Windows 2000 Home Use

Recently I did a clean install of Windows 2000 on a small old laptop. No problems with the installation. Basically I used the laptop as a guinea pig to test the install. The biggest differences from 2k and 98SE appear to be networking and security. My ultimate objective is to "upgrade" my desktop to 2k from 98SE. The desktop has an 800 MHz processor, 20GB HD, and 512MB RAM. I want to configure the desktop as a stand-alone for home use only. Security and networking have zero importance. All I want to do is connect to the net via an Ethernet card with Cox cable. I don't need log-ons for Administrator, User, or even a password. This drives me nuts! What I am asking for is a series of steps to configure 2k to operate similarly to 98SE. I do not see any advantage to even upgrade to NTFS from the current FAT32 based upon my particular use. I run virus scans, disk defrag and all required maintenance utilities two or three times a week. I know this is a huge request but I would greatly appreciate it if someone can point me in the right direction for this type of upgrade. Thanks for reading.

 

Administrator and Guest user accounts will be created. No way to avoid that. On the other hand, they should not get in the way and the guest account should be disabled anyway.

If you leave the administrator password blank then you won't need to use a password.

That being said, I have to say this is not really a good idea. Bad one in fact. Internet and you are on a very large and very insecure network so a little cheap/easy protection strikes me as a good idea.

If you password the administrator account, disable the guest account, and spend an additional 3 minutes after the OS install is done creating yourself an account to use (password or no password as you prefer) and make that account a power user, you can use it to do almost anything you wish on the PC but still have some protection.

If you want a how-to on adding a user account and adding it to the Power Users group (total time required is under 5 minutes) just ask.

As to NTFS vs FAT, there really is not a down side. In daily use you do not see any difference and the fact remains that NTFS is more secure, more stable, more able to run fine with significant fragmentation than FAT. The conversion would be a one-time thing and would take less than 30 minutes.

 

Thanks Newt. I appreciate the info. I'll keep your suggestions in mind when it's time to upgrade.