Windows 2000 is a major release of the

Windows NT Windows NT is a proprietary graphical operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems sc ...

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also in ...

developed by

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...

and oriented towards businesses. It was the direct successor to

Windows NT 4.0 Windows NT 4.0 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft and oriented towards businesses. It is the direct successor to Windows NT 3.51, which was released to manufacturing on July 31, 1996, and then to retail ...

, and was

released to manufacturing A software release life cycle is the sum of the stages of development and maturity for a piece of computer software ranging from its initial development to its eventual release, and including updated versions of the released version to help impro ...

on December 15, 1999, and was officially released to retail on February 17, 2000. It was Microsoft's business operating system until the introduction of

Windows XP Windows XP is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It was released to manufacturing on August 24, 2001, and later to retail on October 25, 2001. It is a direct upgrade to its predecessors, Windows 2000 for high-end and ...

Professional in 2001. Windows 2000 introduced

NTFS New Technology File System (NTFS) is a proprietary journaling file system developed by Microsoft. Starting with Windows NT 3.1, it is the default file system of the Windows NT family. It superseded File Allocation Table (FAT) as the preferred fil ...

3.0,

Encrypting File System The Encrypting File System (EFS) on Microsoft Windows is a feature introduced in version 3.0 of NTFS that provides filesystem-level encryption. The technology enables files to be transparently encrypted to protect confidential data from attackers ...

, as well as basic and dynamic disk storage. Support for people with disabilities was improved over

with a number of new assistive technologies, and Microsoft increased support for different languages and locale information. The Windows 2000 Server family has additional features, most notably the introduction of

Active Directory Active Directory (AD) is a directory service developed by Microsoft for Windows domain networks. It is included in most Windows Server operating systems as a set of processes and services. Initially, Active Directory was used only for centralize ...

, which in the years following became a widely used

directory service In computing, a directory service or name service maps the names of network resources to their respective network addresses. It is a shared information infrastructure for locating, managing, administering and organizing everyday items and network r ...

in business environments. 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 Microsoft Management Console (MMC) is a component of Microsoft Windows that provides system administrators and advanced users an interface for configuring and monitoring the system. It was first introduced in 1998 with the Option Pack for Window ...

and standard

system administration A system administrator, or sysadmin, or admin is a person who is responsible for the upkeep, configuration, and reliable operation of computer systems, especially multi-user computers, such as servers. The system administrator seeks to ensu ...

applications. 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 The Nimda virus is a malicious file-infecting computer worm. It quickly spread, surpassing the economic damage caused by previous outbreaks such as Code Red. The first released advisory about this thread (worm) was released on September 18, 200 ...

. For ten years after its release, it continued to receive patches for security

vulnerabilities Vulnerability refers to "the quality or state of being exposed to the possibility of being attacked or harmed, either physically or emotionally." A window of vulnerability (WOV) is a time frame within which defensive measures are diminished, com ...

nearly every month until reaching the end of support on July 13, 2010, the same day which support ended for

Windows XP SP2 Windows XP is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It was release to manufacturing, released to manufacturing on August 24, 2001, and later to retail on October 25, 2001. It is a direct upgrade to its predecessors, Wind ...

. Windows 2000 and Windows 2000 Server were succeeded by

and

Windows Server 2003 Windows Server 2003 is the sixth version of Windows Server operating system produced by Microsoft. It is part of the Windows NT family of operating systems and was released to manufacturing on March 28, 2003 and generally available on April 24, 2 ...

, released in 2001 and 2003, respectively. Windows 2000 is the final version of Windows which supports

PC-98 The , commonly shortened to PC-98 or , is a lineup of Japanese 16-bit and 32-bit personal computers manufactured by NEC from 1982 to 2000. The platform established NEC's dominance in the Japanese personal computer market, and, by 1999, more th ...

i486 The Intel 486, officially named i486 and also known as 80486, is a microprocessor. It is a higher-performance follow-up to the Intel 386. The i486 was introduced in 1989. It represents the fourth generation of binary compatible CPUs following the ...

and

SGI Visual Workstation SGI Visual Workstation is a series of workstation computers that are designed and manufactured by SGI. Unlike its other product lines, which used the 64-bit MIPS RISC architecture, the line used Intel Pentium II and III processors and shipped ...

320 and 540, as well as

Alpha Alpha (uppercase , lowercase ; grc, ἄλφα, ''álpha'', or ell, άλφα, álfa) is the first letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of one. Alpha is derived from the Phoenician letter aleph , whic ...

, MIPS and

PowerPC PowerPC (with the backronym Performance Optimization With Enhanced RISC – Performance Computing, sometimes abbreviated as PPC) is a reduced instruction set computer (RISC) instruction set architecture (ISA) created by the 1991 Apple Inc., App ...

in alpha, beta, and release candidate versions. Its successor,

, requires a processor in any supported architecture (

IA-32 IA-32 (short for "Intel Architecture, 32-bit", commonly called i386) is the 32-bit version of the x86 instruction set architecture, designed by Intel and first implemented in the 80386 microprocessor in 1985. IA-32 is the first incarnation of ...

for 32-bit CPUs and

x86-64 x86-64 (also known as x64, x86_64, AMD64, and Intel 64) is a 64-bit version of the x86 instruction set, first released in 1999. It introduced two new modes of operation, 64-bit mode and compatibility mode, along with a new 4-level paging mod ...

and

Itanium Itanium ( ) is a discontinued family of 64-bit Intel microprocessors that implement the Intel Itanium architecture (formerly called IA-64). Launched in June 2001, Intel marketed the processors for enterprise servers and high-performance computin ...

for 64-bit CPUs).

History

Windows 2000 is a continuation of the Microsoft

family of operating systems, replacing

. The original name for the operating system was Windows NT 5.0 and the prep beta builds were compiled between March to August 1997, these builds were identical to Windows NT 4.0. The first official beta was released in September 1997, followed by Beta 2 in August 1998. On October 27, 1998, Microsoft announced that the name of the final version of the operating system would be Windows 2000, a name which referred to its projected release date. Windows 2000 Beta 3 was released in May 1999. NT 5.0 Beta 1 was similar to NT 4.0, including a very similarly themed logo. NT 5.0 Beta 2 introduced a new 'mini' boot screen, and removed the 'dark space' theme in the logo. The NT 5.0 betas had very long startup and shutdown sounds, though these were changed in the early Windows 2000 beta, but during Beta 3, a new

piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboa ...

-made startup and shutdown sounds were made, composed by Steven Ray Allen. It was featured in the final version as well as in

Windows Me Windows Millennium Edition, or Windows Me (marketed with the pronunciation of the pronoun "me"), is an operating system developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows 9x family of Microsoft Windows operating systems. It is the successor to Windo ...

. The new login prompt from the final version made its first appearance in Beta 3 build 1946 (the first build of Beta 3). The new, updated icons (for ''My Computer'', ''Recycle Bin'' etc.) first appeared in Beta 3 build 1964. The Windows 2000 boot screen in the final version first appeared in Beta 3 build 1983. Windows 2000 did not have an actual codename because, according to Dave Thompson of Windows NT team, "

Jim Allchin James Edward Allchin (born 1951, Grand Rapids, Michigan, United States) is an American computer scientist, philanthropist and guitarist. He is a former Microsoft executive. He assisted Microsoft in creating many of the system platform component ...

didn't like codenames". Windows 2000

Service Pack 1 In computing, a service pack comprises a collection of updates, fixes, or enhancements to a software program delivered in the form of a single installable package. Companies often release a service pack when the number of individual patches to a ...

was codenamed "Asteroid" and Windows 2000 64-bit was codenamed "Janus." During development, there was a build for the

which was abandoned in the final stages of development (between RC1 and RC2) after

Compaq Compaq Computer Corporation (sometimes abbreviated to CQ prior to a 2007 rebranding) was an American information technology company founded in 1982 that developed, sold, and supported computers and related products and services. Compaq produced ...

announced they had dropped support for Windows NT on Alpha. From here, Microsoft issued three release candidates between July and November 1999, and finally released the operating system to partners on December 12, 1999, followed by manufacturing three days later on December 15. The public could buy the full version of Windows 2000 on February 17, 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, she claimed that Microsoft

blacklist Blacklisting is the action of a group or authority compiling a blacklist (or black list) of people, countries or other entities to be avoided or distrusted as being deemed unacceptable to those making the list. If someone is on a blacklist, t ...

ed her for a considerable time. However,

Abraham Silberschatz Avi Silberschatz (born in Haifa, Israel) is an Israeli computer scientist and researcher. He graduated in 1976 with a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the State University of New York (SUNY) at Stony Brook. He became the Sidney J. Weinberg Profe ...

et al. claim in their computer science textbook that "Windows 2000 was the most reliable, stable operating system Microsoft had ever shipped to that point. Much of this reliability came from maturity in the source code, extensive stress testing of the system, and automatic detection of many serious errors in drivers."

InformationWeek ''InformationWeek'' is a digital magazine which conducts corresponding face-to-face events, virtual events, and research. It is headquartered in San Francisco, California and was first published in 1985 by CMP Media, later called Informa. The ...

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 ''Wired'' (stylized as ''WIRED'') is a monthly American magazine, published in print and online editions, that focuses on how emerging technologies affect culture, the economy, and politics. Owned by Condé Nast, it is headquartered in San Fran ...

later described the results of the February launch as "lackluster."

Novell Novell, Inc. was an American software and services company headquartered in Provo, Utah, that existed from 1980 until 2014. Its most significant product was the multi-platform network operating system known as Novell NetWare. Under the lead ...

criticized Microsoft's

, the new directory service architecture, as less scalable or reliable than its own

Novell Directory Services eDirectory is an X.500-compatible directory service software product from NetIQ. Previously owned by Novell, the product has also been known as Novell Directory Services (NDS) and sometimes referred to as ''NetWare Directory Services''. NDS was in ...

(NDS) alternative. Windows 2000 is the last public release of Windows for

I486 The Intel 486, officially named i486 and also known as 80486, is a microprocessor. It is a higher-performance follow-up to the Intel 386. The i486 was introduced in 1989. It represents the fourth generation of binary compatible CPUs following the ...

and

320 and 540 as

runs solely on

only. Windows 2000 was initially planned to replace both

Windows 98 Windows 98 is a consumer-oriented operating system developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows 9x family of Microsoft Windows operating systems. The second operating system in the 9x line, it is the successor to Windows 95, and was released to ...

and

. However, this would be changed later, as an updated version of Windows 98 called

Windows 98 Second Edition Windows 98 is a consumer-oriented operating system developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows 9x family of Microsoft Windows operating systems. The second operating system in the 9x line, it is the successor to Windows 95, and was released to ...

was released in 1999. On or shortly before February 12, 2004, "portions of the Microsoft Windows 2000 and Windows NT 4.0

source code In computing, source code, or simply code, is any collection of code, with or without comments, written using a human-readable programming language, usually as plain text. The source code of a program is specially designed to facilitate the wo ...

were illegally made available on the Internet." The source of the leak was later traced to Mainsoft, a

Windows Interface Source Environment Windows Interface Source Environment (or WISE) was a licensing program from Microsoft which allowed developers to recompile and run Windows-based applications on UNIX and Macintosh platforms. WISE SDKs were based on an emulation of the Windows API ...

partner. 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 File sharing is the practice of distributing or providing access to digital media, such as computer programs, multimedia (audio, images and video), documents or electronic books. Common methods of storage, transmission and dispersion include ...

networks. On February 16, 2004, an

exploit Exploit means to take advantage of something (a person, situation, etc.) for one's own end, especially unethically or unjustifiably. Exploit can mean: *Exploitation of natural resources *Exploit (computer security) * Video game exploit *Exploitat ...

