Windows 2000 - Orientation Guide

Section 1: New names, new features

Following the Oct. 27, 1998 announcement of a name change from Windows NT 5.0 to Windows 2000, Microsoft revised its plans with regard to the symmetrical multiprocessing (SMP) capabilities of the various releases of the Windows 2000 operating system. Originally, the company had stated that the Server version of Windows 2000 would support two-way SMP. However the company subsequently announced, in Aug. 1999, that Server would support systems using up to four processors, while Advanced Server would support up to eight processors. DataCenter Server, aimed at companies with high-end server needs, will support additional clustering functions and up to 32 processors. Only Windows 2000 Professional is limited to support of only two processors.

With the name change of this follow-up to Windows NT 4.0, there may be some confusion about which version of the Windows 2000 operating system is which. Here's Microsoft's description:

Windows NT Workstation 5.0 is now called Windows 2000 Professional.
Windows NT Server 5.0 is now Windows 2000 Server.
Windows NT Server Enterprise Edition becomes Windows 2000 Advanced Server.
Plus, there's a new offering, due in Q3/2000: Windows 2000 Datacenter Server.

The various versions of Windows 2000 have differences in their feature sets. Clustering support, for example, is a standard feature in the Enterprise and DataCenter Editions of Windows 2000, but is a standalone product for other NT and Windows 2000 releases. Known as Windows NT Load Balancing Service, the technology is based on products from Valence Research, which Microsoft acquired in the summer of 1998. Windows NT Load Balancing Service allows customers to cluster their TCP/IP-based network services across up to 32 systems, which then appear as a single logical TCP/IP address space, adding the scalability needed to effectively handle server loads.

Microsoft on Nov. 4, 1999 announced pricing for Windows 2000: US$319 for the workstation release, and US$599 for a 10-user license for Windows 2000 Server. Upgrades from Windows NT are US$149; upgrades from Windows 95 or Windows 98 are US$219.

MS Terminal Server functionality, which is available as a built-in service in Windows 2000, also requires the Server release, as does the ability to serve Windows Media Technologies streaming video and audio.

As Microsoft has shown with its Internet Explorer and Windows platform efforts, persistence pays off. As Seybold's vice-president for content development Craig Cline said: "One thing you have to admit about Microsoft -- they never quit. They just keep working until they get it right."

Indeed, the company's nascent Windows 2000 is ample proof of that principle. Based on code that has been in development since Microsoft's early efforts with OS/2, Windows 2000 is finally showing signs of maturity, with plug-and-play convenience for desktop users, while providing high-end scalability for all but the most demanding server tasks.

As well, the company has partnered with -- or bought outright -- a number of companies to provide additional functionality that today's pros demand. For example, it partnered with graphics heavyweight Adobe to develop the OpenType font format that builds Type 1 and TrueType font capabilities into the OS, and Adobe has helped develop the system's PostScript printer driver.

A particularly powerful demonstration of the new printing architecture allows the user to search for available printers using the system's "Find" command. With Windows 2000, you can specify search criteria to locate all the color printers on the network and then narrow the search to, say, the tabloid-size color printer nearest you. Then, with a right-click, the system installs the printer driver, downloads a color management device profile automatically and you're ready to print! Slick -- although Windows 2000's printer detection routines didn't work to detect the old HP DeskJet model we hooked up during our tests. Newer models, however, such as a USB-connected Epson Stylus 740, worked as expected.

Like Windows Millennium Edition, Windows 2000 pre-installs a vast library of built-in drivers onto your hard disk, adding somewhat to the bulk of the program installation, but making most hardware changes a snap. (Of course, there are many devices not supported by the built-in drivers - see www.ntcompatible.com for a list of links to third-party drivers and compatibility solutions.)

Microsoft has partnered with color experts Linotype-Hell to produce this system-wide color management system that will also extend to Internet Explorer, so that on-line purchases will result in products of the color the customer expects. And, in what is likely to be a damaging blow to Apple's dominance in publishing, Quark has agreed to port its Quark Publishing System - long a Mac-only product - to Windows. With Adobe, Quark and most other major Mac developers already busy producing Windows versions of their product lines, the Windows-based publishing market is poised for significant growth in the over the next six to 12 months, with Windows 2000 and multiprocessor PCs spearheading Microsoft's "Windows: the Platform for Publishing" push.

