ASSIGNMENT ON WINDOWS 2000 Name.....……………………Abhishek Chaudhary Roll No….…………….……………………..……...B-09 Branch….Computer Science & Engineering Introduction What is Windows 2000? Windows 2000 is an established commercial version of Microsoft’s evolving Windows operating system. 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 server 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 Microsoft Windows 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 people 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 File System, 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 H I S T O RY 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 Active Directory, 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 Windows 98 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 H I S T O RY 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 Internet Explorer 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. Internet Explorer 5 (Internet Explorer 6 came in 2001) 3. Outlook Express 4. NetMeeting 5. FAT32 support 6. Windows Driver Model 7. Internet Connection Sharing 8. Windows Media Player 9. WebDAV support 10. Microsoft Management Console 11. Image Color Management 2.0 12. Encrypting File System (EFS) 13. Logical Disk Manager 14. Multi-Language and locale support 15. USB device class drivers for USB printers 16. Hibernation support 17. File Protection 18. Windows Installer 19. System File Checker 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.