For the past few months I''ve been using Windows ME to learn DirectX (currently working in DirectDraw in DX7). I''ve had no serious problems working in WinME.. but for different reasons I want to upgrade to Win2k. My question is whether there are any issues with developing (primarily in DX7) in Win2k? Compatibility problems, performance etc. Any advice is appreciated! -repp

I''ve not used WinME myself, but I can say that upgrading from Win98 to Win2k has made my development life easier. Win2k is a lot more stable than Win98 ever was, and I''ve not seen any performance difference. The only incompatability I''ve ever run into was that Carmageddon 2 refused to install. All other games have worked, and everything I''ve ever thrown at it has worked as well.

The only thing I will say against Win2k is that if you haven''t bought it yet, maybe you should consider waiting for WinXP. I think it''s pretty safe to ignore most of the doomsayers - I doubt MS would alienate it''s entire installbase by requiring all that hassle to install. So I think it''s something to wait for.

Also, MS seems to have forgotten about Win2k. I mean, they have a few articles about it in MSDN, but they haven''t come out with anything new about it for months (it''s about XP now) Even IE 5.5 doesn''t support it properly (you don''t get any install options, just a "typical install" type thing)

WinME vs. Win2k in development ?
Seeing that Win2k was made for professional use (like development), it should be clearly better

You normally don''t get it to crash. Just debugging OpenGL full screen is annoying sometimes because it may not restore the screen mode when it crashes. But this problem appears under WinME, too, and can be avoided by just writing some error handling code.

The most important fact about Win2k is that it can detect memory corruption way better WinME. While you may not notice a corrupted pointer or invalid memory write at the first run using WinME, Win2k will spill out an error message instantly.
If you use tools like vtune or intel''s enhanced debugger you can also enjoy the greater capabilities of Win2k!

-Markus-

I haven''t regretted upgrading to Win2K from Win98. WinME is the peak of bloatware . It isn''t any better than Win98 is 95% of situations, and is less hardware compatible and stable (according to a analysis I read somewhere, I really ought to bookmark those, they didn''t have any proof about the hardware thing listed, but they did about stability).

Make sure all of your hardware is compatible. For example: if you have a Radeon, don''t get Win2K .


http://druidgames.cjb.net/

Thanks for the feedback! looks like my choice is clear

-repp

ATI has made tremendous improvements to their Win2k driver. I don''t use Win2k as my primary OS anymore becase of a completely unrelated compatability issue, but my Radeon works just fine under Win2k.

I don''t know where all these problems with ME are coming from, either. I''ve used it on my work and two home systems for months without any problems at all, and I''d say if anything it''s been more stable than 98.