New Features: The most obvious new feature of Windows 2000 is its so-called "intelligent menus," which remember a user's most-used selections. Thus, Windows 2000 "learns" to hide commands you don't use often, although these hidden items can be seen by simply pausing at a Start Menu destination for a few seconds.

Those unfamiliar with Internet Explorer 5.0 will find the system's web browser a great improvement over that included with previous NT releases. Of course, IE 5.0 is already available as a free add-on for Windows 95/98 and NT 4.0 systems, so this is not the most compelling reason to upgrade for most users.

As Windows 95 users who have downloaded Internet Explorer 4.0 or 5.0 and explored its Active Desktop features have discovered, Microsoft has put a lot of effort into seamlessly integrating the web and the desktop. Windows 2000's user interface functionality is not significantly different than that of IE's Active Desktop, or the GUI of Windows 98. However, there are some subtle improvements. For example, you can easily customize the IE toolbar in Windows 2000 by simply right-clicking it and choosing "Customize." (See our report on Internet Explorer 5.0 for more details.)

There are some fairly obvious changes, too, from the GUI that first appeared in Windows 95: the Find command has been revamped and now displays graphical previews of found graphics images, and offers a number of Internet-savvy features, including live web links and Net searching.

Menus (optionally) "fade in" as they are selected and the mouse has a soft shadow that helps it stand our from similarly coloured backgrounds. Like Win98, menu bars fade from one user-definable color to another, and Windows 2000 includes a greatly improved Device Manager feature that, combined with its plug-and-play hardware detection and large list of supported hardware, makes its a huge improvement over NT in overall hardware compatibility. (Note, however, that there is a distinct shortage of USB scanner drivers. In fact, the Umax 600P and 610P -- both parallel units -- are the only scanners listed at all.)

Even the My Documents folder has new functionality -- a built-in picture previewer that expands upon the basic media management capabilities of previous Windows releases. There were some ugly aspects of the interface of early betas -- back when the product was still called NT 5.0-- that looked similar to now-obsolete betas of Windows 98 -- its Web View window display, for example. However, the final release's GUI is a lot cleaner and the program, overall, looks like the upgrade from Win98 it really is. But cosmetic details are merely window dressing, if you’ll pardon the pun. It is what's under the hood that will interest the crowd Microsoft hopes to target with the product.

Under the Hood
Microsoft, prior to the product's release, claimed that the final release of Windows 2000 would provide a "superset" of the functionality and device support available in Windows 98. This grand vision, alas, was scaled back somewhat (where's the WebTV functionality? Where's the video capture support?), but still, the general principle holds true for much of the product's networking and configuration functionality.

Windows 2000's user administration, implemented through sweeping changes to the server architecture and functionality, greatly eases the onerous task of administration and thus promises to reduce administration costs.

A key example is the "Active "Directory" architecture, first demonstrated during Bill Gates' keynote session at Fall Comdex 97. There, a Microsoft product manager demonstrated the product's "IntelliMirror" feature: the ability to automatically restore uninstalled drivers, deleted DLLs, and other user settings, even if the user's machine is replaced with a different one. Completely automatic installation of a USB scanner via plug and play was demonstrated at the Seybold conference prior to Comdex. In both cases, Gates received thunderous applause. Notably, Gates did not even mention Windows 98 at either session.

Windows 2000, thus, is an important release for Microsoft. In fact, company executives stated prior to its release that they were "betting the company on it." Thus, it was little surprise that the company delayed the product's release until Feb. 2000 while it worked most of the inevitable bugs out. Still, reports that the product, upon release, still contained over 60,000 known issues, did little to encourage bug-shy IT managers to upgrade. To address outstanding issues, Microsoft in May 2000 released a beta version of what is undoubtedly the first of many service packs for Windows 2000. This collection of bug-fixes, at least in its beta form was a whopping 190 MB in size. This Service Pack is due for final release later in 2000. As always, Microsoft says it won't ship the product before it's ready.

Let's take a closer look at some of the new features in Windows 2000 and describe the technologies behind them.

Key features
Plug and Play support. Windows 2000 supports autodetection and configuration of hardware devices, much as Windows 98 does. Like Windows 98, Windows 2000's PnP detect functions are much faster than those in Windows 95. We must temper this by noting that, on a few of our test systems, Windows 2000 encountered compatibility problems with several devices that were listed as "compatible" on Microsoft's official list of supported hardware. -- devices, we should add, that had previously given us no trouble under NT4. However, on the vast majority of recently released machines we've tested Windows 2000 on, compatibility is not a problem improved, and the list of video cards, multiport serial adapters and network cards (etc., etc.) is not much shorter than the voluminous list of devices supported by Windows 98. Reliability is clearly superior to that of Windows 98. We've been running Windows 2000 for several months with few problems, other than occasional compatibility issues with certain hardware and software, which are further discussed elsewhere.

