ASSIGNMENT ON

Name.....……………………Abhishek Chaudhary

Roll No….…………….……………………..……...B-09

Branch….Computer Science & Engineering

Introduction What is Windows 2000?

Windows 2000 is an established commercial version of ’s evolving Windows . Previously

called Windows NT5.0, Microsoft emphasizes that Windows 2000 is evolutionary and “Built on NT Technology”. It is designed to appeal to small business and professional users as well as to the more technical and larger business market for which the NT was designed.

Assignment on Windows 2000

WHAT IS WINDOWS 2000 ?

Windows 2000 is an operating system for use on both client and computers. It was produced by Microsoft and released to manufacturing on December 15, 1999 and launched to retail on February 17, 2000. It is the successor to Windows NT 4.0, and is the last version of to display the "Windows NT" designation. It is succeeded by Windows XP (released in October 2001) and Windows Server 2003 (released in April 2003). During development, Windows 2000 was known as Windows NT 5.0.

Four editions of Windows 2000 were released: Professional, Server, Advanced Server, and Datacenter Server; the latter was both released to manufacturing and launched months after the other editions. While each edition of Windows 2000 was targeted at a different market, they shared a core set of features, including many system utilities such as the Microsoft Management Console and standard system administration applications.

Support for with disabilities was improved over Windows NT 4.0 with a number of new assistive technologies, and Microsoft increased support for different languages and locale information.

All versions of the operating system support NTFS 3.0, Encrypting , as well as basic and dynamic disk storage. The Windows 2000 Server family has additional features, including the ability to provide Directory services (a hierarchical framework of resources), Distributed File System (a file system that supports sharing of files) and fault-redundant storage volumes. Windows 2000 can be installed through either a manual or unattended installation. Unattended installations rely on the use of answer files to fill in installation information, and can be performed through a bootable CD using Microsoft Systems Management Server, by the System Preparation Tool.

Page 1 Assignment on Windows 2000 WHAT IS WINDOWS 2000 ?

Microsoft marketed Windows 2000 as the most secure Windows version ever at the time; however, it became the target of a number of high-profile virus attacks such as Code Red and Nimda. For ten years after its release, it continued to receive patches for security vulnerabilities nearly every month until reaching the end of its lifecycle on July 13, 2010. Although they did leave two security issues in the TCP/IP stack that were discovered in 2009 (while Windows 2000 was still in Extended Support) unpatched, claiming that it would be too much effort to back port the amount of code necessary to fix them. These issues were also not fixed in Windows XP. Microsoft suggested turning on the firewall.

Page 2 Assignment on Windows 2000 HISTORY

Windows 2000 is a continuation of the Microsoft Windows NT family of operating systems, replacing Windows NT 4.0. Originally called Windows NT 5.0, then Windows NT 2000, Microsoft changed the name to Windows 2000 on 27 October 1998. It is also the first Windows version that has been released without a code name, though Windows 2000 Service Pack 1 was codenamed “Asteroid” and Windows 2000 64-bit was codenamed "Janus” (not to be confused with Windows 3.1, which had the same codename). The first beta for Windows 2000 was released in September 1997 and several further betas followed until Beta 3 which was released on 29 April 1999. During the development, there was a DEC Alpha build of Windows 2000 which was abandoned sometime after RC1 after Compaq announced they'd dropped Windows NT support for Alpha. From here, Microsoft issued three release candidates between July and November 1999, and finally released the operating system to partners on 12 December 1999. The public could buy the full version of Windows 2000 on 17 February 2000. Three

Days before this event, which Microsoft advertised as "a standard in reliability", a leaked memo from Microsoft reported on by Mary Jo Foley revealed that Windows 2000 had "over 63,000 potential known defects". After Foley's article was published, Microsoft blacklisted her for a considerable time: InformationWeek summarized the release "our tests show the successor to NT 4.0 is everything we hoped it would be. Of course, it isn't perfect either." Wired News later described the results of the February launch as “lackluster”. Novell criticized Microsoft's , the new directory service architecture as less scalable or reliable than its own Novell Directory Services (NDS) alternative. Windows 2000 was first planned to replace both and Windows NT 4.0. However, that changed later. Instead, an updated version of Windows 98 called Windows 98 Second Edition was released in 1999 and Windows Me was released in late 2000. Close to the release of Windows 2000 Service Pack 1,

Page 3 Assignment on Windows 2000

HISTORY

Microsoft released Windows 2000 Datacenter Server, targeted at large-scale computing systems with support for 32 processors, on 29 September 2000. On or shortly before 12 February 2004, "portions of the Microsoft Windows 2000 and Windows NT 4.0 source code were illegally made available on the Internet". The source of the leak remains unannounced. Microsoft issued the following Statement:

“Microsoft source code is both copyrighted and protected as a trade secret. As Such, it is illegal to post it, make it available to others, download it or use it.”

