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Internet Services

With Windows 2000, anything that can be done on a corporate network can be done in a Web environment as well. Windows 2000 incorporates a set of services that provide server-side support for the most popular application-level Internet protocols, enabling a Windows 2000 server to function as a Web server, FTP server, SMTP host, or NNTP host.

In the Microsoft Windows NT 4 operating system, these services are provided by an optional component called Internet Information Services. To obtain full support for Internet services in a Windows NT 4 environment, administrators must install Internet Information Services after applying Service Pack 3 or higher for Windows NT 4 Server and the Windows NT 4 Option Pack. By contrast, basic Internet services are fully integrated into the Windows 2000 Server and Windows 2000 Advanced Server platforms. These services are now referred to as Internet Information Services 5.0 instead of Internet Information Services.

Because Internet Information Services are fully integrated with Windows 2000, you can do things like host multiple Web sites on a single Windows 2000 Server with only one IP address. In addition, each Web site can have its own user database, which means that multiple independent user domains can coexist on a single server.

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Defying Categories

As you can tell from the previous sections, it's difficult to pigeonhole many of the changes in Windows 2000. The NTFS 5 file system affects disk management because it allows the setting of disk quotas for monitoring and limiting disk space usage on NTFS volumes . At the same time, it's an important security component, adding file encryption to its existing security capabilities.

As a result, neat categories aren't always possible. The discussions in this book are organized around particular tasks , thus avoiding a laundry list of tools and/or their menus .

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The Need for Planning

Whether one is designing a new network or making changes to an existing one, planning is the essential, nonglamorous, before-everything-else component. Few enjoy and many actively dislike this task, but it's important to understand that every minute, every hour spent planning will later repay you (or your heirs and assigns ) a hundredfold.

Sometimes it's difficult to appreciate the benefits of careful planning—until you've had the misfortune of having to support a poorly considered installation. Windows 2000 is particularly unforgiving of an offhand approach to planning. As has been mentioned before, you can add Windows 2000 Server or Professional to a Windows NT 4 network. However, unless you plan on eventually using Active Directory and other Windows 2000-specific tools, the benefits of just plugging in a couple of Windows 2000 machines will be minimal. And in all cases, designing directories—not to mention applying new concepts such as forests and trees—requires considerable thought and the ability to project current experience into the future. Therefore, the wise systems person takes a longer perspective.

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Summary

This chapter has provided only the briefest overview of the Windows 2000 system and a look at just a few of the thousands of changes, large and small, that have been made. Deciding how to implement Windows 2000 on your system will require thought and planning. Although planning and design are important elements in nearly every chapter in this book, the next three chapters are devoted exclusively to the subject. Chapter 2 addresses your use of Active Directory. Chapter 3 covers planning namespace and domains. Finally, Chapter 4 covers the matters to be considered before deploying your first copy of Windows 2000.