Although we haven't yet tested FireWire support in Windows 2000, we are sure Microsoft has been watching Apple closely in this regard. In Jan. 1999, Apple demonstrated the FireWire capabilities of its new "blue and white" G3 PowerMacs by connecting and disconnecting FireWire-based hard drives and video cameras with plug-and-play ease. Microsoft claims similar plug-and-go capabilities with its FireWire support.

Windows 2000 also improves support for digital cameras (many current models are directly supported), fonts (TrueType, Raster, Type 1 and the new OpenType format are all supported), displays, color management, and networking functions. Further, it promises to reduce administration costs by offering ZAW (Microsoft's "zero administration Windows") and IntelliMirror intelligent/automatic backup and restore functions in Windows 2000. These items will be discussed in detail later.

Power Management, including Hibernation features
One of the areas Windows NT 4.0 and previous releases were very weak in was Power Management. With a new generation of "ACPI" (advanced configurable power interface)-enabled machines hitting the market in 1998 and 1999, Windows 2000 is finally powersmart -- at least on some systems.

Windows 2000's Hibernate mode (configurable from a Power Options control panel) writes all currently active data to disk and goes into suspended animation -- well, at least when it works properly. In some of our tests on ACPI-enabled machines, awaking from Hibernation threw external video connections out of whack on our Toshiba portable, and fouled up secondary displays on our desktop system. But ideally, when your machine awakes from hibernation, all your applications are restored exactly as you left them. Hibernate reserves as much disk space as you have RAM in your system to save your environment.

Microsoft chose an arbitrary date of Jan. 1, 2000 and automatically enables ACPI on all systems with BIOSes dated later than this and disables it on systems with earlier BIOS revision dates. Fortunately, a little-known installation option can disable ACPI on machines that may have trouble when this option is enabled. (Some users report that this can sometimes help get stubborn sound cards to work, too.)

Disable ACPI BIOS detection by:

Modify the file txtsetup.sif in the Windows 2000 Setup folder.
Change the line "ACPIEnable = 2" to "ACPIEnable = 0".
Reinstall Windows 2000.

Accessibility and Speech
Windows 2000 includes new features for improved accessibility for deaf or sight-impaired persons. New and notable additions include a Narrator that speaks on-screen menus, dialog items and list items, etc. in a pleasant female voice or a variety of other fairly decent-sounding -- and customizable -- synthetic voices. (Maybe Stephen Hawking should upgrade.) When enabled, Narrator speaks the text on screen buttons and menu items aloud. We can imagine that blind persons might find these "talking tooltips" quite handy. There's also a new On-screen Keyboard. Magnify mode displays a strip along the top of the screen in zoom mode and Sound Sentry mode flashes the screen when alert sounds play. Of course, these Accessibility features are optional. Like almost all other features in this OS that require configuration, the setup process for accessibility features is handled by a "Wizard" that walks users through the setup in a very friendly way.

Windows 2000 was at one time supposed to include a "technology preview" of speech recognition technology, as well, using Microsoft's WHISPER (Windows Heuristic Intelligent Speech Recognizer) technology, but it was, as far as we could tell, not present in any useful fashion in the beta 1, 2 or 3 releases, although SDK references to it were installed during the early betas and an empty dialog listing "installed speech recognizers" remained unused as late in the development cycle as beta 3. It remains to be seen whether functionality from Microsoft's 1997 investment in Belgian speech technology experts Lernout and Hauspie or other speech recognition features will appear as part of an add-on release to the OS.

Improved Type Support
As in previous releases of NT, this version supports the enhanced type options provided by the Unicode system (foreign languages, large character sets, etc.). Check out the new Character Map to see some evidence of the improvements, including support for the new "Euro" currency symbol. There's also a "Private Character Editor," that allows you to edit and customize fonts, or list typefaces by similarity. With it, you can create up to 6,400 new private characters -- special letters, logos, ideographs and so on -- to use in your font library.

