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The game "Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle Earth 2" won't run on Windows 2000. You need Windows XP. Is it finally time to dump trusty ol' Windows 2000, and put up with XP's activation scheme? I don't see how Microsoft can expect multi-computer households (a common setup nowadays) to purchase multiple copies of Windows XP Professional at full price.

Do you really need XP Pro? My family and I have managed with Home absolutely fine. Even if some computers require Pro, do all? Something else to look at is buying OEM versions of Windows: a legal, OEM copy of Home costs me about £50, and Pro comes in at about £80. Expensive, but hardly unreasonable considering the amount of time you spend utilising the software.

The other alternative is to buy one copy to install on all the computers. You can activate the same copy about 3 times within a couple of months over the Internet (after that time is up, you can activate more), or, you can just phone them up, and give the right answers to their questions for the remaining PC's (i.e. this is the only computer with this copy installed etc). This is, of course, against the Licence Agreement.

If you're not worried about wanting to use Vista soon after it's release, then I'd go and buy OEM copies for whichever computers require it.

I think you should. Win2000 is starting to fall too far behind on everything else. Just how many machines are we talking about anyway?

By the way, check your mail.

Edi

Darth Wong wrote:The game "Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle Earth 2" won't run on Windows 2000. You need Windows XP. Is it finally time to dump trusty ol' Windows 2000, and put up with XP's activation scheme? I don't see how Microsoft can expect multi-computer households (a common setup nowadays) to purchase multiple copies of Windows XP Professional at full price.

You bought BFME2? Funny, I bought it as well- quite enjoyable, but I didn't think anyone else on SD.net even knew the game existed. It's way better than the original, and I thought the original was good fun.

I play it.

Vympel wrote:

Darth Wong wrote:The game "Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle Earth 2" won't run on Windows 2000. You need Windows XP. Is it finally time to dump trusty ol' Windows 2000, and put up with XP's activation scheme? I don't see how Microsoft can expect multi-computer households (a common setup nowadays) to purchase multiple copies of Windows XP Professional at full price.

You bought BFME2? Funny, I bought it as well- quite enjoyable, but I didn't think anyone else on SD.net even knew the game existed. It's way better than the original, and I thought the original was good fun.

Really? Damn - I avoided buying it mid-week as I assumed that since it seemed to come out at lightning speed it would be a rush-job. Might have to reconsider, if I get time for games in the next month or two.

Having not played Battle for middle earth im going to test out the demo for this. I understand it uses the generals engine?

A much modified version, but yes.

Pezzoni wrote:Do you really need XP Pro? My family and I have managed with Home absolutely fine. Even if some computers require Pro, do all?

There are so many more power features on Pro that for a user like Mike, it's well worth the money. And it's not holding your hand through everything for the first week. Hate to tell you this, but Home is for your grandma and the young family with their first computer.

Just buy a single copy and activate by phone...

OEM/corperate is the way to go, no activations. as for worth it, i find xp just runs better then w2k

Vympel wrote:You bought BFME2? Funny, I bought it as well- quite enjoyable, but I didn't think anyone else on SD.net even knew the game existed. It's way better than the original, and I thought the original was good fun.

Yeah, I have BFME2 and it only works on Matthew's machine right now because he has XP Pro installed. The rest of the machines have win2k. BFME2 takes care of most of the annoyances of BFME1; who among us didn't hate the whole system of having to upgrade the barracks and other military buildings by making units and then sacrificing them? And who didn't hate the restricted building options of being forced to construct only on pre-defined hardpoints?

Edi wrote:I think you should. Win2000 is starting to fall too far behind on everything else. Just how many machines are we talking about anyway?

I've got three computers on my home LAN which are used for gaming. One of them already has XP Pro installed, the other two have win2k.

If you can get a cheap copy, preferably Pro, then go for it. You could wait for Vista, but I'd find that more analogous to waiting for cancer to see if it's all right. Since nothing else by MS (bar Win Server 2k3) surpasses Win2000, you've got little choice. Not unless you can find Linux running the game well using Cedega or WINE.

To be honest, I don't even bother trying to run games on Linux unless they were actually written for it. I use Linux for work, but for gaming, the exercise of trying to make Windows games work on Linux strikes me as masochism.

If you go here. you can download a six month trial version of 2003 from Microsoft. You can install it on as many computers as you like and reinstalling it resets the clock. When the six months is up, though, you should be able to tell if Vista sucks or not and then you can decide if you want to buy anything.

Lisa wrote:OEM/corperate is the way to go, no activations. as for worth it, i find xp just runs better then w2k

No individual user could legally use a volume license version of Windows.

