Windows 2000

Windows 2000

File:Windows2000.png Windows 2000 succeeded Windows NT 4.
Developer	Microsoft
OS family	Windows NT
Working state	Historic, Microsoft support ends July 1, 2005
Source model	Closed source
Latest release	Service Pack 4 / June 2003
Kernel type	Hybrid kernel
License	Microsoft EULA
Official website	www.microsoft.com/windows2000

Windows 2000 (also referred to as Win2K, W2K or Windows NT 5.0) is a 32-bit preemptible, interruptible graphical business-oriented operating system, which has been designed to work with either uniprocessor or symmetrical multi processor (SMP) based Intel x86 computers. It is part of the Microsoft Windows NT line of operating systems and was released on February 17, 2000. Windows 2000 comes in four versions: Professional, Server, Advanced Server, and Datacenter Server. Additionally, Microsoft offers Windows 2000 Advanced Server, Limited Edition, released in 2001, which runs on Intel Itanium 64-bit processors. Windows 2000 is classed as a hybrid-kernel operating system and its architecture is divided into two modes, a user mode and a kernel mode. The user mode is highly restrictive and has very limited system resource access, while the kernel mode has no such restrictions.

All versions of Windows 2000 have common functionality, including many system utilities such as the Microsoft Management Console (MMC) and standard system management applications such as a disk defragmenter. Support for people with disabilities has also been improved by Microsoft across their Windows 2000 line, and they have included increased support for different languages and locale information. All versions of the operating system support the Microsoft filesystem, NTFS 5, the Encrypted File System (EFS) and basic and dynamic disk storage. Dynamic disk storage allows different types of volumes to be used. The Windows 2000 Server family has enhanced functionality, including the ability to provide Active Directory services (a hierarchical framework of resources), Distributed file system (a file system that supports sharing of files) and fault-redundant storage volumes.

Windows 2000 can be installed and deployed to an enterprise through either an attended or unattended installation. Unattended installations rely on the use of answer files to fill in installation information, and can be performed through a bootable CD using Microsoft System Management Server (SMS), by the System Preparation Tool (Sysprep).

History

See also: History of Microsoft Windows

Windows 2000 originally descended from the Microsoft Windows NT operating system product line. Originally called Windows NT 5, Microsoft changed the name to Windows 2000 on October 27th, 1998^[1]. It was also the first Windows version that was released without a code name. The first beta for Windows 2000 was released on September 27, 1997 and several further betas were released until Beta 3 which was released on April 29, 1999. From here Microsoft issued three release candidates from between July to November 1999 and finally released the operating system to partners on December 12, 1999 ^[2]. The public received the full version of Windows 2000 on February 17, 2000 and the press immediately hailed it as the most stable operating system Microsoft had ever released. Novell, however, was not so impressed with Microsoft's new directory service architecture as they found it to be less scalable or reliable than their own Novell Directory Services (NDS) technology ^[3]. On September 29, 2000, Microsoft released Windows 2000 Datacenter. Microsoft released Service Pack 2 on August 18, 2003, Service Pack 3 on October 31, 2003 and its last Service Pack (SP4) on November 11, 2003. Microsoft phased out all development of their Java Virtual Machine (JVM) from Windows 2000 in Service Pack 3.

Windows 2000 has since been superseded by newer Microsoft operating systems. Microsoft has replaced Windows 2000 Server products with Windows Server 2003, and Windows 2000 Professional with Windows XP Professional. Windows Neptune started development in 1999, and was supposed to be the home-user edition of Windows 2000. However, the project lagged in production time – and only one alpha release was built. Windows Me was released as a substitute, and the Neptune project was forwarded to the production of Whistler (Windows XP). The only elements of the Windows project which were included in Windows 2000 were the ability to upgrade from Windows 95 or Windows 98, and support for the FAT32 subsystem.

Several notable security flaws have been found in Windows 2000. Code Red and Code Red II were famous (and highly visible to the worldwide press) computer worms that exploited vulnerabilities of the indexing service of Windows 2000's Internet Information Services (IIS). In August 2003, two major worms named the Sobig worm and the Blaster worm began to attack millions of Microsoft Windows computers, resulting in the largest down-time and clean-up cost ever. The worms have also had political consequences as many companies in several countries started to call for government action to prevent further damages from Windows worms.