Another new addition is support for OpenType, which is essentially a fusion of Adobe Type 1 and the TrueType font formats. OpenType fonts (depicted with an "O" on the typeface icon) have a digital signature, accessible by selecting Properties of a font icon, which ensures a unique font ID. Along with this improved typographical control, Microsoft has improved Windows 2000's prowess in other publishing-related areas, such as a new PostScript Level 3 printer driver (co-developed by Adobe) and system-level color management features based on ICC-standard technology from Linotype-Hell.

Other improvements
The Imaging software from Wang that was included in Win95 OSR2 is now present in Windows 2000, although it is identified as belonging to Kodak now -- hmmm. It supports GIF, TIF, JPEG, PCX, BMP and several other less common formats and supports scanners and a wide array of digital cameras from Agfa, Canon, Casio, Epson, Fuji, HP, Kodak, Konica, Minolta, Nikon, Olympus, and a few other brands directly.

It's a subtle enhancement, but the calculator in Windows 2000 (and Win98) now works properly. It doesn't induce rounding errors when performing complex calculations, as the one in Windows 95 did.

Dial-up Networking is much more similar to the look of the Windows 98 DUN, and the terminal window doesn't remain annoyingly large when connecting to hosts that require a logon script (e.g., CompuServe), as the one in NT4 did. Fax services are also provided, including fax logging, a fax queue, and print-to-fax capabilities.

Phone Dialer has been enhanced with Video Phone and conferencing capabilities. There are two Chat services: a basic LAN or dial-up text-based chat and a browser-based graphical "Cartoon Chat" like the one available for Windows 95 or Windows 98.

Much-improved versions of NetMeeting and Outlook Express are present, too. Outlook Express has been enhanced over the version that shipped with Win98, and now uses a three-panel display similar to that of Outlook 98, providing easy access to contacts from the Address Book. Unfortunately, after losing a lawsuit with a California greeting card company, Outlook Express 5 no longer contains the automatic junk-mail filters that, in the IE 5.0 "preview release," could potentially filter out legitimate email (especially messages with EXE attachments) from friends or relatives.

Microsoft's Canadian General Manager Simon Witt claims the decision to go with Windows 98 or Windows 2000 will be an issue of determining whether you have the extra RAM (we'd recommend 64MB as an absolute minimum for Windows 2000 Professional, and 128MB RAM or more for the Server version) and disk space requirements (about 700 or 900 MB, respectively) that the OS requires. For machines with 64MB or more of RAM and a gig or so of free disk space, Windows 2000 Professional (previously known as Windows NT Workstation) is the best choice for those looking for a balance of stability, Win32 compatibility and reduced administration costs. Windows 98, however, continues to be our recommended choice for those needing maximum compatibility with games and legacy applications (especially those of the DOS variety) and the widest range of hardware options.

New Hardware Support in Windows 2000:

Accelerated Graphics Port (AGP)
DVD
FireWire (IEEE 1394)
USB devices
ACPI-compliant notebook or desktop systems
Multiple monitors, etc.

Hardware Requirements:

According to a 517KB document that can be downloaded from Intel's Server Resource web site, Windows 2000 Server systems require a minimum of a Pentium Pro 200MHz processor and 64MB RAM plus ACPI compliancy to be eligible for certification as "built for Windows 2000 Server." Additional RAM is recommended. Note that this Windows 2000 Server memory requirement is absolute as of beta 2 or later -- it will not run in less the 64MB of RAM. (Beta 1 would run in 32MB RAM in a pinch.) For multi-processor configurations, 128MB of memory should be considered minimum.

Windows 2000 Professional RAM requirements are, according to Microsoft, essentially unchanged from version 4.0. However, we found the system to be remarkably unresponsive on a machine with only 32MB of RAM. We found performance acceptable on a 233 MHz Pentium with 64MB of RAM, but wouldn't recommend going much below that.

For the Intel X86 version, you'll need to allocate at least 600MB of hard disk space for a "fresh installation" of the Windows 2000 Professional beta 3 release (or 400MB for an upgrade installation) and about 900MB of space for a fresh installation of the Server beta 3 release (or nearly 400MB for an upgrade). If you are lucky enough to have a membership to Microsoft's MSDN website that allows you to download these beta releases, be prepared to be downloading for a while: the total file size of the Windows 2000 Professional beta 3 installable code is over 500MB, or 600MB for Windows 2000 Server: a lengthy download, even at T1 speeds.