"allegedly discovered by an individual studying the leaked source code" for certain versions of

Microsoft Internet Explorer Internet Explorer (formerly Microsoft Internet Explorer and Windows Internet Explorer, commonly abbreviated IE or MSIE) is a series of graphical web browsers developed by Microsoft which was used in the Windows line of operating systems (in W ...

was reported. On April 15, 2015,

GitHub GitHub, Inc. () is an Internet hosting service for software development and version control using Git. It provides the distributed version control of Git plus access control, bug tracking, software feature requests, task management, continuous ...

took down a repository containing a copy of the Windows NT 4.0 source code that originated from the leak. Microsoft planned to release a 64-bit version of Windows 2000, which would run on

64-bit In computer architecture, 64-bit Integer (computer science), integers, memory addresses, or other Data (computing), data units are those that are 64 bits wide. Also, 64-bit central processing unit, CPUs and arithmetic logic unit, ALUs are those ...

Intel

microprocessor A microprocessor is a computer processor where the data processing logic and control is included on a single integrated circuit, or a small number of integrated circuits. The microprocessor contains the arithmetic, logic, and control circu ...

s, in 2000. However, the first officially released 64-bit version of Windows was ''

Windows XP 64-Bit Edition Windows XP, which is the next version of Windows NT after Windows 2000 and the successor to the consumer-oriented Windows Me, has been released in several editions since its original release in 2001. Windows XP is available in many languages. In ...

'', released alongside the 32-bit editions of

on October 25, 2001, followed by the server versions ''Windows Datacenter Server Limited Edition'' and later ''Windows Advanced Server Limited Edition'', which were based on the pre-release

(then known as ''Windows .NET Server'') codebase. These editions were released in 2002, were shortly available through the OEM channel and then were superseded by the final versions of Server 2003.

New and updated features

Windows 2000 introduced many of the new features of

and 98 SE into the NT line, such as the

Windows Desktop Update Windows Desktop Update was an optional feature by Microsoft that was included with Internet Explorer 4 (IE4, released in September 1997), which introduced several updated shell features to the Windows 95 and Windows NT 4.0 operating systems. These ...

, Internet Explorer 5 ( Internet Explorer 6, which followed in 2001, is also available for Windows 2000),

Outlook Express Outlook Express, formerly known as Microsoft Internet Mail and News, is a discontinued email and news client included with Internet Explorer versions 3.0 through to 6.0. As such, it was bundled with several versions of Microsoft Windows, from ...

NetMeeting Microsoft NetMeeting is a discontinued VoIP and multi-point videoconferencing client included in many versions of Microsoft Windows (from Windows 95 OSR2 to Windows Vista). It uses the H.323 protocol for videoconferencing, and is interoperable w ...

FAT32 File Allocation Table (FAT) is a file system developed for personal computers. Originally developed in 1977 for use on floppy disks, it was adapted for use on hard disks and other devices. It is often supported for compatibility reasons by ...

support,

Windows Driver Model In computing, the Windows Driver Model (WDM) also known at one point as the Win32 Driver Model is a framework for device drivers that was introduced with Windows 98 and Windows 2000 to replace VxD, which was used on older versions of Windows such a ...

Internet Connection Sharing Internet Connection Sharing (ICS) is a Windows service that enables one Internet-connected computer to share its Internet connection with other computers on a local area network (LAN). The computer that shares its Internet connection serves as a ...

Windows Media Player Windows Media Player (WMP) is the first media player and media library application that was developed by Microsoft for playing audio, video and viewing images on personal computers running the Microsoft Windows operating system, as well as on ...

WebDAV WebDAV (Web Distributed Authoring and Versioning) is a set of extensions to the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), which allows user agents to collaboratively author contents ''directly'' in an HTTP web server by providing facilities for con ...

support etc. Certain new features are common across all editions of Windows 2000, among them NTFS 3.0, the

(MMC), UDF support, the

(EFS),

Logical Disk Manager The Logical Disk Manager (LDM) is an implementation of a logical volume manager for Microsoft Windows NT, developed by Microsoft and Veritas Software. It was introduced with the Windows 2000 operating system, and is supported in Windows XP, Wind ...

, Image Color Management 2.0, support for

PostScript 3 PostScript (PS) is a page description language in the electronic publishing and desktop publishing realm. It is a dynamically typed, concatenative programming language. It was created at Adobe Systems by John Warnock, Charles Geschke, Doug Br ...

-based printers,

OpenType OpenType is a format for scalable computer fonts. It was built on its predecessor TrueType, retaining TrueType's basic structure and adding many intricate data structures for prescribing typographic behavior. OpenType is a registered trademark ...

(.OTF) and Type 1 PostScript (.PFB) font support (including a new font—

Palatino Linotype Palatino is the name of an old-style serif typeface designed by Hermann Zapf, initially released in 1949 by the Stempel foundry and later by other companies, most notably the Mergenthaler Linotype Company. Named after the 16th-century Itali ...

—to showcase some OpenType features), the

Data protection API Data Protection Application Programming Interface (DPAPI) is a simple cryptographic application programming interface available as a built-in component in Windows 2000 and later versions of Microsoft Windows operating systems. In theory, the Data ...

(DPAPI), an

LDAP The Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP ) is an open, vendor-neutral, industry standard application protocol for accessing and maintaining distributed directory information services over an Internet Protocol (IP) network. Directory servi ...

-enabled

Address Book An address book or a name and address book is a book, or a database used for storing entries called contacts. Each contact entry usually consists of a few standard fields (for example: first name, last name, company name, address, telephone num ...

, usability enhancements and multi-language and locale support. Windows 2000 also introduced

USB Universal Serial Bus (USB) is an industry standard that establishes specifications for cables, connectors and protocols for connection, communication and power supply (interfacing) between computers, peripherals and other computers. A broad ...

device class drivers for USB printers, Mass storage class devices, and improved FireWire SBP-2 support for printers and scanners, along with a ''Safe removal'' applet for storage devices. Windows 2000 SP4 added native USB 2.0 support. Windows 2000 is also the first Windows version to support

hibernation Hibernation is a state of minimal activity and metabolic depression undergone by some animal species. Hibernation is a seasonal heterothermy characterized by low body-temperature, slow breathing and heart-rate, and low metabolic rate. It most ...

at the operating system level (OS-controlled

ACPI Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) is an open standard that operating systems can use to discover and configure computer hardware components, to perform power management (e.g. putting unused hardware components to sleep), auto c ...

S4 sleep state) unlike Windows 98 which required special drivers from the hardware manufacturer or driver developer. A new capability designed to protect critical system files called

Windows File Protection Windows File Protection (WFP), a sub-system included in Microsoft Windows operating systems of the Windows 2000 and Windows XP era, aims to prevent programs from replacing critical Windows system files. Protecting core system files mitigates proble ...

was introduced. This protects critical Windows system files by preventing programs other than Microsoft's operating system update mechanisms such as the ''Package Installer'',

Windows Installer Windows Installer (msiexec.exe, previously known as Microsoft Installer, codename Darwin) is a software component and application programming interface (API) of Microsoft Windows used for the installation, maintenance, and removal of software. ...

and other update components from modifying them. The System File Checker utility provides users the ability to perform a manual scan of the integrity of all protected system files, and optionally repair them, either by restoring from a cache stored in a separate "DLLCACHE" directory, or from the original install media. Microsoft recognized that a serious error (a Blue Screen of Death or stop error) could cause problems for servers that needed to be constantly running and so provided a system setting that would allow the server to automatically reboot when a stop error occurred. Also included is an option to dump any of the first 64 KB of memory to disk (the smallest amount of memory that is useful for

debugging In computer programming and software development, debugging is the process of finding and resolving '' bugs'' (defects or problems that prevent correct operation) within computer programs, software, or systems. Debugging tactics can involve in ...

purposes, also known as a minidump), a dump of only the kernel's memory, or a dump of the entire contents of memory to disk, as well as write that this event happened to the Windows 2000 event log. In order to improve performance on servers running Windows 2000, Microsoft gave administrators the choice of optimizing the operating system's memory and processor usage patterns for background services or for applications. Windows 2000 also introduced core system administration and management features as the

Windows Management Instrumentation Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) consists of a set of extensions to the Windows Driver Model that provides an operating system interface through which instrumented components provide information and notification. WMI is Microsoft's impl ...

and Event Tracing for Windows (ETW) into the operating system.

Plug and Play and hardware support improvements

The most notable improvement from

is the addition of Plug and Play with full

and

support. Similar to

Windows 9x Windows 9x is a generic term referring to a series of Microsoft Windows computer operating systems produced from 1995 to 2000, which were based on the Windows 95 kernel and its underlying foundation of MS-DOS, both of which were updated in subs ...

, Windows 2000 supports automatic recognition of installed hardware, hardware resource allocation, loading of appropriate drivers, PnP APIs and device notification events. The addition of the kernel PnP Manager along with the Power Manager are two significant subsystems added in Windows 2000. Windows 2000 introduced version 3 print drivers (user mode printer drivers) based on

Unidrv UniDrv (Universal Printer Driver or Unidriver) is a GDI-based Microsoft Windows universal printer driver and architecture for non- PostScript printers. It is used to simplify driver development of non-PostScript printers (also called Winprinters) ...

, which made it easier for printer manufacturers to write device drivers for printers. Generic support for 5-button mice is also included as standard and installing

IntelliPoint Microsoft IntelliPoint is the Microsoft-branded software driver for the company's hardware mice. Microsoft has released versions for both Windows and Mac OS X. It has been succeeded by Microsoft Mouse and Keyboard Center, which combines Inte ...

allows reassigning the programmable buttons. Windows 98 lacked generic support.

Driver Verifier Driver Verifier is a tool included in Microsoft Windows that replaces the default operating system subroutines with ones that are specifically developed to catch device driver bugs. Once enabled, it monitors and stresses drivers to detect illeg ...

was introduced to stress test and catch device driver bugs.Driver Verifier at MSDN
. Microsoft.

Shell

Windows 2000 introduces layered windows that allow for transparency, translucency and various transition effects like shadows, gradient fills and alpha-blended GUI elements to top-level windows. Menus support a new ''Fade'' transition effect. The

Start menu The Start menu is a graphical user interface element used in Microsoft Windows since Windows 95 and in other operating systems. It provides a central launching point for computer programs and performing other tasks in the Windows shell. It is name ...

in Windows 2000 introduces ''personalized menus'', expandable

special folder On Microsoft Windows, a special folder is a folder that is presented to the user through an interface as an abstract concept instead of an absolute folder path. (The synonymous term shell folder is sometimes used instead.) Special folders mak ...

s and the ability to launch multiple programs without closing the menu by holding down the SHIFT key. A ''Re-sort'' button forces the entire Start Menu to be sorted by name. The

Taskbar A taskbar is an element of a graphical user interface which has various purposes. It typically shows which programs are currently running. The specific design and layout of the taskbar varies between individual operating systems, but generally a ...

introduces support for balloon notifications which can also be used by application developers. Windows 2000 Explorer introduces customizable Windows Explorer toolbars, auto-complete in Windows Explorer address bar and Run box, advanced file type association features, displaying comments in shortcuts as tooltips, extensible columns in Details view (IColumnProvider interface), icon overlays, integrated search pane in Windows Explorer, sort by name function for menus, and ''Places bar'' in common dialogs for ''Open'' and ''Save''.

