Last time I tried it (it's been a couple of months). You'd receive the Windows 2000 message but Steam would still start.

http://oldcigaret.info/win2k/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=577

As of Jan 1, 2011 in that thread it still worked.

If it indeed does not work on Windows 2000 anymore then if you're interested you can post in that thread and see if anyone else has gotten it to work.

Since it still works on XP then using the wrappers it can most likely work fine on Windows 2000 with them.


Which leads me to the wrappers:

A couple of years ago a guy called OldCigarette created the 2000 XP API Wrapper:

OldCigarettes Windows 2000 XP API Wrapper Pack (OCW)

http://oldcigaret.info/win2k/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=7 This is mainly intended for just games and is not as updated as the KDW wrapper:


Around the same time a Japanese developer created the KDW wrapper which was mainly intended for Applications but over time (since it's updated alot more frequently) it has includded everything that OldCigarettes wrapper has:

http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/120936-kdw-fcwin2k/


Starting around 2+ years ago most games coming out stopped working on Windows 2000 due mainly to requirements for GFWL, Xaudio, XP+ only D3Dx dependencies and other XP dependencies that 2000 does not have. The above wrappers take care of these issues.

So using those wrappers almost 9 out of 10 if it runs on XP it will run on 2000.



As a standard practice I make all of my Steam games standalone so I don't have to worry about Steam not working. ;)


And as always when someone talks about using an old OS there is always someone who likes to bitch about how the OS isn't updated anymore well that's not true for Windows 2000 because WildBill has been backporting the XP security updates to Windows 2000:

http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/146529-pe-tool-for-creating-patches/

and he is currently working on an update to the Windows 2000 Kernel which will make Windows 2000 even more compatible (the wrappers can only do so much). For example the latest Java JRE 7 requires updated kernel files.




There is also a similar project for Windows 98\ME which is alot easier to use and in some ways more compatible than the above wrappers:

KernelEX
http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/130936-kernelex-451/

It's pretty amazing how much it makes compatible.


Finally my PC Game Compatibility List: http://vogons.zetafleet.com/viewtopic.php?t=8784

Haven't updated the 2000 results in awhile though :(

Thanks DosFreak for the useful points, I may try them at a better time.

if the developers didnt have there heads up there well you know... and supported Open GL and ditched Direct X you wouldn't need to upgrade to get the pretty... DX10 effects have been in OGL for years... at half the resource usage they require in DX :/

Also DosFreak i have had issues getting some games standalone from steam.. ive had much success but also many failures with the "steam" only releases as in its the only release platform.

Game developers use Direct3D for very good reasons, one of them being multi-platform development. OpenGL is worthless for this purpose because no console uses it whereas Direct3D lets developers hit two platforms at once (or three if they're also doing a Windows Phone 7 version). Mac OS X and Linux versions are rarely developed simultaneously (if at all) so compatibility with them isn't a consideration.

This is why the only developers seriously using OpenGL are those making PC-only games that need to run on Mac OS X and Linux... and iD Software, for whatever reason.

More specifically, PS3 uses PSGL, a stupid, crippled, proprietary knockoff of OpenGL. Writing in OpenGL doesn't even come close to making your code work with PS3. PS3 doesn't even have proper shaders.

PSGL has exactly so much future as Sony's decision to keep the PS3 alive. I wouldn't want to be holding an investment in a lot of PSGL-specific code.

OpenGL ES is the suitable API for mobile and embedded devices. After the Charlie Foxtrot that was Win CE, Microsoft has to prove they have done something worth using before I'll consider Windows on a mobile or embedded product.