We do not currently have test results on the two other versions of the operating system: Windows 2000 Advanced Server or the as-yet unreleased Windows 2000 Datacenter Server. See Microsoft's website at http://www.microsoft.com/windows/news/october1998/win2000.asp for details on these products and their capabilities.

Reduced Cost of Ownership
Essentially, the concept of the network Domain is gone in Windows 2000 Server. Instead, Windows 2000 uses what is termed an "Active Directory" to provide services to network users. In a compelling demo at Fall Comdex '97, Microsoft showed how an administrator can set up the network so a user can change hardware and have all his or her applications, preferences, desktop settings and documents automatically transferred and installed on the new system. Also, the Active Directory "Intellimirror" service will automatically reinstall applications or drivers that have been accidentally or intentionally uninstalled. Microsoft says Windows 2000 and Exchange 5.5 use exactly the same Active Directory structure.

The "Windows Update" feature that first appeared in Windows 98 is also present in Windows 2000. It facilitates convenient Internet-based upgrades of the OS and its services. There are also a few third-party drivers that appear in the list. For example, an update to our test system's RealTek RL8139 Ethernet card became available in May 2000.

The Critical updates feature introduced by Microsoft in Sept. 1998 also appears. Users are optionally notified of critical updates when they log onto the Internet.
Windows 2000 has many new features.

Windows 2000 includes support for:

Plug and Play Hardware
Large hard drives via FAT32 or NTFS (existing NTFS partitions will be upgraded to version 5. This new version has been enhanced with a number of intriguing features, including the ability to "Graft" new volumes onto an NTFS directory, thus avoiding the need for drive letters. See the file called ADVSETUP on the Windows 2000 CD for more info.) Interestingly, Windows 2000 can format Win32 volumes only up to 32GB in size.
FireWire, USB and other new hardware
Built in support for recently released OpenGL and 3D accelerators, including Rage 128, nVidia TNT, G200 and Voodoo Banshee (etc.)
Improved games and multimedia support via Direct X 7.0
Internet Explorer 5.0's "Shell integration" and "Active Desktop" features.
Color management features: Perceptual, Saturation, Relative Colormetric and Absolute Colormetric "rendering intents" are provided for matching colors. Windows 2000 can load color profiles for specific devices (and, in fact, includes a number of profiles for common scanners, printers and monitors). See the Windows 2000 Help section on Color Management for details on how this works.
OpenType support. (For the record, OpenType really isn't that "open" at all. Its guidelines stipulate that fonts must be enumerated and registered. It should, however, help to reduce the "font ID conflict" problems that occasionally plague Macintosh users.) Another useful font feature in Windows 2000 is its support of Panose font matching. Briefly, the Panose system defines fonts by their similarity to various typefaces. In other words, you can sort fonts by what they look like. For more information, see News.com's story on Windows NT 5.0.

In this Orientation Guide, we'll help you to understand the new features "under the cover" and configure your system for peak performance. However, before we begin, for the sake of prudence and your peace of mind, here are a few things to keep in mind

Don't configure your system with a boot partition that is too small. We'd recommend a boot partition of at least 1 Gigabyte of disk space on a fast hard disk (preferably of the fast and wide SCSI variety) for a "comfortable" installation. You can shoehorn it into systems with less free space, but most - if not all - of the extra goodies in the package are worth installing if you can spare the room.
Windows 2000 Professional memory requirements are similar to those of Windows NT 4.0 Workstation -- in other words, you should have 64 megabytes minimum for acceptable performance. Windows 95 or 98 is a better choice for systems with 24 to 48 megabytes of RAM and a CPU slower than a P166.
Windows 2000 does not support DriveSpace3 disk-compression software. It does, however, support compression if you elect to format the drive as NTFS.
In addition to the FAT16 and NTFS hard disk formats provided by earlier NT releases, Windows 2000 supports the new FAT32 format used by Win95 OSR2 and Win98. Neither of these OSes support NTFS formatted drives, thus FAT32, which can recover up to 30 percent of the disk space wasted by FAT16 on drives larger than 500MB, is your best bet on a dual-boot system with a large drive. (However, you must use FAT16 if you want to share local drives between Win9x, NT4 and Windows 2000.) Fortunately, it is possible to set FAT32 on for some drives, and leave others as FAT16 or compressed FAT16.
The best solution is to just go out and buy a larger hard disk (for a few hundred dollars, your dealer can add a second hard disk to virtually any computer).
Read the file called ADVSETUP for More info on hard disks.
Assuming that you now have the required disk space, what about random access memory? Although Windows 2000 Professional will run - and we use the term "run" generously - in 32 megabytes of RAM, it really isn't something we'd advise. We strongly recommend upgrading to at least 64 (preferably more) megabytes of RAM before making the leap to Windows 2000. 64MB is required (and we'd recommend at least double that for decent performance!) if you are using the Server version. See also More info on RAM.

