After three years of public beta testing Windows 2000 - which (despite the name) is the successor to Windows NT rather than Windows 98 - is finally out in the Wild. Terence Green takes a look

Windows 2000 is a family consisting of the Windows 2000 Professional desktop client and three server versions, Windows 2000 Server, Windows 2000 Advanced Server, and Windows 2000 DataCenter Server. The servers are differentiated by the number of CPUs they support, by scalability services such as clustering, and by advanced memory management. A fourth server, Windows AppCenter Server for applications service providers (ASP), has been promised for late 2000.
When conceived Windows 2000 was going to be the point where Windows NT subsumed Windows 98 but that plan changed a year ago. Windows NT 5 as it was called then was renamed Widows 2000 and Windows 98 was given a new lease of life. Windows 98 Second Edition followed soon after, and now a new consumer Windows code named Millennium is in beta test.
Windows 2000 is still Microsoft's main focus and still a general purpose operating system for corporate servers, clients, and high-end laptops. But now it combines the Windows 98 user interface and broad hardware support with Windows NT plumbing, making it less of a leap for the business-oriented Windows 98 user looking for a more reliable system. The new user interface, a much enhanced Windows 98 interface overlays Windows NT plumbing and rationalises the configuration and administration interfaces which were all over the place in Windows NT and Windows 98. Users will have to discover where all the new levers and switches are but at least they're not scattered all over anymore.
The desktop installs with fewer icons and the windows they open are more selective in the amount of information they present to the user. For example, Network Places (formerly Network Neighbourhood) no longer defaults to listing every computer it can find, and the Start menu actually adapts in use, hiding rarely-used options after a while.

HARDWARE SUPPORT
The support for hardware is hugely improved over Windows NT. Most new hardware interfaces such as USB, DVD, and IEEE 1394 (FireWire) are supported in Windows 2000 and, especially important for laptops, so are hot-plug PC Cards and power management. There is a catch. Windows 2000's primary power management support uses the Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI). The older Advanced Power Management (APM) system controlled by the PC BIOS (and the best most pre-1999 BIOSes have to offer) is only given 'legacy' support..
Under ACPI the operating system controls power management and peripheral configuration. It's more efficient than APM but requires the PC BIOS, all hardware peripherals, and their drivers to be ACPI-aware. Windows 2000 test for ACPI during installation and only installs ACPI support if it's happy with all the hardware. If not, usually due to the presence of non-Plug and Play cards, ISA cards, or unsuitable device drivers, standard APM support may be installed rather than ACPI.
Like Windows NT, Windows 2000 reliability can be affected by poor device drivers. To weed these out Microsoft has introduced a digital certification system for device drivers. Those which pass are digitally signed. Certified drivers increase the reliability of the system and improve the chances of isolating problems caused by rogue drivers. Whenever new hardware drivers are installed Windows 2000 looks for a digital signature and issues a warning if none is found. Sticking to hardware found in the Windows 2000 Hardware Compatibility List is a good way of selecting peripherals with digitally signed drivers. The most recent HCL is always published on the Microsoft web site along with links to driver updates.
Windows 2000 has much broader support for hardware than Windows NT but that won't stop it having to wait in line behind Windows 98 for device driver updates. Microsoft has tried to minimise this problem by developing a new driver model, the Windows Device Model (WDM). This is a set of interfaces which enables peripheral vendors to build drivers quickly and to build only one driver to support both Windows 2000 and Windows 98. WDM is a big help but it doesn't cover every peripheral, video cards and parallel printers being the major exceptions.
Although aimed at the corporate market, Windows 2000 Professional does have much to commend it to the Windows 98 user in search of a more reliable operating system. With DirectX 7 support built in can even run games. as Windows 2000 ships with Microsoft's latest DirectX 7 software. Not DOS games which hit the hardware because Windows 2000 reliability comes from preventing applications from direct access to the hardware, but Windows games. This includes games such as Flight Simulator and Age of Empires which make use of DirectX as well as games such as Quake which support OpenGL.

WINDOWS SERVER
In addition to broad hardware support and new reliability enhancements Windows 2000 also has a new NTFS 5 file system which supports a disk defragmentation utility, text content indexing, and encryption for files, folders, and drives. The last feature is a great one for laptops holding company data.
The features mentioned above apply to the Windows 2000 family as a whole but there are some major innovations to the Server versions, biggest of all being the Active Directory. This system-wide repository for machine, user, and network resource data enables administrators to exercise true centralised control over Windows 2000 networks. It promises reductions in the total cost of ownership (TCO) but, for full lock down control of network clients they must be running Windows 2000 Professional.
Maximum TCO savings accrue when the applications used on the network are logo-certified Windows 2000 applications as these enable just-in-time installation and self-healing for applications. JIT installation allows roaming users to log on at any workstation and receive their desktop and applications while self-healing fixes applications which aren't properly installed, perhaps because they have inadvertently been deleted by an inexperienced user.
Installing Active Directory is an optional exercise and one that needs careful preplanning because its impact will be felt right across the network. Fortunately it can be introduced at a measured pace, as Windows 2000 server can coexist with Windows NT servers in both workgroups and domains.

HARDWARE REQUIREMENTS
In order to support all the new features Windows 2000 needs considerably more resources than previous versions. Microsoft recommends at least 64MB RAM for Windows 2000 professional, 128MB RAM for Windows 2000 Server, and a fast Pentium II or III for best performance. Out of the box Windows 2000 Server supports up to four processors, Advanced Server up to eight, and DataCenter Server up to 32. Both client and server versions need a little under a gigabyte of free disk space for system files.
Windows 2000 (Server or Professional) upgrades most earlier versions of Windows but it pays to check the hardware and software compatibility lists on Microsoft's Windows 2000 web site as there are some potential obstacles, particularly with older 32-bit Windows applications which may not be fully supported even though they run on Windows 95/98 or Windows NT.

CONCLUSION
Windows 2000 has a lot to offer, both on the desktop and in the server, but it needs good hardware, preferably not too old, and lots of it. Windows 2000 is also effectively a very new operating system which, despite the years of testing, will need to mature in the real world.
Windows 2000 Professional already looks like a good upgrade for Windows 98 and Windows NT Workstation but Windows 200 Server is a bigger proposition which should be approached with care, training, and careful planning. NC

Uncluttered desktop with adaptive desktop menus that change to reflect
your usage pattern.

Windows 2000 more wizards, such as the Network Connection Wizard above, to make configuration easier.

There’s big changes in storage support from disk defragmentation to disk quotas.