Windows 2000: Why It Was One of Microsoft's Best

Windows 2000 (often shortened to W2K) was Microsoft's business-focused version of Windows. During development it was called Windows NT 5.0, and Microsoft marketed it as "Built on NT Technology." It was aimed at small businesses and power users as well as the larger, more technical organizations that Windows NT had always targeted. Many people, us included, still think it was one of the best versions of Windows ever made.

What Is Windows 2000?

Windows 2000 is a 32-bit, preemptive multitasking operating system for Intel Pentium and later processors. It succeeded Windows NT 4.0 and was originally named Windows NT version 5.0. Its key design goals were portability, security, POSIX (IEEE Std. 1003.1) compliance, multiprocessor support, extensibility, international support, and compatibility with MS-DOS and Microsoft Windows applications.

The History of Windows 2000

In the mid-1980s, Microsoft and IBM worked together on the OS/2 operating system, written in assembly language for single-processor Intel 80286 systems. In 1988, Microsoft decided to start fresh with a portable "new technology" (NT) operating system that would support both the OS/2 and POSIX application programming interfaces (APIs). In October 1988 it hired Dave Cutler, the architect of DEC's VAX/VMS operating system, to lead the project.

At first the team planned to use the OS/2 API as NT's native environment, but as Windows 3.0 took off, they switched to the 32-bit Windows API (Win32). The first versions were Windows NT 3.1 and Windows NT 3.1 Advanced Server (16-bit Windows was at version 3.1 at the time). Windows NT 4.0 adopted the Windows 95 interface and bundled web server and web browser software. It also moved user interface and graphics code into the kernel to improve performance, at some cost to stability.

Earlier versions of NT had been ported to other processor architectures, but Windows 2000 dropped that for market reasons, so "portability" now meant portability across Intel-based systems. Windows 2000 uses a microkernel-style architecture (similar to Mach), so one part of the operating system can be improved without heavily affecting the rest. With Terminal Services it also became a true multi-user operating system. When it launched in 2000 it brought major changes.

These included an X.500-based directory service (Active Directory), better networking, Plug and Play support, a new file system with support for hierarchical storage, a distributed file system, and support for more processors and more memory. There were four editions: Professional for desktops, and three server editions (Server, Advanced Server and Datacenter Server) that differed mainly in how much memory and how many processors they supported.

All four shared the same kernel and core code, but the server editions were set up for client-server applications and could act as application servers on NetWare and Microsoft networks. Datacenter Server supported up to 32 processors and up to 64 GB of RAM. To put Windows NT's success in context: by 1996, more Windows NT Server licenses were being sold than all versions of UNIX combined. Windows 2000's code base was around 30 million lines, compared with about 18 million for Windows NT 4.0.

The Windows 2000 Logo

The Four Editions of Windows 2000

Windows 2000 Professional

Aimed at individuals and businesses of all sizes, Professional added security and mobile computing improvements. It was the most affordable edition.

Windows 2000 Server

Designed for small and medium-sized businesses, Server could work as a file, print, web or workgroup (branch office) server and supported two-way symmetric multiprocessing (SMP). NT 4.0 servers could be upgraded to it.

Windows 2000 Advanced Server

Built to be a network operating system server and/or application server, including for large databases. It added clustering and load balancing, and NT 4.0 servers with up to eight-way SMP could upgrade to it.

Windows 2000 Datacenter Server

Made for large data warehouses, online transaction processing (OLTP), econometric analysis and other jobs that needed heavy computing power and big databases. Datacenter Server supported up to 32-way SMP and 64 GB of physical memory.

Windows 2000 ISO: What Was Included

Windows 2000 shipped in late 1999 and was released to the public on February 17, 2000, coming between Windows NT 4.0 and Windows XP. Professional received four service packs (SP1 to SP4) over its lifetime. It's long out of support, so it isn't safe to connect to the internet today, and we don't link to unofficial ISO downloads. If you want to explore it, a licensed copy in a virtual machine is the way to go.

On the desktop, Windows 2000 brought Internet Explorer 5, a refreshed interface, Outlook Express, NetMeeting, Internet Connection Sharing, Windows Media Player and the new Windows Driver Model. For system administration it introduced the Microsoft Management Console (MMC), and most of the Windows NT 4.0 admin tools became MMC "snap-ins," including Event Viewer, Computer Management, COM+ management, Group Policy, Disk Defragmenter, Device Manager, Services and, when installed, IIS.

