In article <[log in to unmask]>,
Gavin Scott  <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> In my experience Win2K is the most stable, fast, reliable desktop OS I've
> ever seen,

If the rest are versions of Windows or MacOS, I heartily agree, though
NT 3.51 gives it a run for its money in stability because it had more
drivers running outside the kernel.

But Windows NT (Windows 2000) is inherently less stable than any server
OS because it's stuck with the appalling Win32 subsystem and its cavalier
disregard of separattion of responsibilities. Everything, applications,
drivers, system and user programs, are installed and run in a flat common
namespace ... it's like soup, everything ends up tasting of everything
else. DLL Hell is only the tip of the iceberg...

The only desktop OS I've seen that really did a good job of avoiding this
problem was NeXTStep, where applications are installed in separate isolated
directories. And since it was UNIX based the UNIX namespace was used for
access to resources like shared libraries, so there was no chance of the
equivalent of "DLL conflicts".

Linux does stick executables in a common path, but libraries are all
versioned and tagged, so most of those problems never come up. I've been
trying to get my Win2000 system happy again after a tech removed the
wrong DLLs to upgrade a software package... since Friday. I'm not happy
with Windows 2000 right now.

(did I call it a soup? I meant a swamp. A toxic swamp off Minimata bay...)

--
 `-_-'   In hoc signo hack, Peter da Silva.
  'U`    "A well-rounded geek should be able to geek about anything."
                                                       -- [log in to unmask]
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