Windows 2000
Windows 2000
(operating system)Windows 2000 is most commonly used on Intel x86 andPentium processors, with a DEC Alpha version rumoured.Unlike Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000 is not available forPowerPC or MIPS.
Windows 2000's user interface is very similar to Windows 95 or Windows NT 4.0 with integrated Internet Explorer, orto Windows 98.
It is available in four flavours:
- Professional: the client version, meant for desktopworkstations, successor to Windows NT Workstation.
- Server: "entry-level" server, designed for smalldeployments, and departmental file, print, or intranetservers.
- Advanced Server: high throughput, larger scale serversand applications, and small to medium scale websites.
- Data Center Server: software for large-scale serverclusters (in development as of 2000-03-14).
New features in Windows 2000 include:
- Active Directory.
- Greatly improved built-in security mechanisms, includingKerberos-based authentication, public key support, anencrypting file system, and IPsec support.
- Integrated web browser - Internet Explorer 5.0.
- Integrated web server - IIS 5.0
- Terminal services for displaying application interfaces onremote computers (similar to X-Windows).
- File protection that prevents user programs fromaccidentally deleting or overwriting critical system files.
- Improved hardware support, including Plug-and-Play, DVD,IEEE-1394 (FireWire), USB, infra-red, PCMCIA, ACPI,laptop computers.
- Improved user interface, including a single point to controlthe entire system.
- Improved management tools, including remote administration.
Minimum system requirements, according to Microsoft, arePentium-133 MHz CPU, 64 MB RAM, 650 MB of hard disk space. These are for W2K Professional, others requiremore.
Many operating systems compete with Windows 2000, includingthe Apple MacOS, Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD,Sun Solaris, IBM AIX, Hewlett-Packard HP-UX, SGIIrix. Novell's NDS also provides a service similar toActive Directory.
Windows 2000 will be followed by Windows XP Professional andWindows 2002.
http://microsoft.com/windows2000/.
Usenet newsgroups: news:microsoft.public.windows2000,news:comp.os.ms-windows.
Windows 2000
Also called "Win2K" and "W2K," Windows 2000 was a major upgrade to Windows NT 4, launched in early 2000. Available in one client and three server versions, Windows 2000 added support for Plug and Play. It used the same interface as Windows 95/98, but added considerably more features, dialogs and options.From NT Domains to Active Directory
Windows 2000 supported Active Directory, which replaced NT's domain system and made network administration simpler. This was a major redesign of the directory structure for companies. More stable than NT, Win 2000 was designed to eliminate erroneous replacement of DLLs when applications were installed (see DLL hell).
Versions
Windows 2000 Advanced Server was similar to Windows NT Server, Enterprise Edition, which supported clustering and automatic failover in the event of a system failure. Windows 2000 DataCenter Server supported more advanced clustering and was the top server offering. Windows 2000 Professional was the client version. See Windows, Windows Server 2003, Windows NT, Windows XP, Active Directory and Plug and Play.
Windows 2000 SMPVersion Use Support RAM Professional Client 2GB Server Server 4-way 2GB Advanced Server* Server 8-way 8GB DataCenter Server* Server 32-way 64GB *Supports clustering, failover and load balancing