Windows Explorer File Explorer, previously known as Windows Explorer, is a file manager application that is included with releases of the Microsoft Windows operating system from Windows 95 onwards. It provides a graphical user interface for accessing the file ...

has been enhanced in several ways in Windows 2000. It is the first

release to include

Active Desktop Active Desktop was a feature of Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0's optional Windows Desktop Update that allowed users to add HTML content to the desktop, along with some other features. This function was intended to be installed on the then-curre ...

, first introduced as a part of

Internet Explorer 4.0 Microsoft Internet Explorer 4 (IE4) is a graphical web browser that Microsoft unveiled in Spring of 1997, and released in September 1997, primarily for Microsoft Windows, but also with versions available for the classic Mac OS, Solaris (operating ...

(specifically

), and only pre-installed in

by that time. It allowed users to customize the way folders look and behave by using

HTML The HyperText Markup Language or HTML is the standard markup language for documents designed to be displayed in a web browser. It can be assisted by technologies such as Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and scripting languages such as JavaScri ...

templates, having the

file extension A filename extension, file name extension or file extension is a suffix to the name of a computer file (e.g., .txt, .docx, .md). The extension indicates a characteristic of the file contents or its intended use. A filename extension is typically d ...

HTT. This feature was abused by

computer virus A computer virus is a type of computer program that, when executed, replicates itself by modifying other computer programs and inserting its own code. If this replication succeeds, the affected areas are then said to be "infected" with a compu ...

es that employed malicious scripts,

Java Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's List ...

applets, or

ActiveX ActiveX is a deprecated software framework created by Microsoft that adapts its earlier Component Object Model (COM) and Object Linking and Embedding (OLE) technologies for content downloaded from a network, particularly from the World Wide Web. ...

controls in folder template files as their infection vector. Two such viruses are VBS/Roor-C'' Sophos''
VBS/Roor-C threat analysis
. Retrieved August 26, 2007. and VBS.Redlof.a. The "Web-style" folders view, with the left Explorer pane displaying details for the object currently selected, is turned on by default in Windows 2000. For certain file types, such as pictures and media files, the preview is also displayed in the left pane. Until the dedicated interactive preview pane appeared in

Windows Vista Windows Vista is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was the direct successor to Windows XP, which was released five years before, at the time being the longest time span between successive releases of ...

, Windows 2000 had been the only Windows release to feature an interactive media player as the previewer for sound and video files, enabled by default. However, such a previewer can be enabled in previous versions of Windows with the

installed through the use of folder customization templates. The default file tooltip displays file title, author, subject and comments; this metadata may be read from a special

stream, if the file is on an NTFS volume, or from an OLE

structured storage Structuring, also known as smurfing in banking jargon, is the practice of executing financial transactions such as making bank deposits in a specific pattern, calculated to avoid triggering financial institutions to file reports required by la ...

stream, if the file is a structured storage document. All

Microsoft Office Microsoft Office, or simply Office, is the former name of a family of client software, server software, and services developed by Microsoft. It was first announced by Bill Gates on August 1, 1988, at COMDEX in Las Vegas. Initially a marketin ...

documents since Office 4.0 make use of

, so their metadata is displayable in the Windows 2000 Explorer default

tooltip The tooltip, also known as infotip or hint, is a common graphical user interface (GUI) element in which, when hovering over a screen element or component, a text box displays information about that element, such as a description of a button's f ...

. File shortcuts can also store comments which are displayed as a tooltip when the mouse hovers over the shortcut. The shell introduces extensibility support through metadata handlers, icon overlay handlers and column handlers in Explorer ''Details view''. The right pane of Windows 2000 Explorer, which usually just lists files and folders, can also be customized. For example, the contents of the system folders aren't displayed by default, instead showing in the right pane a warning to the user that modifying the contents of the system folders could harm their computer. It's possible to define additional Explorer panes by using

DIV Div or DIV may refer to: Science and technology * Division (mathematics), the mathematical operation that is the inverse of multiplication * Span and div, HTML tags that implement generic elements * div, a C mathematical function * Divergence, ...

elements in folder template files. This degree of customizability is new to Windows 2000; neither Windows 98 nor the Desktop Update could provide it. The new DHTML-based search pane is integrated into Windows 2000 Explorer, unlike the separate search dialog found in all previous Explorer versions. The

Indexing Service Indexing Service (originally called Index Server) was a Windows service that maintained an index of most of the files on a computer to improve searching performance on PCs and corporate computer networks. It updated indexes without user interven ...

has also been integrated into the operating system and the search pane built into Explorer allows searching files indexed by its database.

NTFS 3.0

Microsoft released the version 3.0 of NTFS (sometimes incorrectly called "NTFS 5" in relation to the kernel version number) as part of Windows 2000; this introduced

disk quota A disk quota is a limit set by a system administrator that restricts certain aspects of file system usage on modern operating systems. The function of using disk quotas is to allocate limited disk space in a reasonable way. Types of quotas There ...

s (provided by QuotaAdvisor), file-system-level encryption,

sparse file In computer science, a sparse file is a type of computer file that attempts to use file system space more efficiently when the file itself is partially empty. This is achieved by writing brief information (metadata) ''representing'' the empty block ...

s and reparse points. Sparse files allow for the efficient storage of data sets that are very large yet contain many areas that only have zeros. Reparse points allow the

object manager Object Manager (internally called Ob) is a subsystem implemented as part of the Windows Executive which manages Windows ''resources''. Resources, which are surfaced as logical ''objects'', each reside in a namespace for categorization. Resources ...

to reset a file namespace lookup and let file system drivers implement changed functionality in a transparent manner. Reparse points are used to implement volume mount points, junctions,

Hierarchical Storage Management Hierarchical storage management (HSM), also known as Tiered storage, is a data storage and Data management technique that automatically moves data between high-cost and low-cost storage media. HSM systems exist because high-speed storage devices, ...

, Native

Structured Storage Structuring, also known as smurfing in banking jargon, is the practice of executing financial transactions such as making bank deposits in a specific pattern, calculated to avoid triggering financial institutions to file reports required by la ...

and

Single Instance Storage Single-instance storage (SIS) is a system's ability to take multiple copies of content and replace them by a single shared copy. It is a means to eliminate data duplication and to increase efficiency. SIS is frequently implemented in file system ...

. Volume mount points and directory junctions allow for a file to be transparently referred from one file or directory location to another. Windows 2000 also introduces a ''Distributed Link Tracking'' service to ensure file shortcuts remain working even if the target is moved or renamed. The target object's unique identifier is stored in the shortcut file on NTFS 3.0 and Windows can use the Distributed Link Tracking service for tracking the targets of shortcuts, so that the shortcut file may be silently updated if the target moves, even to another hard drive.

Encrypting File System

The Encrypting File System (EFS) introduced strong

file system In computing, file system or filesystem (often abbreviated to fs) is a method and data structure that the operating system uses to control how data is stored and retrieved. Without a file system, data placed in a storage medium would be one larg ...

-level

encryption In cryptography, encryption is the process of encoding information. This process converts the original representation of the information, known as plaintext, into an alternative form known as ciphertext. Ideally, only authorized parties can decip ...

to Windows. It allows any folder or drive on an NTFS volume to be encrypted transparently by the user. EFS works together with the EFS service, Microsoft's CryptoAPI and the EFS File System Runtime Library (FSRTL). To date, its encryption has not been compromised. EFS works by encrypting a file with a bulk

symmetric key Symmetric-key algorithms are algorithms for cryptography that use the same cryptographic keys for both the encryption of plaintext and the decryption of ciphertext. The keys may be identical, or there may be a simple transformation to go between t ...

(also known as the File Encryption Key, or FEK), which is used because it takes less time to encrypt and decrypt large amounts of data than if an asymmetric key cipher were used. The symmetric key used to encrypt the file is then encrypted with a

public key Public-key cryptography, or asymmetric cryptography, is the field of cryptographic systems that use pairs of related keys. Each key pair consists of a public key and a corresponding private key. Key pairs are generated with cryptographic al ...

associated with the user who encrypted the file, and this encrypted data is stored in the header of the encrypted file. To decrypt the file, the file system uses the private key of the user to decrypt the symmetric key stored in the file header. It then uses the symmetric key to decrypt the file. Because this is done at the file system level, it is transparent to the user. For a user losing access to their key, support for recovery agents that can decrypt files is built into EFS. A Recovery Agent is a user who is authorized by a public key recovery certificate to decrypt files belonging to other users using a special ''private key''. By default, local administrators are ''recovery agents'' however they can be customized using

Group Policy Group Policy is a feature of the Microsoft Windows NT family of operating systems (including Windows 7, Windows 8.1, Windows 10, Windows 11, and Windows Server 2003+) that controls the working environment of user accounts and computer accounts. G ...

Basic and dynamic disk storage

Windows 2000 introduced the

and the

diskpart In computing, diskpart is a command-line disk partitioning utility included in Windows 2000 and later Microsoft operating systems, replacing its predecessor, fdisk. The command is also available in ReactOS. Overview The diskpart is a utility ...

command line tool for dynamic storage. All versions of Windows 2000 support three types of

dynamic Dynamics (from Greek δυναμικός ''dynamikos'' "powerful", from δύναμις ''dynamis'' "power") or dynamic may refer to: Physics and engineering * Dynamics (mechanics) ** Aerodynamics, the study of the motion of air ** Analytical dyna ...

disk volumes (along with basic disks): ''simple volumes'', ''spanned volumes'' and ''striped volumes'': * Simple volume, a volume with disk space from one disk. * Spanned volumes, where up to 32 disks show up as one, increasing it in size but not enhancing performance. When one disk fails, the array is destroyed. Some data may be recoverable. This corresponds to

JBOD The most widespread standard for configuring multiple hard disk drives is RAID (Redundant Array of Inexpensive/Independent Disks), which comes in a number of standard configurations and non-standard configurations. Non-RAID drive architectures a ...

and not to

RAID-1 In computer storage, the standard RAID levels comprise a basic set of RAID ("redundant array of independent disks" or "redundant array of inexpensive disks") configurations that employ the techniques of striping, mirroring, or parity to create lar ...

