Troubleshooting Window 2000 Server
Troubleshooting Window 2000 Server
Windows 2000 is a line of operating systems produced by Microsoft for use on business desktops, notebook computers, and servers. Released on 17 February 2000, it was the successor to Windows NT 4.0, and is the final release of Microsoft Windows to display the "Windows NT" designation. It was succeeded by Windows XP for desktop systems in October 2001 and Windows Server 2003 for servers in April 2003.
Four editions of Windows 2000 were released: Professional , Server , Advanced Server , and Datacenter Server . Additionally, Microsoft sold Windows 2000 Advanced Server Limited Edition and Windows 2000 Datacenter Server Limited Edition , which were released in 2001 and run on 64-bit Intel Itanium microprocessors. While each edition of Windows 2000 was targeted to a different market, they share a core set of features, including many system utilities such as the Microsoft Management Console and standard system administration applications. Support for people with disabilities has been improved over Windows NT 4.0 with a number of new assistive technologies, and Microsoft increased support for different languages and locale information. All versions of the operating system support the Windows NT file system, NTFS 3.0, the Encrypting File System, as well as basic and dynamic disk storage. The Windows 2000 Server family has additional features, 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 through either a manual or unattended installation. Unattended installations rely on the use of answer files to fill in installation information, and can be performed through a bootable CD using Microsoft Systems Management Server, by the System Preparation Tool.
Microsoft marketed Windows 2000 as the most secure Windows version ever, but it became the target of a number of high-profile virus attacks such as Code Red and Nimda. Over ten years after its release, it continues to receive patches for security vulnerabilities nearly every month and will continue to do so until 13 July 2010.
History
See also: History of Microsoft WindowsWindows 2000 is a continuation of the Microsoft Windows NT family of operating systems, replacing Windows NT 4.0. Originally called Windows NT 5.0, then Windows NT 2000, Microsoft changed the name to Windows 2000 on 27 October 1998. It is also the first Windows version that has been released without a code name, though Windows 2000 Service Pack 1 was codenamed "Asteroid" and Windows 2000 64-bit was codenamed "Janus" (not to be confused with Windows 3.1, which had the same codename). The first beta for Windows 2000 was released in September 1997 and several further betas followed until Beta 3 which was released on 29 April 1999. During development, there was a build for the Alpha which was abandoned some time after RC1 after Compaq 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 12 December 1999. The public could buy the full version of Windows 2000 on 17 February 2000. Three days before this event, which Microsoft advertised as "a standard in reliability", a leaked memo from Microsoft reported on by Mary Jo Foley revealed that Windows 2000 had "over 63,000 potential known defects". After Foley's article was published, Microsoft blacklisted her for a considerable time: InformationWeek summarized the release "our tests show the successor to NT 4.0 is everything we hoped it would be. Of course, it isn't perfect either." Wired News later described the results of the February launch as "lackluster". Novell criticized Microsoft's Active Directory, the new directory service architecture as less scalable or reliable than its own Novell Directory Services (NDS) alternative.
Windows 2000 was first planned to replace both Windows 98 and Windows NT 4.0. However, that changed later. Instead, an updated version of Windows 98 called Windows 98 Second Edition was released in 1999 and Windows Me was released in late 2000. Close to the release of Windows 2000 Service Pack 1, Microsoft released Windows 2000 Datacenter Server, targeted at large-scale computing systems with support for 32 processors, on 29 September 2000.
On or shortly before 12 February 2004, "portions of the Microsoft Windows 2000 and Windows NT 4.0 source code were illegally made available on the Internet". The source of the leak remains unannounced. Microsoft issued the following statement:
"Microsoft source code is both copyrighted and protected as a trade secret. As such, it is illegal to post it, make it available to others, download it or use it."
Despite the warnings, the archive containing the leaked code spread widely on the file-sharing networks. On 16 February 2004, an exploit "allegedly discovered by an individual studying the leaked source code" for certain versions of Microsoft Internet Explorer was reported.
New and updated features
Windows 2000 introduced many of the new features of Windows 98 and Windows 98 SE into the NT line, such as the Windows Desktop Update, Internet Explorer 5, Outlook Express, NetMeeting, FAT32 support, Windows Driver Model, Internet Connection Sharing, Windows Media Player, WebDAV support etc. Certain new features are common across all editions of Windows 2000, among them NTFS 3.0, the Microsoft Management Console (MMC),Automated System Recovery, UDF support, the Encrypting File System (EFS), Logical Disk Manager, Image Color Management 2.0, support for PostScript 3-based printers, OpenType (.OTF) and Type 1 PostScript (.PFB) font support, the Data protection API (DPAPI), an LDAP/Active Directory-enabled Address Book, usability enhancements and multi-language and locale support. Windows 2000 also introduced USB device class drivers for USB hubs, human interface devices, Mass storage class devices, and USB communication devices.
A new capability designed to protect critical system files called Windows File Protection 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 and other update components from modifying them. The System File Checker utility provides users the ability to perform a manual scan 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 or a 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 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 Installer, Windows Management Instrumentation and Event Tracing for Windows (ETW) into the operating system.
Windows Explorer
Windows Explorer has been enhanced in several ways in Windows 2000. It is the first Windows NT release to include Active Desktop, first introduced as a part of Internet Explorer 4.0 (specifically Windows Desktop Update), and only pre-installed in Windows 98 by that time. It allowed users to customize the way folders look and behave by using HTML templates, having the file extension HTT . This feature was abused by computer viruses that employed malicious scripts, Java applets, or ActiveX controls in folder template files as their infection vector. Two such viruses are VBS/Roor-C 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 2000 had been the only Windows release to feature an interactive media player as the previewer for sound and video files. However, such a previewer can be enabled in Windows Me and Windows XP through the use of third-party shell extensions, as the updated Windows Explorer allows for custom thumbnail previewers and tooltip handlers. The default file tooltip displays file title, author, subject and comments; this metadata may be read from a special NTFS stream, if the file is on an NTFS volume, or from an OLE structured storage stream, if the file is a stru
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