Understanding Windows 2000

Just when most people thought they had NT under their belt, Microsoft announced the release of Windows 2000. Originally, Windows 2000 was named NT 5. It was supposed to ship in 1998 but was delayed. After many beta releases and an incredible level of input from the Windows community, Microsoft released Windows 2000 to manufacturers on February 17, 2000.

platforms

The hardware or software that supports any given system. The term platform can be used, for example, to reference a Pentium 4-based computer or Windows98.

Windows 2000 has four platforms:

• Windows 2000 Professional is the business desktop operating system offering the superior performance of NT workstation but with several significant enhancements.

• Windows 2000 Server.

• Windows 2000 Advanced Server replaces the Enterprise edition of NT 4 as the next-generation Windows cluster server.

• Windows 2000 Datacenter Server is designed for the most demanding server environments found in large companies or high-demand websites.

All versions of Windows 2000 include several major changes over Windows NT 4:

• A 64-bit operating system supports Intel's 64-bit Itanium processor.

• Plug-and-Play capability is included. This capability enables the operating system to recognize hardware additions or changes to the system and automatically load the necessary software if available or prompt the user for the software.

• Microsoft Management Console (MMC) has been extended as the central management interface for all administrative tools. With MMC, administrators can customize the console they use.

• FAT32 disk partitions are supported. FAT32 is a way of formatting your logical drives to store data more efficiently than using FAT16. This has been supported by Windows 95/98 but not by previous versions of NT.

• Windows 2000 has no Alpha processor support.

Many experts are questioning the rationale of changing over a completely functioning NT network to Windows 2000. There are many varying opinions, and some believe that the best way to migrate to 2000 is to scrap NT altogether and design from scratch. Although determining the better option is beyond the scope of this book, a summary comparison of the two operating systems might help you to make your decision. In the meantime, read plenty of articles and get to know the technology completely before deciding on Windows 2000.

	Windows NT 4	Windows 2000
Network Model	Domain	Directory services or domain
Plug-and-Play support	No	Yes
Management Tool format	Multiple	Microsoft Management Console
Performance	Minimal difference	Minimal difference
Disk formats supported	FAT, NTFS	FAT, FAT32, NTFS
Ease of use	Minimal wizards	Improved and expanded wizard and much improved installer
Recovery options	Use of repair disk or reinstall	Safe mode like Windows 98 and capability to repair damage
Reliability	Reboots for every device change, service installation, and some configuration changes	No reboots for device configuration, most software installations, and for configuring and starting services