Memory handling
The more memory it has, the better Windows 2000 works. It handles resource memory much more effectively than previous versions of DOS or Windows, and allows a virtually unlimited number of applications to run without running out of system resources. Windows 2000 can load and switch between far more applications running simultaneously than Windows 3.x was able to handle.

Beta caveat: Be aware that beta versions of Windows 2000 have an expiry date built in (for beta 3, it is 444 days from installation). Also, be aware that beta releases of any product may have bugs. Don't install beta code on any system used for critical tasks. If you have installed the shell integration feature of Internet Explorer 4.0 on Win95, you should use the Add/Remove Programs control panel to disable that before upgrading to Windows 2000. We'd certainly recommend that, before upgrading, you back up your important data.

Windows 2000 is available as a bootable CD-ROM and/or as a pre-installed system only.

Unlike Windows 95, Windows 2000 include built-in anti-virus protection, via Cheyenne's InnocuLan. As well, some NT-compatible antivirus programs such as McAfee VirusScan may work with the new release. Thanks to its high compatibility with existing Windows NT titles, we did not encounter compatibility problems with many apps, although there are a few applications that check for specific Windows version numbers that caused problems. The C-dilla licensing system code used in the prerelease version of 3D Studio MAX 3 "Shiva" (build 042) didn't work, for example. A few such apps include Cubase VST 3.553 and Miramar Systems' MacLAN Connect 6.01 -- both of which refused to load under Windows 2000 (and both of which have subsequently updated). Macromedia's FreeHand 7 Graphics Suite (including Extreme 3D 2 and FreeHand 7), CorelDraw 7, Corel Lumiere and Corel Photo-Paint 7 (do we detect a trend here?) also failed to load in our tests (and locked the machine up tight!). Again, newer revisions address compatibility problems. Fortunately, the vast majority of devices and programs we tried worked almost exactly as they might under Windows 95 or NT. As mentioned elsewhere, hardware devices such as unsupported scanners, CD-RW drives, etc., require either Windows 2000 or, in a few cases, older NT drivers to work. (Windows 2000 supports a few of the most popular scanner models directly.)

For more info on how to check for and safeguard against computer viruses, visit housecall.antivirus.com, www.mcafee.com, www.symantec.com, www.drsolomon.com or ask your dealer.

Tip: It is no longer necessary to copy the Windows installables directory for your CPU (e.g., i386) from the CD onto your computer's hard disk for added convenience when adding new plug-and-play devices. Windows 2000 now installs a CAB file of all device drivers by default, making new hardware configuration a snap.

As well, the CD itself is bootable, eliminating the need for boot floppies while setting up your system. (This requires a BIOS that supports booting from CD, as most BIOSes do.) With a reasonably fast CD drive, an installation takes only about 35 minutes.

Despite its high compatibility with other 32-bit versions of Windows, an issue that's worth considering is the possibility that certain hardware and software you currently use might not work properly under Windows 2000. There are several solutions to this problem - including one method that's 100-percent guaranteed to provide full compatibility: install both operating systems, and switch between them. Details on how to do this were listed in detail in our report on beta3, but briefly: you can install Windows 2000 before or after Windows 9x -- it wasn't a problem in our tests. Just remember that Windows 9x doesn't support the NTFS file system. We'd recommend FAT32 for dual-boot workstation configurations. Servers, however, should go with NTFS, as some of the services require this disk format.

Generally, we'd recommend that you make a list of any hardware or software you simply have to use, and check Microsoft's Microsoft's hardware compatibility list, the list at ntcompatible.com, vendor web sites, or ask your dealer or local Windows expert if he or she knows of any incompatibilities related to that product and Windows 2000 and, if so, whether an updated version or workaround is available. Fortunately, we've found relatively few NT4-compatible hardware devices that cause Windows 2000 compatibility problems. Because Windows 2000 supports, in most cases, the same drivers as Windows NT 4.0, chances are good that drivers already exist. Further, because Microsoft distributed Windows NT 5.0 b1 to beta testers in the Fall of 1997, developers have had time to ensure that their products can be updated to take advantage of new Windows 2000 features before its release.