Despite the warnings, the archive containing the leaked code spread widely on the file-sharing networks. On 16 February 2004, an exploit “allegedly discovered by an individual studying the leaked source code” for certain versions of Microsoft was reported.

Page 4 Assignment on Windows 2000 NEW AND UPDATED FEAT URE S

Windows 2000 introduced many of the new features of Windows 98 and Windows 98 SE into the NT line, I will introduce them to you.

1. Windows Desktop Update 2. ( came in 2001) 3. 4. NetMeeting 5. FAT32 support 6. Windows Driver Model 7. Internet Connection Sharing 8. 9. WebDAV support 10. Microsoft Management Console 11. Image Color Management 2.0 12. (EFS) 13. 14. Multi-Language and locale support 15. USB device class drivers for USB printers 16. Hibernation support 17. File Protection 18. 19.

Page 5 Assignment on Windows 2000 WINDOWS 2000 HARDWARE REQUIREMENTS

Minimum Requirements Recommended Requirements

Intel Pentium or compatible 133 MHz or higher Intel Pentium II or compatible 300 MHz or higher processor. Windows 2000 Professional supports processor. single and dual CPU systems.

32 MB of RAM. 64 MB (4 GB maximum).

2-GB hard disk with 650 MB free disk space. 2 GB of free space. (Additional disk is required if installing over the network).

VGA-compatible or higher monitor. SVGA Plug and Play Monitor.

Keyboard, mouse or other pointing device. Keyboard, mouse or other pointing device.

CD-ROM or DVD drive (required for compact disc CD-ROM or DVD drive 12x or faster. installation).

Network adapter (required for network Network adapter. installation).

Source: Microsoft TechNet

Page 6 Assignment on Windows 2000 EDITIONS

Microsoft released various editions of Windows 2000 for different markets and business needs: Professional, Server, Advanced Server and Datacenter Server. Each was packaged separately.

1. Windows 2000 Professional was designed as the desktop operating system for businesses and power users. It is the client version of Windows 2000. It offers greater security and stability than many of the previous Windows desktop operating systems. It supports up to two processors, and can address up to 4 GB of RAM. The system requirements are a Pentium processor (or equivalent) of 133 MHz or greater, at least 32 MB of RAM, 650 MB of hard drive space, and a CD-ROM drive (recommended: Pentium II, 128 MB of RAM, 2 GB of hard drive space, and CD-ROM drive). 2. Windows 2000 Server shares the same user interface with Windows 2000 Professional, but contains additional components for the computer to perform server roles and run infrastructure and application software. A significant new component introduced in the server versions is Active Directory, which is an enterprise-wide directory service based onLDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol). Additionally, Microsoft integrated Kerberos network authentication, replacing the often-criticised NTLM (NT LAN Manager) authentication system used in previous versions. This also provided a purely transitive- trust relationship between Windows 2000 domains in a forest (a collection of one or more Windows 2000 domains that share a common schema, configuration, and global catalog, being linked with two-way transitive trusts). Furthermore, Windows 2000 introduced a Domain Name Server which allows dynamic registration of IP addresses. Windows 2000 Server supports up to 4 processors and 4GB of RAM, with a minimum requirement of 128 MB of RAM and 1 GB hard disk space, however requirements may be higher depending on installed components. 3. Windows 2000 Advanced Server is a variant of Windows 2000 Server operating system designed for medium-to-large businesses. It offers clustering infrastructure for high availability and scalability of applications and services, including support for up to 8 CPUs, a main memory amount of up to 8 gigabytes (GB) on Physical Address Extension (PAE) systems and the ability to do 8-way SMP.