Architecture

Main article: Architecture of Windows 2000

File:Windows 2000 architecture.PNG

The Windows 2000 operating system architecture consists of two layers (user mode and kernel mode), with many different modules within both of these layers.

Windows 2000 is a highly modular system that consists of two main layers: a user mode and a kernel mode. The user mode refers to the mode in which user programs are run. Such programs are limited in terms of what system resources they have access to, while the kernel mode has unrestricted access to the system memory and external devices. All user mode applications access system resources through the executive which runs in kernel mode.

User mode

User mode in Windows 2000 is made of subsystems capable of passing I/O requests to the appropriate kernel mode drivers by using the I/O manager. Two subsystems make up the user mode layer of Windows 2000: the environment subsystem and the integral subsystem.

The environment subsystem was designed to run applications written for many different types of operating systems. These applications, however, run at a lower priority than kernel mode processes. There are three main environment subsystems:

1. Win32 subsystem runs 32-bit Windows applications and also supports Virtual DOS Machines (VDMs), which allows MS-DOS and 16-bit Windows 3.x (Win16) applications to run on Windows.
2. OS/2 environment subsystem supports 16-bit character-based OS/2 applications and emulates OS/2 1.3 and 1.x, but not 2.x or later OS/2 applications.
3. POSIX environment subsystem supports applications that are strictly written to either the POSIX.1 standard or the related ISO/IEC standards.

The integral subsystem looks after operating system specific functions on behalf of the environment subsystem. It consists of a security subsystem (grants/denies access and handles logons), workstation service (helps the computer gain network access) and a server service (lets the computer provide network services).

Kernel mode

Kernel mode in Windows 2000 has full access to the hardware and system resources of the computer. The kernel mode stops user mode services and applications from accessing critical areas of the operating system that they should not have access to.

File:Winobj.PNG

Each object in Windows 2000 exists in its own namespace. This is a screenshot from SysInternal's WinObj

The executive interfaces with all the user mode subsystems. It deals with I/O, object management, security and process management. It contains various components, including:

• Object manager: a special executive subsystem that all other executive subsystems must pass through to gain access to Windows 2000 resources. This essentially is a resource management infrastructure service that allows Windows 2000 to be a object oriented operating system.
• I/O Manager: allows devices to communicate with user-mode subsystems by translating user-mode read and write commands and passing them to device drivers.
• Security Reference Monitor (SRM): the primary authority for enforcing the security rules of the security integral subsystem. ^[4]
• IPC Manager: short for Interprocess Communication Manager, manages the communication between clients (the environment subsystem) and servers (components of the executive).
• Virtual Memory Manager: manages virtual memory, allowing Windows 2000 to use the hard disk as a primary storage device (although strictly speaking it is secondary storage).
• Process Manager: handles process and thread creation and termination
• PnP Manager: handles Plug and Play and supports device detection and installation at boot time.
• Power Manager: the power manager coordinates power events and generates power IRPs.
• The display system is handled by a device driver contained in Win32k.sys. The Window Manager component of this driver is responsible for drawing windows and menus while the GDI (graphical device interface) component is responsible for tasks such as drawing line (mathematics)lines and curves, rendering fonts and handling palettes.

The Windows 2000 Hardware Abstraction Layer, or HAL, is a layer between the physical hardware of the computer and the rest of the operating system. It was designed to hide differences in hardware and therefore provide a consistent platform to run applications on. The HAL includes hardware specific code that controls I/O interfaces, interrupt controllers and multiple processors.

The microkernel sits between the HAL and the executive and provides multiprocessor synchronization, thread and interrupt scheduling and dispatching, trap handling and exception dispatching. The microkernel often interfaces with the process manager. ^[5] The microkernel is also responsible for initialising device drivers at bootup that are necessary to get the operating system up and running.