Install to same directory

Pro: You don't have to reinstall applications; system automatically migrates system settings and existing Program Manager groups; saves disk space

Con: If a program or hardware device isn't compatible with Windows 2000 (and don’t be fooled by Microsoft’s hype – some aren't), you are out of luck.

Install to different directory

Pro: guaranteed compatibility with all hardware and software; you can switch at will between Windows 2000 and Windows 4.0 (etc.) simply by selecting the OS you want to load at startup time. Note that, if you enabled FAT32 on the boot drive, your other OS must be Win95B or Win98 for the "dual-boot" option to work.

Con: you have to reinstall all your applications; your old DOS/Windows directories and related files take up additional room on hard disk.

On balance, we'd say that, for most users who are beta testing Windows 2000, it's best to keep an existing Windows NT4 installation available for comparison and disaster relief. Users with multimedia hardware or software on their computers should probably also keep a copy of Win95 or 98 on the drive (Windows 2000 does not need to be installed to a different partition than Win95/98 or a previous NT version). This way, there won't be any programs that won't run on their systems. The more likely you are to purchase "exotic" (non-mainstream/special-purpose) hardware or software, the more inclined we are to recommend the switch-boot option.

Tip: If the setup procedure freezes or crashes, try shutting off the PC, disconnecting peripherals and trying again.

Hopefully, the rest of the installation process will go as smoothly for you as it has for us. Most users agree that Windows 2000 is quite simple to install and configure – particularly the Workstation ("Professional") version.

When, at last, the installation is completed (as mentioned earlier, this takes between 50 and 90 minutes when installed from CD-ROM), the system restarts (perhaps more than once, depending on the options you choose) and, after a few screens that allow you to configure the time zone and various other options, you arrive at the Windows 2000 desktop.

If Windows 2000 did not identify one or more devices connected to your system, look on the manufacturer's website for an updated (Windows 2000-specific or WDM) driver.

For more info, see Troubleshooting your System.

Multiple Displays

One compelling new feature of Windows 2000 is its support for dual displays, where each monitor can display different information. (Windows NT 4.0 also supported multiple displays, but only for identical graphics adapters. Windows 2000 extends support to allow multiple adapters from different manufacturers to be used.) In fact, Windows 2000 goes beyond Windows 98 in its multi-monitor support, by allowing you to define which screen is the primary display. To use this feature, you should install Windows 2000 with the primary display adapter only, and then, once it is set up and working, shut down, add the second graphics card and monitor, and let Windows 2000's plug-and play feature take it from there.

For example, if you had a Matrox Millennium and an S3-based video card, you might start with only the Millennium card in the system. When Windows 2000 has booted, shut down and attach the second video card and monitor. When Windows 2000 re-boots, it recognizes the second card and presents a message that says "If you can read this message, Windows has successfully initialized this display adapter. To use this adapter as part of your Windows desktop, run the display applet from the Windows control panel."

Unfortunately, if you do not see that message, it most likely means that your secondary adapter cannot be used. Try a different graphics adapter. See the Windows 2000 Help topic on "multiple monitors" for more information.

Network
The Network Neighborhood icon found on the Win9x desktop is renamed "My Network Places" in Windows 2000. As mentioned in our summary of what to expect during Windows 2000 Setup, a typical network configuration can be automatically configured during the Windows 2000 Professional installation process. However, if you elect to manually configure your network, you will be asked to identify the network protocols you want to use, and the file/print sharing services you want to install. It doesn't really matter if you choose NetBEUI, TCP/IP or some other protocol initially, you can configure others and add or remove items at any time. However, we recommend rebooting after removing a network protocol. Although Microsoft contends that Windows 2000 does not suffer from a problem in this regard, previous releases of NT tended to get very upset if, for example, TCP/IP was removed then an attempt was made to re-install it without a reboot. Basically, it trashed the Registry -- requiring a laborious recovery experience we're not eager to replicate. Don't tempt fate.