Page 7 Assignment on Windows 2000 EDITIONS

4. Windows 2000 Datacenter Server is a variant of Windows 2000 Server designed for large businesses that move large quantities of confidential or sensitive data frequently via a central server. Like Advanced Server, it supports clustering, failover and load balancing. Its minimum system requirements are normal, but it was designed to be capable of handling advanced, fault-tolerant and scalable hardware—for instance computers with up to 32 CPUs and 32 GBs RAM,

with rigorous system testing and qualification, hardware partitioning, coordinated maintenance and change control. System requirements are similar to those of Windows 2000 Advanced Server, however they may need to be higher to scale to larger infrastructure. Windows 2000 Datacenter Server was released to manufacturing on August 11, 2000 and launched on September 26, 2000. This edition was based on Windows 2000 with Service Pack 1 and was not available at retail.

Page 8 Assignment on Windows 2000 SECURITY

During the Windows 2000 period, the nature of attacks on Windows servers changed: more attacks came from remote sources via the Internet. This has led to an overwhelming number of malicious programs exploiting the IIS services – specifically a notorious buffer overflow tendency. This tendency is not operating-system-version specific, but rather configuration-specific: it depends on the services that are enabled. Following this, a common complaint is that "by default, Windows 2000 installations contain numerous potential security problems. Many unneeded services are installed and enabled, and there is no active local security policy." In addition to insecure defaults, according to the SANS Institute, the most common flaws discovered are remotely exploitable buffer overflow vulnerabilities. Other criticized flaws include the use of vulnerable encryption techniques.

Code Red and Code Red II were famous (and much discussed) worms that exploited vulnerabilities of the Windows of Windows 2000's Internet Information Services (IIS). In August 2003, two major worms called Sobig and Blaster began to attack millions of Microsoft Windows computers, resulting in the largest downtime and clean-up cost to that date. The 2005 Zotob worm was blamed for security compromises on Windows 2000 machines at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the New York Times Company, ABC and CNN.

On September 8, 2009, Microsoft skipped patching two of the five security flaws that were addressed in the monthly security update, saying that patching one of the critical security flaws was "infeasible." According to Microsoft Security Bulletin MS09-048: "The architecture to properly support TCP/IP protection does not exist on Microsoft Windows 2000 systems, making it infeasible to build the fix for Microsoft Windows 2000 Service Pack 4 to eliminate the vulnerability. To do so would require re- architecting a very significant amount of the Microsoft Windows 2000 Service Pack 4 operating system, there would be no assurance that applications designed to run on Microsoft Windows 2000 Service Pack 4 would continue to operate on the updated system." No patches for this flaw were however released for the newer Windows XP (32-bit) and Windows XP Professional x64 Edition either, despite both also being affected.

Page 9 Assignment on Windows 2000 S UPPORT LIFECYCLE

Windows 2000 has now been superseded by newer Microsoft operating systems: Windows 2000 Server products by Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008, and Windows 2000 Professional by Windows XP Professional and Windows Vista Business. The Windows 2000 family of operating systems moved from mainstream support to the extended support phase on 30 June 2005. Microsoft says that This marks the progression of Windows 2000 through the Windows lifecycle policy. Under mainstream support, Microsoft freely provides design changes if any, service packs and non-security related updates in addition to security updates, whereas in extended support, service packs are not provided and non- security updates require contacting the support personnel by e- or phone. Under the extended support phase, Microsoft continues to provide critical security updates every month for all components of Windows 2000 (including Internet Explorer 5.0 SP4) and paid per-incident support for technical issues. Because of Windows 2000's age, updated versions of components such as Windows Media Player 11 and have not been released for it. In the case of Internet Explorer, Microsoft said in 2005 that, "some of the security work in IE 7 relies on operating system functionality in XP SP2 that is non-trivial to port back to Windows 2000.“ While users of Windows 2000 are eligible to receive the upgrade license for Windows Vista or Windows Server 2008, neither of these operating systems can directly perform an upgrade installation from Windows 2000; a clean installation must be Performed instead. All Windows 2000 support including new security updates and security-related Hot fixes will be terminated on July 13, 2010. Although Windows 2000 is the last NT-based version of Microsoft Windows which does not include Windows Product Activation, Microsoft has introduced Windows Genuine Advantage for certain downloads and non-critical updates from the Download Center for Windows 2000.

Sources: Wikipedia, TechTargert & Google Images

Page 10