Kernel mode drivers exist in three levels: highest level drivers, intermediate drivers and low level drivers. The Windows Driver Model (WDM) exists in the intermediate layer and was mainly designed to be binary and source compatible between Windows 98 and Windows 2000. The lowest level drivers are either legacy Windows NT device drivers that control a device directly or can be a PnP hardware bus.

Common functionality

File:Win2000 logo.jpg

Certain features are common across all versions of Windows 2000 (both Professional and the Server versions), among them being NTFS 5, the Microsoft Management Console (MMC), the Encrypted File System (EFS), dynamic and basic disk storage, usability enhancements and multi-language and locale support. Windows 2000 also has several standard system utilities included as standard. As well as these features, Microsoft introduced a new feature to protect critical system files, called Windows File Protection (WFP). This prevents programs (with the exception of Microsoft's update programs) from replacing critical Windows system files and thus making the system inoperable ^[6]. Also in Windows 2000, Microsoft recognised that the infamous Blue Screen of Death (or stop error) could cause serious problems for servers that needed to be constantly running. They provided a system setting that would allow the server to automatically reboot when a stop error occurred, with the option of dumping the first 64KB of memory to disk (the smallest amount of memory that is useful for debugging 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 computers running Windows 2000 as a server operating system, Microsoft gave administrators the choice of optimising the operating system for background services or for applications.

NTFS 5

Main article: NTFS § NTFS v3

File:Win2kquotas.png

Windows 2000 supports disk quotas, which can be set via the "Quotas" tab found in the hard disk properties dialogue box.

Microsoft released the third version of the NT File System (NTFS) — also known as version 5.0 — in Windows 2000; this introduced quotas, file-system-level encryption (called EFS), sparse files and reparse points. Sparse files allow for the efficient storage of data sets that are very large yet contain many areas that only have zeroes. Reparse points allow the object manager 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, Directory Junctions, Hierarchical Storage Management, Native Structured Storage and Single Instance Storage. Volume mount points and directory junctions allow for a file to be transparently referred from one file or directory location to another.

Encrypting File System

Main article: Encrypting File System

The Encrypting File System (EFS) introduced strong encryption into the Windows file world. It allowed any folder or drive on an NTFS volume to be encrypted transparently to the end user. EFS works in conjunction with the EFS service, Microsoft's CryptoAPI and the EFS File System Run-Time Library (FSRTL). As of February 2004, its encryption has not been compromised.

EFS works by encrypting a file with a bulk symmetric key (also known as the File Encryption Key, or FEK), which is used because it takes a relatively smaller amount of time to encrypt and decrypt large amounts of data than if an asymmetric key cipher is used. The symmetric key that is used to encrypt the file is then encrypted with a public key that is 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 that is 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. ^[7] Also, in case of a user losing access to their key, support for recovery agents that can decrypt files has been built in to the EFS system.

Basic and dynamic disk storage

All versions of Windows 2000 support basic and dynamic storage. Basic storage involves dividing a disk into primary and extended partitions. This is the way that all versions of Windows that were reliant on DOS handled storage, and disks formatted in this manner are known as basic disks. Dynamic storage involves the use of a single partition that covers the entire disk, and the disk itself is divided into volumes or combined with other disks to form volumes that are greater in size than one disk itself. Basic disks can be upgraded to dynamic disks, however when this is done the disk cannot be downgraded to a basic disk again, and no other operating system other than Windows 2000 will be able to read the disk. Volumes can use any supported file system.

All versions of Windows 2000 support three types of volumes: simple volumes, spanned volumes and striped volumes:

• Simple volume: this is a volume with disk space from one disk.
• Spanned volumes: multiple disks are span up to 32 disks. If one disk fails, then you lose all the data in the volume.
• Striped volumes: also known as RAID-0, a striped volume stores all its data across several disks in stripes. This allows more optimum performance because disk read and writes are balanced across multiple disks.