That said, I finally went from 2000 to XP when I last upgraded my system. After turning off most of the XP eyecandy (the first thing I did immediately after installation was complete was to change the theme to "Classic Windows"), I don't notice the difference between it and 2000 that much.

Seggybop wrote:If you go here. you can download a six month trial version of 2003 from Microsoft. You can install it on as many computers as you like and reinstalling it resets the clock. When the six months is up, though, you should be able to tell if Vista sucks or not and then you can decide if you want to buy anything.

I don't get how Windows Server 2003 is supposed to help Mike figure out if he'll like Vista. I work with 2003 and it looks nothing like the screenshots I've seen for Vista... in fact, it looks very much like XP, albeit defaulting to the "Classic Windows" theme.

It might help him figure out if he likes XP... but even then it wouldn't be very good at it because he'd be confronted with a system more geared towards being a server, and IIRC there are issues with getting some programs to work with it because they're not intended to run on a server system. It wouldn't be as usable.

I've used XP Pro, I just don't have it installed on 2 out of 3 game PCs in my house. It strikes me as only a minor improvement over win2k, at least on the user level, but the subsystems are apparently different enough that some software works like shit or not at all on win2k. And increasingly, games fall into this category.

Pezzoni wrote:Do you really need XP Pro? My family and I have managed with Home absolutely fine. Even if some computers require Pro, do all? Something else to look at is buying OEM versions of Windows: a legal, OEM copy of Home costs me about £50, and Pro comes in at about £80. Expensive, but hardly unreasonable considering the amount of time you spend utilising the software.

You have got to be shitting me. XP Home is a fucking joke, especialy in the IT community. XP home is a dumbed down version of XP Professional that has more problems as a result. Its far better to get XP Pro. Pay a few dollars more and you get a more stable and powerful opperating system.

Mike, if you can somehow get it, I highly suggest managing to get part of a Volume Liscense Key copy of XP Professional. Your product activation worries completely disapear. It might be possible through the company you work for.

Uraniun235 wrote:

Seggybop wrote:If you go here. you can download a six month trial version of 2003 from Microsoft. You can install it on as many computers as you like and reinstalling it resets the clock. When the six months is up, though, you should be able to tell if Vista sucks or not and then you can decide if you want to buy anything.

I don't get how Windows Server 2003 is supposed to help Mike figure out if he'll like Vista. I work with 2003 and it looks nothing like the screenshots I've seen for Vista... in fact, it looks very much like XP, albeit defaulting to the "Classic Windows" theme.

It might help him figure out if he likes XP... but even then it wouldn't be very good at it because he'd be confronted with a system more geared towards being a server, and IIRC there are issues with getting some programs to work with it because they're not intended to run on a server system. It wouldn't be as usable.

I meant that he could use 2003 to replace 2000 until Vista comes out, at which point he can see if Vista is worth upgrading to or not.

Is XP Home a fully multi-user operating system with the requisite security features? If not, then I wouldn't run it.

Darth Wong wrote:Is XP Home a fully multi-user operating system with the requisite security features? If not, then I wouldn't run it.

It's fully multi-user, but the security policy management and other OS management options that are available in Pro are almost completely neutered or removed outright. Stay away from it.

Edi

Darth Wong wrote:The game "Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle Earth 2" won't run on Windows 2000. You need Windows XP. Is it finally time to dump trusty ol' Windows 2000, and put up with XP's activation scheme? I don't see how Microsoft can expect multi-computer households (a common setup nowadays) to purchase multiple copies of Windows XP Professional at full price.

Having played a bit of "Battle For Middle Earth 2" I'd say it's not quite time yet.

I was under the impression that the copyright was for one user, not one computer and said one user could load it on as many of his own machines as he wanted. Guess I was wrong?

Darth Servo wrote:I was under the impression that the copyright was for one user, not one computer and said one user could load it on as many of his own machines as he wanted. Guess I was wrong?

The license is per machine.
OEM licenses are tied to the machine that they were originally installed on.
The machine dies, that license dies.
Though if you build your own machine and buy an OEM copy from Newegg or somewhere and later replace the mobo, supposedly you can call MS and they'll reactivate it for you.

Retail copies (full install or upgrade) aren't limited to the machine that they were first installed on (though you're still limited to it being on only one machine at a time), so if you upgrade a lot, buying a retail copy makes more sense than an OEM copy.

My own copy is an Upgrade disc that I use an old copy of Win98 as proof of eligibility.
I run the XP install disc and when it asks for proof of eligibility, I pop in the 98 CD, it checks to see if it's a valid CD and then I remove the 98 disc and put the XP install CD back in and proceed from there as if it were a full install disc.