. * Striped volumes, also known as RAID-0, store all their data across several disks in ''stripes''. This allows better performance because disk reads and writes are balanced across multiple disks. Like spanned volumes, when one disk in the array fails, the entire array is destroyed (some data may be recoverable). In addition to these disk volumes, Windows 2000 Server, Windows 2000 Advanced Server, and Windows 2000 Datacenter Server support ''mirrored volumes'' and ''striped volumes with parity'': * Mirrored volumes, also known as

, store identical copies of their data on 2 or more identical disks (''mirrored''). This allows for fault tolerance; in the event one disk fails, the other disk(s) can keep the server operational until the server can be shut down for replacement of the failed disk. * Striped volumes with parity, also known as

RAID-5 In computer storage, the standard RAID levels comprise a basic set of RAID ("redundant array of independent disks" or "redundant array of inexpensive disks") configurations that employ the techniques of striping, mirroring, or parity to create lar ...

, functions similar to striped volumes/RAID-0, except "parity data" is written out across each of the disks in addition to the data. This allows the data to be "rebuilt" in the event a disk in the array needs replacement.

Accessibility

With Windows 2000, Microsoft introduced the Windows 9x accessibility features for people with visual and auditory impairments and other disabilities into the NT-line of operating systems. These included: * StickyKeys: makes modifier keys (ALT, CTRL and SHIFT) become "sticky": a user can press the

modifier key In computing, a modifier key is a special key (or combination) on a computer keyboard that temporarily modifies the normal action of another key when pressed together. By themselves, modifier keys usually do nothing; that is, pressing any of the , ...

, and then release it before pressing the combination key. (Activated by pressing Shift five times quickly.) *

FilterKeys FilterKeys is an accessibility feature of Microsoft Windows. It tells the keyboard to ignore brief or repeated keystrokes. This makes typing easier for users with hand tremors. History Microsoft first introduced FilterKeys with Windows 95. The ...

: a group of

keyboard Keyboard may refer to: Text input * Keyboard, part of a typewriter * Computer keyboard ** Keyboard layout, the software control of computer keyboards and their mapping ** Keyboard technology, computer keyboard hardware and firmware Music * Musi ...

-related features for people with typing issues, including: ** Slow Keys: Ignore any keystroke not held down for a certain period. ** Bounce Keys: Ignore repeated keystrokes pressed in quick succession. ** Repeat Keys: lets users slow down the rate at which keys are repeated via the keyboard's key-repeat feature. * Toggle Keys: when turned on, Windows will play a sound when the CAPS LOCK, NUM LOCK or SCROLL LOCK key is pressed. * SoundSentry: designed to help users with auditory impairments, Windows 2000 shows a visual effect when a sound is played through the sound system. *

MouseKeys Mouse keys is a feature of some graphical user interfaces that uses the keyboard (especially numeric keypad) as a pointing device (usually replacing a mouse). Its roots lie in the earliest days of visual editors when line and column navigation was ...

: lets users move the cursor around the screen via the

numeric keypad A numeric keypad, number pad, numpad, or ten key, is the palm-sized, usually-17-key section of a standard computer keyboard, usually on the far right. It provides calculator-style efficiency for entering numbers. The idea of a 10-key nu ...

. * SerialKeys: lets Windows 2000 support speech augmentation devices. * High contrast theme: to assist users with visual impairments. *

Microsoft Magnifier Magnifier, formerly Microsoft Magnifier, is a screen magnifier app intended for visually impaired people to use when running Microsoft Windows. When it is running, it creates a bar at the top of the screen that greatly magnifies where the mouse is ...

: a

screen magnifier A screen magnifier is software that interfaces with a computer's graphical output to present enlarged screen content. By enlarging part (or all) of a screen, people with visual impairments can better see words and images. This type of assistive te ...

that enlarges a part of the screen the cursor is over. Additionally, Windows 2000 introduced the following new accessibility features: *

On-screen keyboard A virtual keyboard is a software component that allows the input of characters without the need for physical keys. The interaction with the virtual keyboard happens mostly via a touchscreen interface, but can also take place in a different form ...

: displays a

virtual keyboard A virtual keyboard is a software component that allows the Input device, input of characters without the need for physical keys. The interaction with the virtual Computer keyboard, keyboard happens mostly via a touchscreen interface, but can also ...

on the screen and allows users to press its keys using a

mouse A mouse ( : mice) is a small rodent. Characteristically, mice are known to have a pointed snout, small rounded ears, a body-length scaly tail, and a high breeding rate. The best known mouse species is the common house mouse (''Mus musculus' ...

or a

joystick A joystick, sometimes called a flight stick, is an input device consisting of a stick that pivots on a base and reports its angle or direction to the device it is controlling. A joystick, also known as the control column, is the principal cont ...

. * Microsoft Narrator: introduced in Windows 2000, this is a

screen reader A screen reader is a form of assistive technology (AT) that renders text and image content as speech or braille output. Screen readers are essential to people who are blindness, blind, and are useful to people who are visual impairment, visually ...

that utilizes the Speech API 4, which would later be updated to Speech API 5 in

* Utility Manager: an application designed to start, stop, and manage when accessibility features start. This was eventually replaced by the

Ease of Access Ease of Access Center, formerly Utility Manager, is a component of the Windows NT family of operating systems that enables use of assistive technologies. Utility Manager is included with Windows 2000 and Windows XP. In Windows Vista, Utility Manag ...

Center in

. * Accessibility Wizard: a control panel applet that helps users set up their computer for people with disabilities.

Languages and locales

Windows 2000 introduced the

Multilingual User Interface Multilingual User Interface (MUI) enables the Internationalization and localization, localization of the user interface of an Application software, application. MUI is provided by Microsoft as an integrated feature of its operating system Windows ...

(MUI). Besides

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

, Windows 2000 incorporates support for

Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic languages, Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C ...

Armenian Armenian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Armenia, a country in the South Caucasus region of Eurasia * Armenians, the national people of Armenia, or people of Armenian descent ** Armenian Diaspora, Armenian communities across the ...

Baltic Baltic may refer to: Peoples and languages * Baltic languages, a subfamily of Indo-European languages, including Lithuanian, Latvian and extinct Old Prussian *Balts (or Baltic peoples), ethnic groups speaking the Baltic languages and/or originati ...

, Central European,

Cyrillic , bg, кирилица , mk, кирилица , russian: кириллица , sr, ћирилица, uk, кирилиця , fam1 = Egyptian hieroglyphs , fam2 = Proto-Sinaitic , fam3 = Phoenician , fam4 = G ...

Georgian Georgian may refer to: Common meanings * Anything related to, or originating from Georgia (country) ** Georgians, an indigenous Caucasian ethnic group ** Georgian language, a Kartvelian language spoken by Georgians **Georgian scripts, three scrip ...

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...

Indic Indic may refer to: * Indic languages (disambiguation) * Various scripts: ** Brahmic scripts, a family of scripts used to write Indian and other Asian languages ** Kharosthi (extinct) * Indian numerals * Indian religions, also known as the Dharm ...

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

Korean Korean may refer to: People and culture * Koreans, ethnic group originating in the Korean Peninsula * Korean cuisine * Korean culture * Korean language **Korean alphabet, known as Hangul or Chosŏn'gŭl **Korean dialects and the Jeju language ** ...

simplified Chinese Simplification, Simplify, or Simplified may refer to: Mathematics Simplification is the process of replacing a mathematical expression by an equivalent one, that is simpler (usually shorter), for example * Simplification of algebraic expressions, ...

Thai Thai or THAI may refer to: * Of or from Thailand, a country in Southeast Asia ** Thai people, the dominant ethnic group of Thailand ** Thai language, a Tai-Kadai language spoken mainly in and around Thailand *** Thai script *** Thai (Unicode block ...

traditional Chinese A tradition is a belief or behavior (folk custom) passed down within a group or society with symbolic meaning or special significance with origins in the past. A component of cultural expressions and folklore, common examples include holidays or ...

, Turkic,

Vietnamese Vietnamese may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Vietnam, a country in Southeast Asia ** A citizen of Vietnam. See Demographics of Vietnam. * Vietnamese people, or Kinh people, a Southeast Asian ethnic group native to Vietnam ** Overse ...

and Western European languages. It also has support for many different locales.

Games

Windows 2000 included version 7.0 of the

DirectX Microsoft DirectX is a collection of application programming interfaces (APIs) for handling tasks related to multimedia, especially game programming and video, on Microsoft platforms. Originally, the names of these APIs all began with "Direct", ...

API An application programming interface (API) is a way for two or more computer programs to communicate with each other. It is a type of software interface, offering a service to other pieces of software. A document or standard that describes how ...

, commonly used by game developers on

. The last version of DirectX that was released for Windows 2000 was DirectX 9.0c (Shader Model 3.0), which shipped with Windows XP Service Pack 2. Microsoft published quarterly updates to DirectX 9.0c through the February 2010 release after which support was dropped in the June 2010 SDK. These updates contain bug fixes to the core runtime and some additional libraries such as

D3DX In computing, D3DX (Direct3D Extension) is a high level API library which is written to supplement Microsoft's Direct3D graphics API. The D3DX library was introduced in Direct3D 7, and subsequently was improved in Direct3D 9. It provides classe ...

XAudio 2 XAudio2 is a lower-level audio API for Microsoft Windows, Xbox 360 and Windows Phone 8, the successor to DirectSound on Windows and a supplement to the original XAudio on the Xbox 360. XAudio2 operates through the XAudio API on the Xbox 360, thr ...

, XInput and Managed DirectX components. The majority of games written for versions of DirectX 9.0c (up to the February 2010 release) can therefore run on Windows 2000. Windows 2000 included the same games as

did: FreeCell,

Minesweeper A minesweeper is a small warship designed to remove or detonate naval mines. Using various mechanisms intended to counter the threat posed by naval mines, minesweepers keep waterways clear for safe shipping. History The earliest known usage of ...

Pinball Pinball games are a family of games in which a ball is propelled into a specially designed table where it bounces off various obstacles, scoring points either en route or when it comes to rest. Historically the board was studded with nails call ...

, and Solitaire.

System utilities

Windows 2000 introduced the

(MMC), which is used to create, save, and open administrative tools. Each of these is called a ''console'', and most allow an administrator to administer other Windows 2000 computers from one centralised computer. Each console can contain one or many specific administrative tools, called ''snap-ins''. These can be either standalone (with one function), or an extension (adding functions to an existing snap-in). In order to provide the ability to control what snap-ins can be seen in a console, the MMC allows consoles to be created in ''author mode'' or ''user mode''. Author mode allows snap-ins to be added, new windows to be created, all portions of the console tree to be displayed and consoles to be saved. User mode allows consoles to be distributed with restrictions applied. User mode consoles can grant full access to the user for any change, or they can grant limited access, preventing users from adding snapins to the console though they can view multiple windows in a console. Alternatively users can be granted limited access, preventing them from adding to the console and stopping them from viewing multiple windows in a single console. The main tools that come with Windows 2000 can be found in the ''Computer Management'' console (in Administrative Tools in the Control Panel). This contains the

Event Viewer Event Viewer is a component of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system that lets administrators and users view the event logs on a local or remote machine. Applications and operating-system components can use this centralized log service to repo ...

—a means of seeing events and the Windows equivalent of a

log file In computing, logging is the act of keeping a log of events that occur in a computer system, such as problems, errors or just information on current operations. These events may occur in the operating system or in other software. A message or lo ...