Accessibility support

Microsoft made an effort to increase the usability of Windows 2000 for people with visual and auditory impairments and other disabilities. They included several utilities designed to make the system more accessible:

• FilterKeys: These are a group of keyboard related support for people with typing issues, and include:
  • SlowKeys: Windows is told to disregard keystrokes that are not held down for a certain time period
  • BounceKeys: multiple keystrokes to one key to be ignored within a certain timeframe
  • RepeatKeys: allows users to slow down the rate at which keys are repeated via the keyboard's keyrepeat feature
• ToggleKeys: when turned on, Windows will play a sound when either the CAPS LOCK, NUM LOCK or SCROLL LOCK keys are pressed
• MouseKeys: allows the cursor to be moved around the screen via the numeric keypad instead of the mouse
• On screen keyboard: assists those who are not familiar with a given keyboard by allowing them to use a mouse to enter characters to the screen
• SerialKeys: gives Windows 2000 the ability to support speech augmentation devices
• StickyKeys: makes modifier keys (ALT, CTRL and SHIFT) become "sticky" — in other words a user can press the modifier key, release that key and then press the combination key. Normally the modifier key must remain pressed down to activate the sequence.
• On screen magnifier: assists users with visual impairments by magnifying the part of the screen they place their mouse over.
• Narrator: Microsoft Narrator assists users with visual impairments with system messages, as when these appear the narrator will read this out via the sound system
• High contrast theme: to assist users with visual impairments
• SoundSentry: designed to help users with auditory impairments, Windows 2000 will show a visual effect when a sound is played through the sound system

File:Win2kkeyboardmap.png

The Windows 2000 onscreen keyboard map allows users who have problems with using the keyboard to use a mouse to input text.

Language & locale support

Windows 2000 has support for many languages other than English (though not as many as the GNOME project has). It supports Arabic, Armenian, Baltic, Central European, Cyrillic, Georgian, Greek, Hebrew, Indic, Japanese, Korean, Simplified Chinese, Thai, Traditional Chinese, Turkic, Vietnamese and Western European languages ^[8]. It also has support for many different locales, a list of which can be found on Microsoft's website.

System utilities

File:Win2k mmc.png

The Microsoft Management Console (MMC) is used for administering Windows 2000 computers.

Windows 2000 introduced the Microsoft Management Console (MMC), which is used to create, save, and open administrative tools. Each of the tools is called a console, and most consoles 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. Snap-ins can be either standalone (performs one function), or extensions (adds functionality 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 created in user mode. Author mode allows snap-ins to be added, new windows to be created, all portions of the console tree can be displayed and for consoles to be saved. User mode allows consoles to be distributed with restrictions applied. User mode consoles can have full access granted user so they can make whatever changes they desire, can have limited access so that users cannot add to the console but they can view multiple windows in a console, or they can have limited access so that users cannot add to the console and also cannot view multiple windows in a console. ^[9]

The Windows 2000 Computer Management console is capable of performing many system tasks. It is pictured here starting a disk defragmentation.

The main tools that come with Windows 2000 can be found in the Computer Management console (found in Administrative Tools in the Control Panel). This contains the event viewer — a means of seeing events and the Windows equivalent of a log file, a system information viewer, the ability to view open shared folders and shared folder sessions, a device manager and a tool to view all the local users and groups on the Windows 2000 computer. It also contains a disk management snap-in, which contains a disk defragmenter as well as other disk management utilities. Lastly, it also contains a services viewer, which allows users to view all installed services and to stop and start them on demand, as well as configure what those services should do when the computer starts.

File:Windows 2000 REGEDIT.png

The REGEDIT.EXE utility on Windows 2000.

File:Windows 2000 REGEDT32.png

The REGEDT32.EXE utility showing the same part of the registry.

Windows 2000 came bundled with two utilities to edit the Windows registry. One acted like the Windows 9x REGEDIT.EXE program and the other could edit registry permissions in the same manner that Windows NT's REGEDT32.EXE program could. REGEDIT.EXE had a left-side tree view that began at "My Computer" and listed all loaded hives. REGEDT32.EXE had a left-side tree view, but each hive had its own window, so the tree displayed only keys. REGEDIT.EXE represented the three components of a value (its name, type, and data) as separate columns of a table. REGEDT32.EXE represented them as a list of strings. REGEDIT.EXE was written for the Win32 API and supported right-clicking of entries in a tree view to adjust properties and other settings. REGEDT32.EXE was written for the NT 3.x API and required all actions to be performed from the top menu bar. Because REGEDIT.EXE was directly ported from Windows 98, it did not support permission editing (permissions do not exist on Windows 9x). Therefore, the only way to access the full functionality of an NT registry was with REGEDT32.EXE, which used the older MDI (multiple document interface), which newer versions of regedit do not use. Windows XP was the first system to integrate these two programs into one, adopting the REGEDIT.EXE behavior with the additional NT functionality.