Windows 2000 had two registry editors: the classic MDI-style regedt32.exe, which could edit Windows NT permissions, and the Windows 98-style regedit.exe, which couldn't edit remote permissions.

It was available in more than 20 languages and was aimed at both client and server computing. Server and Advanced Server included valuable features such as the Routing and Remote Access Service (RRAS) for dial-up connections and demand-dial routing.

The server editions also supported DNS server, Dynamic DNS, IPsec, smart cards, COM+, MSMQ 2.0, TAPI 3.0, MS-CHAP v2 and Internet Information Services, plus a Public Key Infrastructure with Enterprise Certificate Authority, Terminal Services and the Remote Desktop Protocol.

Key features of Windows 2000 Server

1. A capable, flexible server operating system.
2. Considered one of the most secure Windows versions of its time.
3. RRAS support for dial-up connections.
4. Demand-dial routing.
5. A new Windows Time Service.
6. Built-in DNS server.

Windows 2000 Server / Advanced Server installation details

1. Product: Windows 2000 Server
2. Installation media: CD-ROM (about 484 MB as an ISO image)
3. Architecture: 32-bit (x86)
4. Developer: Microsoft (Windows 2000 documentation)

System requirements for Windows 2000 Server / Advanced Server

• Memory (RAM): 256 MB recommended (128 MB minimum)
• Hard drive space: 1 GB free
• Processor: Intel Pentium 133 MHz or higher (Pentium III or faster recommended)

Windows 2000 and Games

Spare a thought for those of us who stuck with Windows 2000. I used it happily for close to five years and never felt any need to move to Windows XP. If anything, I preferred Windows 2000's slightly snappier interface and modest appetite for memory (not to mention the futuristic name). For a long time that was fine.

Windows 2000 is only about a year older than XP and, in terms of what modern games need, almost identical. Yet publishers and developers gradually started dropping support for it. Not just a disclaimer on the box, either: some games actively checked for Windows 2000 and refused to install or run.

Because Windows 2000 users were a small minority (a Valve survey of Steam users once put them at under 1% of PC gamers), there wasn't much outcry. There was also a lot of confusion about how similar the two systems really are. Many players, and publishers, assumed there must be a technical reason new games wouldn't run, as there had been when moving from DOS-based Windows 98 to NT-based Windows 2000 and XP.

In reality, the most common reason was simple: once a studio decided not to support an OS, small changes could break compatibility without anyone noticing. Users often managed to patch these minor issues, and the games ran perfectly. A good example is Enemy Territory: Quake Wars, by Splash Damage with id Software, which officially supported Windows XP/Vista, Mac OS X and Linux, but not Windows 2000.

A few cases looked deliberate, which made people suspicious. The clearest was Ensemble Studios' Age of Empires III, which checked the operating system at install time and refused to install on Windows 2000. Bypass that check (using Microsoft's own MSIEXEC utility) and the game installed and ran without any problems. Many players concluded that Microsoft was happy to nudge gamers towards newer versions of Windows.

The "Games for Windows" program didn't explicitly ban Windows 2000 support, but it required games to use API calls Windows 2000 didn't have. Most affected games were later patched by the community to work anyway.

The main exception was Relic's Company of Heroes, which apparently did something under the hood that genuinely required Windows XP. Splash Damage was refreshingly open about Quake Wars and Windows 2000; Relic never really explained, and discouraged questions about it on its forums.

It's unreasonable to expect developers to support old systems forever. But it's fair to expect to be told why.

The Windows 2000 Release Date

Back in 1999, an internal Microsoft email reported by IDG.net set the release-to-manufacturing date for Windows 2000 at October 6, 1999. That matched what other sources were saying at the time, and contradicted Microsoft's public line that it would ship "when customers say it's ready." In reality, Microsoft products ran to development timelines, and many (Visual Studio 6.0, Internet Explorer 4.0 and others) were declared finished when their date arrived, often followed by a wave of updates and bug fixes.

Microsoft knew Windows 2000 had to be as reliable as possible, and it was delayed more than once; it was originally meant to ship in late 1998.

A leadership shake-up put the project back on track. In December 1998, Moshe Dunie was moved off the project and Brian Valentine took direct responsibility for Windows 2000. A firm schedule followed, and the first milestone, Beta 3 Release Candidate 1 (RC1), arrived on time, with Beta 3 due on April 21.

"Our credibility is on the line here," Valentine told the Windows 2000 team in January, referring to the March 17 date for Beta 3 RC1. "We need to deliver." In the end, Windows 2000 was finalized in December 1999 and launched on February 17, 2000.