<
operating system> (Win2k, W2k, NT5,
Windows NT 5.0) An
operating system developed by
Microsoft Corporation for
PCs and
servers, as the successor to
Windows NT 4.0.
Early
beta versions were referred to as "
Windows NT 5.0".
Windows 2000 was officially released on 2000-02-17.
Windows 2000 is most commonly used on
Intel x86 and
Pentium processors, with a
DEC Alpha version rumoured.
Unlike
Windows NT 4.0,
Windows 2000 is not available for
PowerPC or
MIPS.
Windows 2000's
user interface is very similar to {
Windows
95} or
Windows NT 4.0 with integrated
Internet Explorer, or
to
Windows 98.
It is available in four flavours:
- Professional: the
client version, meant for desktop
workstations, successor to
Windows NT Workstation.
- Server: "entry-level" server, designed for small
deployments, and departmental file, print, or
intranet
servers.
- Advanced Server: high throughput, larger scale servers
and applications, and small to medium scale
websites.
- Data Center Server: software for large-scale server
clusters (in development as of 2000-03-14).
New features in
Windows 2000 include:
-
Active Directory.
- Greatly improved built-in security mechanisms, including
Kerberos-based
authentication,
public key support, an
encrypting file system, and
IPsec support.
- Integrated
web browser -
Internet Explorer 5.0.
- Integrated
web server -
IIS 5.0
- Terminal services for displaying application interfaces on
remote computers (similar to
X-Windows).
- File protection that prevents user programs from
accidentally deleting or overwriting critical system files.
- Improved hardware support, including
Plug-and-Play,
DVD,
IEEE-1394 (FireWire),
USB,
infra-red,
PCMCIA,
ACPI,
laptop computers.
- Improved user interface, including a single point to control
the entire system.
- Improved management tools, including remote administration.
Minimum system requirements, according to Microsoft, are
Pentium-133
MHz CPU, 64
MB RAM, 650
MB of {hard
disk} space. These are for W2K Professional, others require
more.
Many
operating systems compete with
Windows 2000, including
the
Apple MacOS,
Linux,
FreeBSD,
OpenBSD,
NetBSD,
Sun Solaris,
IBM AIX,
Hewlett-Packard HP-UX,
SGI
Irix. Novell's NDS also provides a service similar to
Active Directory.
Windows 2000 will be followed by
Windows XP Professional and
Windows 2002.
http://microsoft.com/windows2000/.
Usenet newsgroups:
news:microsoft.public.windows2000,
windows">news:comp.os.ms-windows.
(2002-01-28)