The System File Checker (SFC) also comes bundled with Windows 2000. It is a command line utility that scans system files and verifies whether they were signed by Microsoft and works in conjunction with the Windows File Protection mechanism. It can also repopulate and repair all the files in the Dllcache folder ^[10].

Server family functionality

File:Win2kserver logo.jpg

The Windows 2000 server family consists of Windows 2000 Server, Windows 2000 Advanced Server and Windows 2000 Datacenter Server. They all have advanced functionality not found in Windows 2000 Professional, among these features are support for DFS, Active Directory and advanced fault-tolerant volumes.

Distributed File System

Main article: Distributed File System (Microsoft)

The Distributed File System, or DFS, allows shares in multiple different locations to be logically grouped under one folder, or DFS root. When users try to access a share that exists 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 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 DFS on Windows 2000: through standalone DFS, or through domain-based DFS. Standalone DFS allows for only DFS roots that exist 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 controllers within the domain — this provides fault tolerance 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 File Replication Service (FRS) ^[11].

Active Directory

Main article: Active Directory

Active Directory allows administrators to assign enterprise wide policies, deploy programs to many computers, and apply critical updates to an entire organization, and is one of the main reasons why many corporations have moved to Windows 2000. Active Directory stores information about its users and can act in a similar manner to a phone book. This allows all of the information and computer settings about an organization to be stored in a central, organized database. Active Directory Networks can vary from a small installation with a few hundred objects, to a large installation with millions of objects. Active Directory can organise groups of resources into a single domain and can link domains into a contiguous domain name space together to form trees. Groups of trees that do not exist within the same namespace can be linked together to form forests.

Active Directory can only be installed on a Windows 2000 Server, Advanced Server or Datacenter Server computer and cannot be installed on Windows 2000 Professional computer. It requires that a DNS service that supports SRV resource records be installed, or that an existing DNS infrastructure be upgraded to support his functionality. It also requires that one or more domain controllers exists to hold the Active Directory database and provide Active Directory directory services.

Volume fault tolerance

Along with support for simple, spanned and striped volumes, the server family of Windows 2000 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 mirrored 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-1.
• RAID-5 volumes: a RAID-5 volume consists of multiple disks, and it uses block-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".

Versions

Microsoft released various versions of Windows 2000 to cater to different markets and business needs. It released Windows 2000 Professional, Windows 2000 Server, Windows 2000 Advanced Server and Windows Datacenter Server:

File:Win2kbox.JPG

• Windows 2000 Professional is designed as a desktop operating system in business environments. It offers greater security and stability than previous Windows desktop operating systems. It supports up to two processors, and can address up to 4 GB of RAM.

• Windows 2000 Server products share the same user interface with Windows 2000 Professional, but contain additional components for running infrastructure and application software. A significant component of the server products is Active Directory, which is an enterprise-wide directory service based on LDAP. Additionally, Microsoft integrated Kerberos network authentication, replacing the often-criticised NTLM authentication system used in previous versions. This also provided a purely transitive-trust relationship between Windows 2000 domains in a forest (a collection of one or more Windows 2000 domains that share a common schema, configuration, and global catalogue, being linked with two-way transitive trusts). Furthermore, Windows 2000 introduced a DNS server which allows dynamic registration of IP addresses.

File:Win2kASbox.jpg

• Windows 2000 Advanced Server is a variant of Windows 2000 Server operating system designed for medium-to-large businesses. It offers clustering infrastructure for high availability and scalability of applications and services, including main memory support of up to 8 gigabytes (GB) on Page Address Extension (PAE) systems and the ability to do 8-way SMP. It has support for TCP/IP load balancing and enhanced two-node server clusters based on the Microsoft Windows Cluster Server (MSCS) in the Windows NT Server 4.0 Enterprise Edition ^[12]. A limited edition 64 bit version of Windows 2000 Advanced Server was made available via the OEM Channel. It also supports failover and load balancing.