, a system information utility, a backup utility,

Task Scheduler Task Scheduler (formerly Scheduled Tasks) is a job scheduler in Microsoft Windows that launches computer programs or scripts at pre-defined times or after specified time intervals. Microsoft introduced this component in the Microsoft Plus! for ...

and management consoles to view open shared folders and shared folder sessions, configure and manage COM+ applications, configure

, manage all the local users and user groups, and a

device manager Device Manager is a component of the Microsoft Windows operating system. It allows users to view and control the hardware attached to the computer. When a piece of hardware is not working, the offending hardware is highlighted for the user to d ...

. It contains '' Disk Management'' and ''Removable Storage'' snap-ins, a

disk defragmenter Disk or disc may refer to: * Disk (mathematics), a geometric shape * Disk storage Music * Disc (band), an American experimental music band * ''Disk'' (album), a 1995 EP by Moby Other uses * Disk (functional analysis), a subset of a vector sp ...

as well as a performance diagnostic console, which displays graphs of system performance and configures data logs and alerts. It also contains a service configuration console, which allows users to view all installed services and to stop and start them, as well as configure what those services should do when the computer starts.

CHKDSK In computing, CHKDSK (short for "check disk") is a system tool and command in DOS, Digital Research FlexOS, IBM/Toshiba 4690 OS, IBM OS/2, Microsoft Windows and related operating systems. It verifies the file system integrity of a volume and ...

has significant performance improvements. Windows 2000 comes with two utilities to edit the

Windows registry The Windows Registry is a hierarchical database that stores low-level settings for the Microsoft Windows operating system and for applications that opt to use the registry. The kernel, device drivers, services, Security Accounts Manager, and use ...

, ''REGEDIT.EXE'' and ''REGEDT32.EXE''. REGEDIT has been directly ported from

, and therefore does not support editing registry permissions. REGEDT32 has the older multiple document interface (MDI) and can edit registry permissions in the same manner that Windows NT's REGEDT32 program could. REGEDIT has a left-side

tree view In botany, a tree is a perennial plant with an elongated stem, or trunk, usually supporting branches and leaves. In some usages, the definition of a tree may be narrower, including only woody plants with secondary growth, plants that are u ...

of the

, lists all loaded

hives Hives, also known as urticaria, is a kind of skin rash with red, raised, itchy bumps. Hives may burn or sting. The patches of rash may appear on different body parts, with variable duration from minutes to days, and does not leave any long-lasti ...

and represents the three components of a value (its name, type, and data) as separate columns of a table. REGEDT32 has a left-side tree view, but each hive has its own window, so the tree displays only keys and it represents values as a list of strings. REGEDIT supports right-clicking of entries in a tree view to adjust properties and other settings. REGEDT32 requires all actions to be performed from the top

menu bar A menu bar is a graphical control element which contains drop-down menus. The menu bar's purpose is to supply a common housing for window- or application-specific menus which provide access to such functions as opening files, interacting wi ...

is the first system to integrate these two programs into a single utility, adopting the REGEDIT behavior with the additional NT features. The System File Checker (SFC) also comes with Windows 2000. It is a

command line A command-line interpreter or command-line processor uses a command-line interface (CLI) to receive commands from a user in the form of lines of text. This provides a means of setting parameters for the environment, invoking executables and pro ...

utility that scans system files and verifies whether they were signed by Microsoft and works in conjunction with the

mechanism. It can also repopulate and repair all the files in the ''Dllcache'' folder.

Recovery Console

The

Recovery Console The Recovery Console is a feature of the Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 operating systems. It provides the means for administrators to perform a limited range of tasks using a command-line interface. Its primary function is to ...

is run from outside the installed copy of Windows to perform maintenance tasks that can neither be run from within it nor feasibly be run from another computer or copy of Windows 2000. It is usually used to recover the system from problems that cause booting to fail, which would render other tools useless, like Safe Mode or Last Known Good Configuration, or

chkdsk 

In computing, CHKDSK (short for "check disk") is a  system tool and command in DOS, Digital Research FlexOS,  IBM/Toshiba  4690 OS, IBM OS/2,  Microsoft Windows and related operating systems. It verifies the  file system integrity of a volume and  ...

. It includes commands like

fixmbr 

The Recovery Console is a feature of the Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 operating systems.  It provides the means for administrators to perform a limited range of tasks using a command-line interface.

Its primary function is to  ...

, which are not present in MS-DOS. It has a simple

command-line interface A command-line interpreter or command-line processor uses a command-line interface (CLI) to receive commands from a user in the form of lines of text. This provides a means of setting parameters for the environment, invoking executables and pro ...

, used to check and repair the hard drive(s), repair boot information (including

NTLDR NTLDR ( abbreviation of ''NT loader'') is the boot loader for all releases of Windows NT operating system from 1993 with the release of Windows NT 3.1 up until Windows XP and Windows Server 2003. From Windows Vista onwards it was replaced by the B ...

), replace corrupted system files with fresh copies from the CD, or enable/disable services and drivers for the next boot. The console can be accessed in either of the two ways: # Booting from the Windows 2000 CD, and choosing to start the Recovery Console from the CD itself instead of continuing with setup. The Recovery Console is accessible as long as the installation CD is available. # Preinstalling the Recovery Console on the hard disk as a startup option in

Boot.ini 
NTLDR (abbreviation of ''NT loader'') is the boot loader for all releases of  Windows NT  operating system from 1993 with the release of Windows NT 3.1 up until Windows XP and Windows Server 2003. From  Windows Vista onwards it was replaced by the  ...

, via WinNT32.exe, with the /cmdcons switch. In this case, it can only be started as long as

can boot from the system partition.

Windows Scripting Host 2.0

Windows 2000 introduced Windows Script Host 2.0 which included an expanded object model and support for logon and logoff scripts.

Networking

* Starting with Windows 2000, the

Server Message Block Server Message Block (SMB) is a communication protocol originally developed in 1983 by Barry A. Feigenbaum at IBM and intended to provide shared access to files and printers across nodes on a network of systems running IBM's OS/2. It also provides ...

(SMB) protocol directly interfaces with

TCP/IP The Internet protocol suite, commonly known as TCP/IP, is a framework for organizing the set of communication protocols used in the Internet and similar computer networks according to functional criteria. The foundational protocols in the suit ...

. In Windows NT 4.0, SMB requires the

NetBIOS over TCP/IP NetBIOS over TCP/IP (NBT, or sometimes NetBT) is a networking protocol that allows legacy computer applications relying on the NetBIOS API to be used on modern TCP/IP networks. NetBIOS was developed in the early 1980s, targeting very small network ...

(NBT) protocol to work on a TCP/IP network. * Windows 2000 introduces a client-side DNS caching service. When the Windows DNS resolver receives a query response, the DNS resource record is added to a cache. When it queries the same resource record name again and it is found in the cache, then the resolver does not query the DNS server. This speeds up DNS query time and reduces network traffic.

Server family features

The Windows 2000 Server family consists of Windows 2000 Server, Windows 2000 Advanced Server, Windows 2000 Small Business Server, and Windows 2000 Datacenter Server. All editions of Windows 2000 Server have the following services and features built in: *

Routing and Remote Access Service Routing and Remote Access Service (RRAS) is a Microsoft API and server software that makes it possible to create applications to administer the routing and remote access service capabilities of the operating system, to function as a network router ...

(RRAS) support, facilitating

dial-up Dial-up Internet access is a form of Internet access that uses the facilities of the public switched telephone network (PSTN) to establish a connection to an Internet service provider (ISP) by dialing a telephone number on a conventional telepho ...

and

VPN A virtual private network (VPN) extends a private network across a public network and enables users to send and receive data across shared or public networks as if their computing devices were directly connected to the private network. The be ...

connections using

IPsec In computing, Internet Protocol Security (IPsec) is a secure network protocol suite that authenticates and encrypts packets of data to provide secure encrypted communication between two computers over an Internet Protocol network. It is used in ...

L2TP In computer networking, Layer 2 Tunneling Protocol (L2TP) is a tunneling protocol used to support virtual private networks (VPNs) or as part of the delivery of services by ISPs. It uses encryption ('hiding') only for its own control messages (using ...

or L2TP/IPsec, support for

RADIUS In classical geometry, a radius ( : radii) of a circle or sphere is any of the line segments from its center to its perimeter, and in more modern usage, it is also their length. The name comes from the latin ''radius'', meaning ray but also the ...

authentication in

Internet Authentication Service Internet Authentication Service (IAS) is a component of Windows Server operating systems that provides centralized user authentication, authorization and accounting. Overview While Routing and Remote Access Service (RRAS) security is sufficien ...

, network connection sharing, Network Address Translation,

unicast Unicast is data transmission from a single sender (red) to a single receiver (green). Other devices on the network (yellow) do not participate in the communication. In computer networking, unicast is a one-to-one transmission from one point in ...

and

multicast In computer networking, multicast is group communication where data transmission is addressed to a group of destination computers simultaneously. Multicast can be one-to-many or many-to-many distribution. Multicast should not be confused with ...

routing Routing is the process of selecting a path for traffic in a network or between or across multiple networks. Broadly, routing is performed in many types of networks, including circuit-switched networks, such as the public switched telephone netw ...

schemes. * Remote access security features: Remote Access Policies for setup, verify Caller ID (IP address for VPNs), callback and Remote access account lockout * Autodial by location feature using the ''Remote Access Auto Connection Manager'' service *

Extensible Authentication Protocol Extensible Authentication Protocol (EAP) is an authentication framework frequently used in network and internet connections. It is defined in , which made obsolete, and is updated by . EAP is an authentication framework for providing the transport ...

support in

IAS IAS may refer to: Science * Institute for Advanced Study, in Princeton, New Jersey, United States * Image Analysis & Stereology, the official journal of the International Society for Stereology & Image Analysis. * Iowa Archeological Society, Uni ...

(EAP-MD5 and EAP-TLS) later upgraded to PEAPv0/EAP-MSCHAPv2 and PEAP-EAP-TLS in Windows 2000 SP4 *

DNS The Domain Name System (DNS) is a hierarchical and distributed naming system for computers, services, and other resources in the Internet or other Internet Protocol (IP) networks. It associates various information with domain names assigned to ...

server, including support for

Dynamic DNS Dynamic DNS (DDNS) is a method of automatically updating a name server in the Domain Name System (DNS), often in real time, with the active DDNS configuration of its configured hostnames, addresses or other information. The term is used to desc ...

relies heavily on DNS. *

support and TCP/IP filtering *

Smart card A smart card, chip card, or integrated circuit card (ICC or IC card) is a physical electronic authentication device, used to control access to a resource. It is typically a plastic credit card-sized card with an embedded integrated circuit (IC) c ...

support * Microsoft Connection Manager Administration Kit (CMAK) and Connection Point Services * Support for

distributed file systems A clustered file system is a file system which is shared by being simultaneously mounted on multiple servers. There are several approaches to clustering, most of which do not employ a clustered file system (only direct attached storage for ...

