its most likely a old P2 or if your lucky a P3 but ether way I recommend downloading the latest version of puppy linux from http://www.puppylinux.org/ , its very small and requires very little resources to run, but will allow you to do all of your day to day tasks required from a computer at reasonable speed, his includes web browsing, watching videos(depends on codec), word processing, spread sheet work, email,you should allso be able to run gimp on it for photo editing and painting and it wont bloat your small system nearly as much as installing windows xp on it,and will be a bit more modern than sticking with 2000.


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## Kajet (Oct 14, 2009)

First things first: Look for credit card numbers, photographs, and blackmail material, THEN worry about it being secure.


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## ToeClaws (Oct 14, 2009)

2000 was, in my opinion, the best of the Windows family, *however*... it is obsolete now.

You should not use this system on a Network unless you install a newer OS that still has security updates to patch known holes.  XP is the oldest such version of Windows that you could run.  You could also switch it to a different OS - if an older PC with little RAM, you might want to visit the "Switching to Linux" thread and have a look at something like Puppy Linux or Xubuntu.


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## net-cat (Oct 14, 2009)

ToeClaws said:


> 2000 was, in my opinion, the best of the Windows family, *however*... it is obsolete now.
> 
> You should not use this system on a Network unless you install a newer OS that still has security updates to patch known holes.  XP is the oldest such version of Windows that you could run.


Bzzt. Extended support for Windows 2000 SP4 ends 2010-07-13, according to Microsoft.

There was, however, a case where a fundamental flaw was found in the system. Microsoft basically said "We can't patch Windows 2000 and have it still be Windows 2000, so this problem will go unpatched." So a good firewall is still a must.


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## ToeClaws (Oct 14, 2009)

net-cat said:


> Bzzt. Extended support for Windows 2000 SP4 ends 2010-07-13, according to Microsoft.
> 
> There was, however, a case where a fundamental flaw was found in the system. Microsoft basically said "We can't patch Windows 2000 and have it still be Windows 2000, so this problem will go unpatched." So a good firewall is still a must.



They extended it again?  Jeeze, I thought their original plan was to end support for it in July of 2008.  Man... they must have gotten some serious push-back about it.  And dammit... that means I could still be running 2000! *grumbles*


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## net-cat (Oct 14, 2009)

I don't think so. Extended support ends five years after mainstream support, which was June 2005 for Windows 2000.


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## FaSMaN (Oct 14, 2009)

net-cat said:


> Bzzt. Extended support for Windows 2000 SP4 ends 2010-07-13, according to Microsoft.



Just bare in mind that doesn't include third party support so quite a few programs don't work on 2000 anymore


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## net-cat (Oct 14, 2009)

Well, yeah. Why would you want to support an OS that has less than a year of support from the manufacturer left? 

Though on the computer described, I'm not too worried about the user trying to run modern stuff.


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## ToeClaws (Oct 14, 2009)

Heh, yes - 92 megs of RAM pretty much limits one to Puppy Linux, Tiny Core or OS's written in Assembly if you want stuff to run quickly.


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## Chukkz (Oct 19, 2009)

92 megs oh sh... It definitely needs a ram upgrade. Definitely. Try to figure out what kind of Ram you have, if its SD Ram, you can get that cheap. If you only wanna surf the net I recommend Linux as you get security updates and all with it for free, but games are complicated on there. But that shouldn't be an issue for you if you only wanna surf.

However you really really need a ram upgrade.


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## SnowFox (Oct 19, 2009)

Keep shutting it down and rebooting it just so you can be amazed at how (relatively) fast windows used to be. It's not even funny.

If you're keeping windows I wouldn't even bother trying to use it on the internet. With that amount of RAM you wont have anything left after the antivirus & firewall.


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