• Windows 2000 Datacenter Server is a variant of the Windows 2000 Server that is designed for large businesses that move large quantites of confidential or sensitive data frequently via a central server. As with Advanced Server, it supports clustering, failover and load balancing. Its system requirements are normal, but are compatible with vast amounts of power:
  • A Pentium-class CPU at 400 MHz or higher - up to 32 are supported in one machine
  • 256 MB of RAM - up to 64 GB is supported in one machine
  • Approximitely 1 GB of available disk space

Deployment

Windows 2000 can be deployed to a site via various methods. It can be installed onto servers via traditional media (such as via CD) or via distribution folders that reside on a shared folder. Installations can be attended or unattended. An attended installation requires the manual intervention of an operator to choose options when installing the operating system. Unattended installations are scripted via an answer file, or predefined script in the form of an ini file that has all the options filled in already. 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 System Management Server (SMS), via the System Preperation Tool (Sysprep), via running the Winnt32.exe program using the /syspart switch or via running the Remote Installation Service (RIS).

The Syspart method is started on a standardised reference computer — though the hardware need not be similar — and it copies the required installation files from the reference computer's hard drive to the target computer's hard drive. The hard drive does not need to be in the target computer and may be swapped out to it at any time, with hardware configuration still needing to be done later. The Winnt.exe program must also be passed a /unattend switch that points to a valid answer file and a /s file to point to the location of one or more valid installation sources.

Sysprep allows the duplication of a disk image 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 Windows 2000 installations, but it also means that the reference and target computers must have the same HALs, ACPI support, and mass storage devices — though Windows 2000 automatically detects plug and play devices. The primary reason for using Sysprep is for deploying Windows 2000 to a site that has standard hardware and that needs a fast method of installing Windows 2000 to those computers. If a system has different HALs, mass storage devices or ACPI support, then multiple images would need to be maintained.

Systems Management Server can be used to upgrade system to Windows 2000 to multiple systems. Those operating systems that can be upgraded in this process must be running a version of Windows that can be upgraded (Windows NT 3.51, Windows NT 4, Windows 98 and Windows 95 OSR2.x) and those versions must be running the SMS client agent that can receive software installation operations. Using SMS allows installations to happen over a wide geographical area and provides centralised control over upgrades to systems.

Remote Installation Services (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 ^[13]. RIS requires that client computers are able to boot over the network via either a network interface card that has a Pre-Boot Execution Environment (PXE) boot ROM installed or that it has a network card installed that is supported by the remote boot disk generator. The remote computer must also meet the Net PC specification. The server that RIS runs on must be Windows 2000 Server and the server must be able to access a network DNS Service, a DHCP service and the Active Directory services ^[14].

Total cost of ownership

See also: Studies related to Microsoft

In October 2002, Microsoft commissioned IDC to determine the total cost of ownership (TCO) for enterprise applications on Windows 2000 versus the TCO of Linux on the same enterprise applications. IDC looked at security and other infrastructure tasks, and Web Serving. According to the report, Windows 2000 had a lower TCO for four infrastructure items and Linux had a lower TCO for web serving. IDC's report was 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 organisation of 100 employees — were in the use of file, print, network infrastructure and security infrastructure. They determined, however, that Linux had a better TCO than Windows 2000 when it came to 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. The report did not take into consideration the impact of downtime to the profitability of the business (although they did apply a 40% productivity factor, in order to recognise that employees are not entirely unproductive during periods of IT infrastructure downtime) though it did find that Linux servers had less unplanned downtime than Windows 2000 Servers. They found that most Linux servers ran less workload per server than Windows 2000 servers and also found that none of the businesses they interviewed used 4-way SMP Linux computers. IDC also did not take into account specific application servers — servers that need low maintenance and are provided by a specific vendor — when they performed their study. The report did emphasise 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 that was being shown in their report could change ^[15].