(DFS) *

support including remote storage, a service that runs with

and automatically transfers files that are not used for some time to less expensive storage media *

Fault tolerant Fault tolerance is the property that enables a system to continue operating properly in the event of the failure of one or more faults within some of its components. If its operating quality decreases at all, the decrease is proportional to the ...

volumes, namely

Mirrored ''Mirrored'' is the debut studio album by American experimental rock band Battles. It was released on May 14, 2007 in the United Kingdom, and on May 22, 2007 in the United States. ''Mirrored'' marked the first album in which the band incorporated ...

and

(part of

) * ''IntelliMirror'', a collection of technologies for fine-grained

management Management (or managing) is the administration of an organization, whether it is a business, a nonprofit organization, or a government body. It is the art and science of managing resources of the business. Management includes the activities o ...

of Windows 2000 Professional clients that duplicates users' data, applications, files, and settings in a centralized location on the network. IntelliMirror employs technologies such as

Roaming profile A roaming user profile is a file synchronization concept in the Windows NT family of operating systems that allows users with a computer joined to a Windows domain to log on to any computer on the same domain and access their documents and h ...

Folder Redirection In computing, and specifically in the context of Microsoft Windows operating systems, Microsoft refers to Folder Redirection when automatically re-routing I/O to/from standard folders (directories) to use storage elsewhere on a network. It is of ...

, ''

Offline Files Windows Vista introduced a number of new I/O functions to the Microsoft Windows line of operating systems. They are intended to shorten the time taken to boot the system, improve the responsiveness of the system, and improve the reliability of dat ...

'' (also known as ''Client Side Caching'' or CSC),

File Replication Service File Replication Service (FRS) is a Microsoft Windows Server service for distributing shared files and Group Policy Objects. It replaced the (Windows NT) Lan Manager Replication service, and has been partially replaced by Distributed File System Rep ...

(FRS), Remote Installation Services (RIS) to address desktop management scenarios such as user data management, user settings management, software installation and maintenance. * COM+,

Microsoft Transaction Server Microsoft Transaction Server (MTS) was software that provided services to Component Object Model (COM) software components, to make it easier to create large distributed applications. The major services provided by MTS were automated transaction ...

and

Distributed Transaction Coordinator The Microsoft Distributed Transaction Coordinator (MSDTC) service is a component of modern versions of Microsoft Windows that is responsible for coordinating transactions that span multiple resource managers, such as databases, message queues, and ...

* MSMQ 2.0 * TAPI 3.0 *

Integrated Windows Authentication Integrated Windows Authentication (IWA) is a term associated with Microsoft products that refers to the SPNEGO, Kerberos, and NTLMSSP authentication protocols with respect to SSPI functionality introduced with Microsoft Windows 2000 and included ...

(including Kerberos, Secure channel and

SPNEGO Simple and Protected GSSAPI Negotiation Mechanism (SPNEGO), often pronounced "spenay-go", is a GSSAPI "pseudo mechanism" used by client-server software to negotiate the choice of security technology. SPNEGO is used when a client application wants ...

(Negotiate) SSP packages for

Security Support Provider Interface Security Support Provider Interface (SSPI) is a component of Windows API that performs security-related operations such as authentication. SSPI functions as a common interface to several Security Support Providers (SSPs): A Security Support Provid ...

(SSPI)). *

MS-CHAP MS-CHAP is the Microsoft version of the Challenge-Handshake Authentication Protocol, CHAP. The protocol exists in two versions, MS-CHAPv1 (defined in RFC 2433) and MS-CHAPv2 (defined in RFC 2759). MS-CHAPv2 was introduced with pptp3-fix that was in ...

v2 protocol *

Public Key Infrastructure A public key infrastructure (PKI) is a set of roles, policies, hardware, software and procedures needed to create, manage, distribute, use, store and revoke digital certificates and manage public-key encryption. The purpose of a PKI is to facilit ...

(PKI) and Enterprise Certificate Authority support *

Terminal Services Remote Desktop Services (RDS), known as Terminal Services in Windows Server 2008 and earlier, is one of the components of Microsoft Windows that allow a user to initiate and control an interactive session on a remote computer or virtual machine ...

and support for the Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) *

Internet Information Services Internet Information Services (IIS-pronounced 2S, formerly Internet Information Server) is an extensible web server software created by Microsoft for use with the Windows NT family. IIS supports HTTP, HTTP/2, HTTPS, FTP, FTPS, SMTP and NN ...

(IIS) 5.0 and

Windows Media Services __NOTOC__ Windows Media Services (WMS) is streaming media server software from Microsoft that allows a Windows Server administrator to generate streaming media (audio/video). Only Windows Media, JPEG, and MP3 formats are supported. WMS is the s ...

4.1 * Network

quality of service Quality of service (QoS) is the description or measurement of the overall performance of a service, such as a telephony or computer network, or a cloud computing service, particularly the performance seen by the users of the network. To quantitat ...

features * A new ''Windows Time service'' which is an implementation of

Simple Network Time Protocol The Network Time Protocol (NTP) is a networking protocol for clock synchronization between computer systems over packet-switched, variable- latency data networks. In operation since before 1985, NTP is one of the oldest Internet protocols in c ...

(SNTP) as detailed in IETF . The Windows Time service synchronizes the date and time of computers in a domain running on Windows 2000 Server or later. Windows 2000 Professional includes an SNTP client. The Server editions include more features and components, including the Microsoft Distributed File System (DFS), Active Directory support and fault-tolerant storage.

Distributed File System

The Distributed File System (DFS) allows shares in multiple different locations to be logically grouped under one folder, or ''DFS root''. When users try to access a

network share In computing, a shared resource, or network share, is a computer resource made available from one host to other hosts on a computer network. It is a device or piece of information on a computer that can be remotely accessed from another compu ...

off the DFS root, the user is really looking at a ''DFS link'' and the DFS server transparently redirects them to the correct

file server In computing, a file server (or fileserver) is a computer attached to a network that provides a location for shared disk access, i.e. storage of computer files (such as text, image, sound, video) that can be accessed by the workstations that are ab ...

and share. A DFS root can only exist on a Windows 2000 version that is part of the server family, and only one DFS root can exist on that server. There can be two ways of implementing a DFS namespace on Windows 2000: either through a standalone DFS root or a domain-based DFS root. Standalone DFS allows for only DFS roots on the local computer, and thus does not use Active Directory. Domain-based DFS roots exist within Active Directory and can have their information distributed to other

domain controller A domain controller (DC) is a server computer that responds to security authentication requests within a computer network domain. It is a network server that is responsible for allowing host access to domain resources. It authenticates users, sto ...

s within the domain – this provides

fault tolerance Fault tolerance is the property that enables a system to continue operating properly in the event of the failure of one or more faults within some of its components. If its operating quality decreases at all, the decrease is proportional to the ...

to DFS. DFS roots that exist on a domain must be hosted on a domain controller or on a domain member server. The file and root information is replicated via the Microsoft

(FRS).

Active Directory

A new way of organizing Windows network domains, or groups of resources, called Active Directory, is introduced with Windows 2000 to replace Windows NT's earlier domain model. Active Directory's hierarchical nature allowed administrators a built-in way to manage user and computer policies and user accounts, and to automatically deploy programs and updates with a greater degree of scalability and centralization than provided in previous Windows versions. User information stored in Active Directory also provided a convenient phone book-like function to end users. Active Directory domains can vary from small installations with a few hundred objects, to large installations with millions. Active Directory can organise and link groups of domains into a contiguous

domain name A domain name is a string that identifies a realm of administrative autonomy, authority or control within the Internet. Domain names are often used to identify services provided through the Internet, such as websites, email services and more. As ...

space to form ''trees''. Groups of trees outside of the same namespace can be linked together to form ''forests.'' Active Directory services could always be installed on a Windows 2000 Server Standard, Advanced, or Datacenter computer, and cannot be installed on a Windows 2000 Professional computer. However, Windows 2000 Professional is the first client operating system able to exploit Active Directory's new features. As part of an organization's migration, Windows NT clients continued to function until all clients were upgraded to Windows 2000 Professional, at which point the Active Directory domain could be switched to

native mode In computing, native software or data-formats are those that were designed to run on a particular operating system. In a more technical sense, native code is code written specifically for a certain processor. In contrast, cross-platform software ...

and maximum functionality achieved. Active Directory requires a DNS server that supports SRV resource records, or that an organization's existing DNS infrastructure be upgraded to support this. There should be one or more

s to hold the Active Directory database and provide Active Directory

directory services In computing, a directory service or name service maps the names of network resources to their respective network addresses. It is a shared information infrastructure for locating, managing, administering and organizing everyday items and network r ...

Volume fault tolerance

Along with support for simple, spanned and striped volumes, the Windows 2000 Server family also supports fault-tolerant volume types. The types supported are ''mirrored volumes'' and ''RAID-5 volumes'': * Mirrored volumes: the volume contains several disks, and when data is written to one it is also written to the other disks. This means that if one disk fails, the data can be totally recovered from the other disk. Mirrored volumes are also known as

. * RAID-5 volumes: a

volume consists of multiple disks, and it uses

block Block or blocked may refer to: Arts, entertainment and media Broadcasting * Block programming, the result of a programming strategy in broadcasting * W242BX, a radio station licensed to Greenville, South Carolina, United States known as ''96.3 ...

-level striping with parity data distributed across all member disks. Should a disk fail in the array, the parity blocks from the surviving disks are combined mathematically with the data blocks from the surviving disks to reconstruct the data on the failed drive "on-the-fly."

Deployment

Windows 2000 can be deployed to a site via various methods. It can be installed onto servers via traditional media (such as CD) or via distribution folders that reside on a shared folder. Installations can be attended or unattended. During a manual installation, the administrator must specify configuration options. Unattended installations are scripted via an answer file, or a predefined script in the form of an INI file that has all the options filled in. An answer file can be created manually or using the graphical ''Setup manager''. The Winnt.exe or Winnt32.exe program then uses that answer file to automate the installation. Unattended installations can be performed via a bootable CD, using Microsoft Systems Management Server (SMS), via the System Preparation Tool (Sysprep), via the Winnt32.exe program using the /syspart switch or via

Remote Installation Services RIS, Remote Installation Services is a Microsoft-supplied server that allows PXE BIOS-enabled computers to remotely execute boot environment variables. These variables are likely computers that are on a company's (or that company's client's) net ...

(RIS). The ability to

slipstream A slipstream is a region behind a moving object in which a wake of fluid (typically air or mustard) is moving at velocities comparable to that of the moving fluid, relative to the ambient fluid through which the object is churning. The term sli ...

a service pack into the original operating system setup files is also introduced in Windows 2000. The Sysprep method is started on a standardized reference computer – though the hardware need not be similar – and it copies the required installation files from the reference computer to the target computers. The hard drive does not need to be in the target computer and may be swapped out to it at any time, with the hardware configured later. The Winnt.exe program must also be passed a /unattend switch that points to a valid answer file and a /s file that points to one or more valid installation sources. Sysprep allows the duplication of a

disk image A disk image, in computing, is a computer file containing the contents and structure of a disk volume or of an entire data storage device, such as a hard disk drive, tape drive, floppy disk, optical disc, or USB flash drive. A disk image is us ...

on an existing Windows 2000 Server installation to multiple servers. This means that all applications and system configuration settings will be copied across to the new installations, and thus, the reference and target computers must have the same HALs,

support, and mass storage devices – though Windows 2000 automatically detects "

plug and play In computing, a plug and play (PnP) device or computer bus is one with a specification that facilitates the recognition of a hardware component in a system without the need for physical device configuration or user intervention in resolving resou ...

