Windows XP thinks it's windows 2000?

[-DrDavid]

Ok so this issue has been happening for about a month now and it's getting really annoying. Now my system is running Windows XP Professional Service Pack 3. I was trying to download windows malicious software in hopes of resolving this issue. It says it's not compatible with my system and it says I'm running Windows 2000 32-Bit. Applications for me have been failing for the past month. For example, Google Chrome says "Chrome requires Windows XP or higher for it to work properly, some tools may not work properly" or something along those lines. Some games aren't working for me that well. For example, Wizard101 won't even let me open it, even though I've redone loaded it a bunch of times, it ran perfect a few months ago. As well as RuneScape client. This doesn't open as well even though it ran perfect a few months ago. At one point Google Chrome stopped working completely. Every time I tried to open it it would give me a error message. I don't get why this is happening, I uninstalled a bunch of software as well as did a disk defragmenting. My pc is 6 years old and I will list the specs if needed to. Every application thinks I'm running Windows 2000 and some of them don't work. Also if this is relevant I disabled Windows Firewall because it kept crashing games. Please help me.

 

[COLGeek]

Have you scanned this system for malware with an app like malwarebytes?

www.malwarebytes.org (the free version will meet the needs of most users)

Also, where did you get your original Windows XP installation files from?

 

[FALC0N]

XP is windows 2000. Your system is right about that. However, it should not identify itself as windows 2000.

 

[FALC0N]

Vembutech was there another windows 2000 that I have forgotten about? As I recall, pro was the only version.

And yes, 2000 was darn near identical to XP until XP hit service pack 2. Minus a few bell and whistles, of course.

 

[COLGeek]

W2K was originally NT5 (when I first beta tested it). XP evolved out of W2K.

The OP needs to follow-up with us. We still don't know if Malwarebytes found anything or where this install of XP came from.

 

[FALC0N]

2000 wasn't supposed to be NT 5.0. It is NT 5.0. XP is NT 5.1. Vista is NT 6.0. Windows 7 is NT 6.1. Windows 8 is NT 6.2. XP, vista, 7, etc, are all marketing fluff.

 

[COLGeek]

The original follow-up OS to NT4 was NT5, later renamed as Windows 2000. I beta tested all from the very first build through the actual release. XP evolved out of that baseline.

Nice numerology there 😉

 

[FALC0N]

And it remained NT 5.0. They never abandoned the version numbering they were using. They just started given them goofy marketing names. If you request the OS version number from the command prompt, it still shows the NT version number.

 

[-DrDavid]

Ok I did do a malware bytes scan. But again my issue is not resolved Wizard101 is not opening as well as my system still thinks it's a Windows 2000 32-Bit. I did see a performance boost in Combat arms going from an average 10-20 fps on low settings to about 40-50 on low settings. So I guess that's a plus.

 

[-DrDavid]

Oh and my windows xp installation files, I have no idea what that is. My pc is my dad's pc but he handed it down to me. I'm pretty sure when we bought it, it had Windows 7 back in 2009 but the computer got a virus and my parents sent it off to somebody to fix it, when we got it back it had windows xp. Now I may be wrong on this but I think I'm right since on my computer case it has a sticker saying windows 7.

 

[FALC0N]

So it's a windows XP machine that used to be a Windows 7 machine, but thinks its a Windows 2000 machine. Sounds like something out of the Bourne identity.

What brand of system?

 

[COLGeek]

Sounds like the best solution might be to match up the Windows 7 version (per the product key label) and re-install it onto this slightly deranged rig. If the product key is readable, it can be used to re-install Win 7.