See also

• Comparison of operating systems
• Comparison of operating systems (security)
• Microsoft codenames
• List of OS-tans

Notes

1. ^ "It's official: NT 5.0 becomes Windows 2000", infoWorld.
2. ^ "Windows 2000 history", ActiveWin.
3. ^ "NDS eDirectory vs. Microsoft Active Directory?" (November 17, 1999). Novell Cool Solutions Question & Answer. Novell was less than impressed with Active Directory, stating that "NDS eDirectory is a cross-platform directory solution that works on NT 4, Windows 2000 when available, Solaris and NetWare 5. Active Directory will only support the Windows 2000 environment. In addition, eDirectory users can be assured they are using the most trusted, reliable and mature directory service to manage and control their e-business relationships — not a 1.0 release."
4. ^ Microsoft. "Active Directory Data Storage".
5. ^ Inside Microsoft Windows 2000 (Third Edition). Microsoft Press.
6. ^ Microsoft KB article 222193: Description of the Windows File Protection Feature
7. ^ "Encrypting File System". Microsoft.
8. ^ Microsoft Support KB 292264: List of Lanuages Supported in Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows Server 2003.
9. ^ Microsoft Press (2000). MCSE 70-210, Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional, pages 58-63.
10. ^ Microsoft KB article 222471: Description of the Windows 2000 System File Checker (Sfc.exe)
11. ^ Microsoft KB article 812487: Overview of DFS in Windows 2000
12. ^ Microsoft. "Introducing Windows 2000 Deployment Planning".
13. ^ Mark Minasi. Installing Windows 2000 On Workstations with Remote Installation Services.
14. ^ Microsoft Press (2000). MCSE 70-210, Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional, pages 543-551.
15. ^ "Windows 2000 Versus Linux in Enterprise Computing", IDC.

References

• Bolosky, William J.; Corbin, Scott; Goebel, David; & Douceur, John R. "Single Instance Storage in Windows 2000". Microsoft Research & Balder Technology Group, Inc. (white paper).
• Bozman, Jean; Gillen, Al; Kolodgy, Charles; Kusnetzky, Dan; Perry, Randy; & Shiang, David (October 2002). "Windows 2000 Versus Linux in Enterprise Computing: An assessment of business value for selected workloads". IDC, sponsored by Microsoft Corporation. White paper.
• Finnel, Lynn (2000). MCSE Exam 70-215, Microsoft Windows 2000 Server. Microsoft Press. ISBN 1-57231-903-8.
• Microsoft. Running Nonnative Applications in Windows 2000 Professional. Windows 2000 Resource Kit. Retrieved May 4, 2005.
• Microsoft. "Active Directory Data Storage". Retrieved May 9, 2005.
• Minasi, Mark (1993). Installing Windows 2000 of Mastering Windows 2000 Server. Sybex. Chapter 3 — Installing Windows 2000 On Workstations with Remote Installation Services.
• Russinovich, Mark (October 1997). "Inside NT's Object Manager". Windows IT Pro.
• Russinovich, Mark (2002). "Inside Win2K NTFS, Part 1". Windows IT Pro (formerly Windows 2000 Magazine).
• Saville, John (January 9, 2000). "What is Native Structure Storage?". Windows IT Pro (formerly Windows 2000 Magazine).
• Siyan, Kanajit S. (2000). "Windows 2000 Professional Reference". New Riders. ISBN 0735709521.
• Salomon, David; & Russinovich, Mark E. (2000). Inside Microsoft Windows 2000 (Third Edition). Microsoft Press. ISBN 0735610215.
• Trott, Bob (October 27, 1998). "It's official: NT 5.0 becomes Windows 2000". InfoWorld.
• Wallace, Rick (2000). MCSE Exam 70-210, Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional. Microsoft Press. ISBN 1-57231-901-1.

External links

• Official Page
• Windows 2000 Server comparison chart
• GUIdebook: Windows 2000 Gallery - A website dedicated to preserving and showcasing Graphical User Interfaces
• Windows 2000 Quick Fixes - online book