" devices. The primary reason for using Sysprep is to quickly deploy Windows 2000 to a site that has multiple computers with standard hardware. (If a system had different HALs, mass storage devices or ACPI support, then multiple images would need to be maintained.) Systems Management Server can be used to upgrade multiple computers to Windows 2000. These must be running Windows NT 3.51, Windows NT 4.0, Windows 98 or Windows 95 OSR2.x along with the SMS client agent that can receive software installation operations. Using SMS allows installations over a wide area and provides centralised control over upgrades to systems.

(RIS) are a means to automatically install Windows 2000 Professional (and not Windows 2000 Server) to a local computer over a network from a central server. Images do not have to support specific hardware configurations and the security settings can be configured after the computer reboots as the service generates a new unique security ID (SID) for the machine. This is required so that local accounts are given the right identifier and do not clash with other Windows 2000 Professional computers on a network. RIS requires that client computers are able to boot over the network via either a

network interface card A network interface controller (NIC, also known as a network interface card, network adapter, LAN adapter or physical network interface, and by similar terms) is a computer hardware component that connects a computer to a computer network. Ear ...

that has a

Pre-Boot Execution Environment In computing, the Preboot eXecution Environment, PXE (most often pronounced as ''pixie'', often called PXE Boot/''pixie boot''.) specification describes a standardized client–server environment that boots a software assembly, retrieved from ...

(PXE) boot

ROM Rom, or ROM may refer to: Biomechanics and medicine * Risk of mortality, a medical classification to estimate the likelihood of death for a patient * Rupture of membranes, a term used during pregnancy to describe a rupture of the amniotic sac * ...

installed or that the client computer has a network card installed that is supported by the remote

boot disk A boot disk is a removable digital data storage medium from which a computer can load and run ( boot) an operating system or utility program. The computer must have a built-in program which will load and execute a program from a boot disk meeting ...

generator. The

remote computer In computing, the term remote desktop refers to a software- or operating system feature that allows a personal computer's desktop environment to be run remotely off of one system (usually a PC, but the concept applies equally to a server or a ...

must also meet the

Net PC The Network Computer (or NC) was a diskless desktop computer device made by Oracle Corporation from about 1996 to 2000. The devices were designed and manufactured by an alliance, which included Sun Microsystems, IBM, and others. The devices w ...

specification. The server that RIS runs on must be Windows 2000 Server and it must be able to access a network

Service, a

DHCP The Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) is a network management protocol used on Internet Protocol (IP) networks for automatically assigning IP addresses and other communication parameters to devices connected to the network using a cli ...

service and the Active Directory services.

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. Windows 2000 Professional was designed as the desktop operating system for businesses and

power user A power user is a user of computers, software and other electronic devices, who uses advanced features of computer hardware, operating systems, programs, or websites which are not used by the average user. A power user might not have extensive tec ...

s. 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 A central processing unit (CPU), also called a central processor, main processor or just processor, is the electronic circuitry that executes instructions comprising a computer program. The CPU performs basic arithmetic, logic, controlling, ...

, and can address up to 4 GB of

RAM Ram, ram, or RAM may refer to: Animals * A male sheep * Ram cichlid, a freshwater tropical fish People * Ram (given name) * Ram (surname) * Ram (director) (Ramsubramaniam), an Indian Tamil film director * RAM (musician) (born 1974), Dutch * ...

. The system requirements are a Pentium processor (or equivalent) of 133MHz or greater, at least 32MB of RAM, 650MB of hard drive space, and a

CD-ROM A CD-ROM (, compact disc read-only memory) is a type of read-only memory consisting of a pre-pressed optical compact disc that contains data. Computers can read—but not write or erase—CD-ROMs. Some CDs, called enhanced CDs, hold both comput ...

drive (recommended:

Pentium II The Pentium II brand refers to Intel's sixth-generation microarchitecture (" P6") and x86-compatible microprocessors introduced on May 7, 1997. Containing 7.5 million transistors (27.4 million in the case of the mobile Dixon with 256 KB ...

, 128MB of RAM, 2GB of hard drive space, and CD-ROM drive). However, despite the official minimum processor requirements, it is still possible to install Windows 2000 on 4th-generation x86 CPUs such as the 80486. Windows 2000 Server shares the same

user interface In the industrial design field of human–computer interaction, a user interface (UI) is the space where interactions between humans and machines occur. The goal of this interaction is to allow effective operation and control of the machine f ...

with Windows 2000 Professional, but contains additional components for the computer to perform

server Server may refer to: Computing *Server (computing), a computer program or a device that provides functionality for other programs or devices, called clients Role * Waiting staff, those who work at a restaurant or a bar attending customers and su ...

roles and run infrastructure and

application software Application may refer to: Mathematics and computing * Application software, computer software designed to help the user to perform specific tasks ** Application layer, an abstraction layer that specifies protocols and interface methods used in a c ...

. A significant new component introduced in the server versions is

, which is an enterprise-wide directory service based on

(Lightweight Directory Access Protocol). Additionally, Microsoft integrated Kerberos network authentication, replacing the often-criticised

NTLM In a Windows network, NT (New Technology) LAN Manager (NTLM) is a suite of Microsoft security protocols intended to provide authentication, integrity, and confidentiality to users. NTLM is the successor to the authentication protocol in Microsoft L ...

(NT LAN Manager) authentication system used in previous versions. This also provided a purely transitive-trust relationship between Windows 2000 Server domains in a ''

forest A forest is an area of land dominated by trees. Hundreds of definitions of forest are used throughout the world, incorporating factors such as tree density, tree height, land use, legal standing, and ecological function. The United Nations' ...

'' (a collection of one or more Windows 2000 domains that share a common

schema The word schema comes from the Greek word ('), which means ''shape'', or more generally, ''plan''. The plural is ('). In English, both ''schemas'' and ''schemata'' are used as plural forms. Schema may refer to: Science and technology * SCHEMA ...

, configuration, and global catalog, being linked with two-way transitive trusts). Furthermore, Windows 2000 introduced a

Domain Name Server A name server refers to the server component of the Domain Name System (DNS), one of the two principal namespaces of the Internet. The most important function of DNS servers is the translation (resolution) of human-memorable domain names (example. ...

which allows dynamic registration of IP addresses. Windows 2000 Server supports up to 4 processors and 4GB of RAM, with a minimum requirement of 128MB of RAM and 1GB hard disk space, however requirements may be higher depending on installed components. Windows 2000 Advanced Server is a variant of Windows 2000 Server operating system designed for medium-to-large businesses. It offers the ability to create

cluster may refer to: Science and technology Astronomy * Cluster (spacecraft), constellation of four European Space Agency spacecraft * Asteroid cluster, a small asteroid family * Cluster II (spacecraft), a European Space Agency mission to study t ...

s of servers, support for up to 8 CPUs, a main memory amount of up to 8GB on

Physical Address Extension In computing, Physical Address Extension (PAE), sometimes referred to as Page Address Extension, is a memory management feature for the x86 architecture. PAE was first introduced by Intel in the Pentium Pro, and later by AMD in the Athlon proces ...

(PAE) systems and the ability to do 8-way SMP. It supports

load balancing and builds on

Microsoft Cluster Server Microsoft Cluster Server (MSCS) is a computer program that allows server computers to work together as a computer cluster, to provide failover and increased availability of applications, or parallel calculating power in case of high-performan ...

(MSCS) in Windows NT Enterprise Server 4.0, adding enhanced functionality for two-node clusters. System requirements are similar to those of Windows 2000 Server, however they may need to be higher to scale to larger infrastructure. 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

. Like Advanced Server, it supports clustering, failover and load balancing. Its minimum system requirements are similar to those of Advanced Server, but it was designed to be capable of handing 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 Within quality management systems (QMS) and information technology (IT) systems, change control is a process—either formal or informal—used to ensure that changes to a product or system are introduced in a controlled and coordinated manner. It ...

. 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.

Service packs

Windows 2000 has received four full service packs and one rollup update package following SP4, which is the last service pack. Microsoft phased out all development of its

Java Virtual Machine A Java virtual machine (JVM) is a virtual machine that enables a computer to run Java programs as well as programs written in other languages that are also compiled to Java bytecode. The JVM is detailed by a specification that formally describes ...

(JVM) from Windows 2000 in SP3. Internet Explorer 5.01 has also been upgraded to the corresponding service pack level. Service Pack 4 with Update Rollup was released on September 13, 2005, nearly four years following the release of Windows XP and sixteen months prior to the release of Windows Vista. Microsoft had originally intended to release a fifth service pack for Windows 2000, but Microsoft cancelled this project early in its development, and instead released Update Rollup 1 for SP4, a collection of all the security-related

hotfix A hotfix or quick-fix engineering update (QFE update) is a single, cumulative package that includes information (often in the form of one or more files) that is used to address a problem in a software product (i.e., a software bug). Typically, hot ...

es and some other significant issues. The Update Rollup does not include all non-security related hotfixes and is not subjected to the same extensive regression testing as a full service pack. Microsoft states that this update will meet customers' needs better than a whole new service pack, and will still help Windows 2000 customers secure their PCs, reduce support costs, and support existing computer hardware.

Upgradeability

Several Windows 2000 components are upgradable to latest versions, which include new versions introduced in later versions of Windows, and other major Microsoft applications are available. These latest versions for Windows 2000 include: *

ActiveSync ActiveSync is a mobile data synchronization app developed by Microsoft, originally released in 1996. It synchronizes data with handheld devices and desktop computers. In the Windows Task Manager, the associated process is called wcescomm.exe. O ...

4.5 * DirectX 9.0c (5 February 2010 Redistributable) *

Internet Explorer 6 Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 (IE6) is a graphical web browser developed by Microsoft for Windows operating systems. Released on August 24, 2001, it is the sixth, and by now discontinued, version of Internet Explorer and the successor to Internet ...

SP1 and

6 SP1 *

Microsoft Agent Microsoft Agent was a technology developed by Microsoft which employed animated characters, Speech synthesis, text-to-speech engines, and speech recognition software to enhance interaction with computer users. Thus it was an example of an embodie ...

2.0 *

Microsoft Data Access Components Microsoft Data Access Components (MDAC; also known as Windows DAC) is a framework of interrelated Microsoft technologies that allows programmers a uniform and comprehensive way of developing applications that can access almost any data store. It ...

2.81 *

Microsoft NetMeeting Microsoft NetMeeting is a discontinued VoIP and multi-point videoconferencing client included in many versions of Microsoft Windows (from Windows 95 OSR2 to Windows Vista). It uses the H.323 protocol for videoconferencing, and is interoperable w ...

3.01 and

Microsoft Office 2003 Microsoft Office 2003 (codenamed Office 11) is an office suite developed and distributed by Microsoft for its Windows operating system. Office 2003 was released to manufacturing on August 19, 2003, and was later released to retail on October 21, ...

on Windows 2000 SP3 and SP4 (and

Microsoft Office XP Microsoft Office XP (codenamed Office 10) is an office suite which was officially revealed in July 2000 by Microsoft for the Windows operating system. Office XP was released to manufacturing on March 5, 2001, and was later made available to ret ...

on Windows 2000 versions below SP3.) *

MSN Messenger MSN Messenger (also known colloquially simply as "Messenger"), later rebranded as Windows Live Messenger, was a cross-platform instant-messaging client developed by Microsoft. It connected to the Microsoft Messenger service and, in later versio ...

7.0 (

Windows Messenger Windows Messenger is a discontinued instant messaging client included in Windows XP. Designed for use by both corporate and home users, it was originally created, in 2001, as a streamlined and integrated version of MSN Messenger. It was upgrade ...

) *

MSXML Microsoft XML Core Services (MSXML) are set of services that allow applications written in JScript, VBScript, and Microsoft development tools to build Windows-native XML-based applications. It supports XML 1.0, DOM, SAX, an XSLT 1.0 processor, ...

6.0 SP2 *

.NET Framework 2.0 Microsoft started development on the .NET Framework in the late 1990s originally under the name of Next Generation Windows Services (NGWS). By late 2001 the first beta versions of .NET 1.0 were released. The first version of .NET Framework was ...

SP2 *

Tweak UI Tweak UI is a free application, released in 1996 by Microsoft for customizing the Microsoft Windows operating system's user interface. Tweak UI modifies the Windows Registry in the same way as a user could edit it manually with a program such a ...

1.33 *

Visual C++ 2008 The visual system comprises the sensory organ (the eye) and parts of the central nervous system (the retina containing photoreceptor cells, the optic nerve, the optic tract and the visual cortex) which gives organisms the sense of sight (th ...

Visual Studio 2005 Visual Studio is an integrated development environment (IDE) from Microsoft. It is used to develop computer programs including websites, web apps, web services and mobile apps. Visual Studio uses Microsoft software development platforms such ...

Windows Desktop Search Windows Search (also known as Instant Search) is a content index desktop search platform by Microsoft introduced in Windows Vista as a replacement for both the previous Indexing Service of Windows 2000 and the optional MSN Desktop Search for Wind ...

2.66 *

Windows Script Host The Microsoft Windows Script Host (WSH) (formerly named Windows Scripting Host) is an automation technology for Microsoft Windows operating systems that provides scripting abilities comparable to batch files, but with a wider range of supported fe ...

5.7 *

3.1 * Windows Media Format Runtime and

Windows Media Player 9 Series Windows Media Player (WMP) is the first media player (application software), media player and media library application that was developed by Microsoft for playing sound reproduction, audio, video and viewing images on personal computers runnin ...

(including

Windows Media Encoder Windows Media Encoder (WME) is a discontinued, freeware media encoder developed by Microsoft which enables content developers to convert or capture both live and prerecorded audio, video, and computer screen images to Windows Media formats for ...

7.1 and the Windows Media 8 Encoding Utility)

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 SANS Institute (officially the Escal Institute of Advanced Technologies) is a private U.S. for-profit company founded in 1989 that specializes in information security, cybersecurity training, and selling certificates. Topics available for t ...

, the most common flaws discovered are remotely exploitable

buffer overflow In information security and programming, a buffer overflow, or buffer overrun, is an anomaly whereby a program, while writing data to a buffer, overruns the buffer's boundary and overwrites adjacent memory locations. Buffers are areas of memory ...

vulnerabilities. Other criticized flaws include the use of vulnerable encryption techniques. Code Red and

Code Red II Code Red II is a computer worm similar to the Code Red worm. Released two weeks after Code Red on August 4, 2001, it is similar in behavior to the original, but analysis showed it to be a new worm instead of a variant. Unlike the first, the seco ...

were famous (and much discussed) worms that exploited vulnerabilities of the

Windows Indexing Service Indexing Service (originally called Index Server) was a Windows service that maintained an index of most of the files on a computer to improve searching performance on PCs and corporate computer networks. It updated indexes without user interven ...

of Windows 2000's

(IIS). In August 2003, security researchers estimated that two major worms called Sobig and Blaster infected more than half a million Microsoft Windows computers. The 2005

Zotob "The Zotob worm and several variations of it, known as Rbot.cbq, SDBot.bzh and Zotob.d, infected computers at companies such as American Broadcasting Company, ABC, CNN, The Associated Press, ''The New York Times'', and Caterpillar Inc." — ''B ...

worm was blamed for security compromises on Windows 2000 machines at

ABC ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet. ABC or abc may also refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting * American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster ** Disney–ABC Television ...

CNN CNN (Cable News Network) is a multinational cable news channel headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel, and presently owned by ...

, the

New York Times Company The New York Times Company is an American mass media company that publishes ''The New York Times''. Its headquarters are in Manhattan, New York City. History The company was founded by Henry Jarvis Raymond and George Jones in New York City. T ...

, and the

United States Department of Homeland Security The United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is the Federal government of the United States, U.S. United States federal executive departments, federal executive department responsible for public security, roughly comparable to the I ...

. 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

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 released for the newer

(32-bit) and

Windows XP Professional x64 Edition Microsoft Windows XP Professional x64 Edition, released on April 25, 2005, is an edition of Windows XP for x86-64 personal computers. It is designed to use the expanded 64-bit memory address space provided by the x86-64 architecture. The prima ...

either, despite both also being affected; Microsoft suggested turning on

Windows Firewall Windows Firewall (officially called Microsoft Defender Firewall in Windows 10 version 2004 and later) is a firewall component of Microsoft Windows. It was first included in Windows XP SP2 and Windows Server 2003 SP1. Before the release of Windows ...

in those versions.

Support lifecycle

Windows 2000 and Windows 2000 Server were superseded by newer Microsoft operating systems: Windows 2000 Server products by

, and Windows 2000 Professional by

Windows XP Professional Windows XP, which is the next version of Windows NT after Windows 2000 and the successor to the consumer-oriented Windows Me, has been released in several editions since its original release in 2001. Windows XP is available in many languages. In ...

. The Windows 2000 family of operating systems moved from mainstream support to the extended support phase on June 30, 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-mail or phone. Under the extended support phase, Microsoft continued 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 Windows Media Player (WMP) is the first media player and media library application that was developed by Microsoft for playing audio, video and viewing images on personal computers running the Microsoft Windows operating system, as well as on ...

and

Internet Explorer 7 Windows Internet Explorer 7 (IE7) (codenamed Rincon) is a web browser for Windows. It was released by Microsoft on October 18, 2006, as the seventh version of Internet Explorer and the successor to Internet Explorer 6. Internet Explorer 7 is pa ...

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 Professional and Server were eligible to purchase the upgrade license for Windows Vista Business 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 or a two-step upgrade through XP/2003. Microsoft has dropped the upgrade path from Windows 2000 (and earlier) to

Windows 7 Windows 7 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was released to manufacturing on July 22, 2009, and became generally available on October 22, 2009. It is the successor to Windows Vista, released nearly ...

. Users of Windows 2000 must buy a full Windows 7 license. Although Windows 2000 is the last NT-based version of Microsoft Windows which does not include

product activation Product activation is a license validation procedure required by some proprietary software programs. Product activation prevents unlimited free use of copied or replicated software. Unactivated software refuses to fully function until it ''determin ...

, Microsoft has introduced

Windows Genuine Advantage Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) is an anti-Copyright infringement, infringement system created by Microsoft that enforces online validation of the licensing of several Microsoft Windows operating systems when accessing several services, such as ...

for certain downloads and non-critical updates from the Download Center for Windows 2000. Windows 2000 reached the end of its lifecycle on July 13, 2010 (alongside Service Pack 2 of Windows XP). It will not receive new security updates and new security-related hotfixes after this date. In Japan, over 130,000 servers and 500,000 PCs in local governments were affected; many local governments said that they will not update as they do not have funds to cover a replacement. As of 2011,

Windows Update Windows Update is a Microsoft service for the Windows 9x and Windows NT families of operating system, which automates downloading and installing Microsoft Windows software updates over the Internet. The service delivers software updates for Wind ...

still supports the Windows 2000 updates available on

Patch Tuesday Patch Tuesday (also known as Update Tuesday) is an unofficial term used to refer to when Microsoft, Adobe, Oracle and others regularly release software patches for their software products. It is widely referred to in this way by the industry. Micr ...

in July 2010, e.g., if older optional Windows 2000 features are enabled later. Microsoft Office products under Windows 2000 have their own product lifecycles. While

for

did receive security patches up until it lost support, this is not the case for IE6 under Windows 2000. The

Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool __NOTOC__ Microsoft Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool is a freely distributed virus removal tool developed by Microsoft for the Microsoft Windows operating system. First released on January 13, 2005, it is an on-demand anti-virus tool ("o ...

installed monthly by Windows Update for XP and later versions can be still downloaded manually for Windows 2000. Microsoft in 2020 announced that it would disable the Windows Update service for SHA-1 endpoints and since Windows 2000 did not get an update for SHA-2, Windows Update Services are no longer available on the OS as of late July 2020. However, as of April 2021, the old updates for Windows 2000 are still available on the

Microsoft Update Catalog The Microsoft Update Catalog is a website that offers updates for computers running Windows 2000 SP3, Windows XP, and Windows Server 2003 and later operating systems including Windows 10. Scope Created by Microsoft, the service provides a list o ...

Total cost of ownership

In October 2002, Microsoft commissioned International Data Corporation, IDC to determine the total cost of ownership (TCO) for enterprise applications on Windows 2000 versus the TCO of the same applications on Linux. IDC's report is based on telephone interviews of IT executives and managers of 104 North American companies in which they determined what they were using for a specific workload for file, print, security and networking services. IDC determined that the four areas where Windows 2000 had a better TCO than Linux – over a period of five years for an average organization of 100 employees – were file, print, network infrastructure and security infrastructure. They determined, however, that Linux had a better TCO than Windows 2000 for web serving. The report also found that the greatest cost was not in the procurement of software and hardware, but in staffing costs and downtime. While the report applied a 40% productivity factor during IT infrastructure downtime, recognizing that employees are not entirely unproductive, it did not consider the impact of downtime on the profitability of the business. The report stated that Linux servers had less unplanned downtime than Windows 2000 servers. It found that most Linux servers ran less workload per server than Windows 2000 servers and also that none of the businesses interviewed used 4-way SMP Linux computers. The report also did not take into account specific application servers – servers that need low maintenance and are provided by a specific vendor. The report did emphasize that TCO was only one factor in considering whether to use a particular IT platform, and also noted that as management and server software improved and became better packaged the overall picture shown could change.Windows 2000 Versus Linux in Enterprise Computing
," ''IDC''.

References

External links

Windows 2000 End-of-LifeWindows 2000 Service Pack 4Windows 2000 Update Rollup 1 Version 2
{{Authority control Windows 2000, 1999 software 2000 software Products and services discontinued in 2010 IA-32 operating systems Windows NT, 2000

History

New and updated features

Plug and Play and hardware support improvements

Shell

NTFS 3.0

Encrypting File System

Basic and dynamic disk storage

Accessibility

Languages and locales

Games

System utilities

Recovery Console

Windows Scripting Host 2.0

Networking

Server family features

Distributed File System

Active Directory

Volume fault tolerance

Deployment

Editions

Service packs

Upgradeability

Security

Support lifecycle

Total cost of ownership

See also

References

Further reading

External links