Windows 2000's ability to view files from the desktop differs subtly from that of Windows 9x. In Windows 2000, right-clicking on an image brings up a dialog with a couple of items you might not have seen in Windows 95 or 98: "Open With..." and a submenu labeled "Any Program..." In fact, these options were in Windows 9x, but they were somewhat hidden: you had to press the Shift Key while right-clicking a file in Win9x to see the "Open With..." file viewing option. And, from there, Windows 9x users could click the "Other" button (or, alternatively, arrive via the View menu>Folder Options>View dialog option) that allowed the choice of any program. Windows 2000 eases this convoluted process considerably.

Similarly, right-clicking a file and then choosing "Properties" yields a "Change..." button that might be unfamiliar. It allows you to change the associated program that opens the type of file you have selected. There is also a "Thumbnails" view option that first appeared as an Internet Explorer 4.0 feature but is, as far as we can tell, absent from Windows 98.

Tip: Improved QuickView functionality is available via Inso QuickView Plus or Adobe File Utilities. Confirm compatibility with Windows 2000 by contacting the respective companies.

Some users don't bother looking closely at the items listed in the "Accessibility Options" control panel, but they have at least one useful function: the ability to make your system beep when you accidentally press the Caps Lock key. Just turn on the “ToggleKeys” feature in the Accessibility control panel.

The Taskbar

The Windows 2000 interface is very similar to that of Windows 98, with Internet Explorer 4.0 (or, more precisely IE 5.0) shell integration providing a variety of user interface enhancements such as single-click file access, the so-called Active Desktop and an overall "browser metaphor." Thus, Windows 2000 has a very different look and feel than earlier Windows releases had. The most prominent new Internet Explorer 5.0 shell integration feature is the enhancement made to the Taskbar along the bottom of the screen. You can add documents or programs -- or virtually anything else -- to the taskbar, and even configure multiple toolbars as you wish. Toolbars can be "torn off" and pulled into the middle of the screen where they become floating palettes, too. Click the right mouse button in the taskbar to see and configure the new toolbar options.

Another change in the way the toolbars work is evident with a single click. Applications can be minimized or maximized with a single click on their taskbar icon. This “single-click to open an item” interface can optionally be set as a default, via a dialog found under View>Folder Options. For more information, see the Windows Help menu.

The Task Bar is used for more than getting new users up and running, however. Microsoft says that, during its usability testing of Windows 3.1, it discovered that only 24 percent of experienced users switched between maximized applications with the Alt-Tab key combination (Alt-Tab still works, by the way). In Windows 2000, the names of running apps show up in the Task Bar, which is visible (and movable) at all times. A single click on an application's name in the Task Bar switches to it. The main change from the Windows 9x taskbar is the ability to access the Task Manager by right-clicking on the Task Bar. If you are on a network, you may see another interesting taskbar feature, too: an icon appears if a shared item that was previously unavailable comes back online. Right-click this Share icon to reconnect.

To move the Task bar to the top or side of your screen, click on it and hold the left mouse button down as you drag it to a new position. Note that you can also adjust its width by dragging to edge of it to be as wide or narrow as you like.

Windows 2000 also allows the default Task bar or any of your custom toolbars to be slid to any edge of the screen, or set to auto-hide. You can turn this feature on for the default bar with the Start menu's Settings:Taskbar... option. For custom toolbars, just right click in the toolbar and choose "auto-hide." You may need to select "Always on Top" before you can select the auto-hide command. Then, drag the bar to the position you want it.

Finding People, Printers, Files, etc.

Windows 2000 can search the network to find printers that match your search criteria. You can also use LDAP to search for people on the Internet. Windows 2000 uses exactly the same "active directory" structure as Microsoft's Exchange 5.0 mail server, adding to the integration of this mail system with the OS.

As with Windows 95, F3 is the Windows 2000 shortcut for invoking the Find command (for finding files, folders or other information). But it works much better, as users of the IE5 shell or Win98 have also discovered. Windows 2000 allows Find to remember the last directory accessed; without it, it defaults to whatever directory is currently active.

Windows 2000 returns a list of all files that matched any part of a name you type into the Find dialog's text box. You can also search inside documents for a specific text string (choose the "Advanced" tab and type the word you want to fin into the "Containing text:" field). Naturally, Find operations take longer when the contents of each file must be searched. Be sure to "show all files" using the View preference if you want to search for DLLs or other system files.

Tip: if you move a data file, executable file or rename the folder a program is in, Windows 2000 updates links to find the file the next time you try to launch it. This feature was not functional in the beta 1 release, but worked great in our tests of beta 2. Interestingly, it does not update the listed drive in a shortcut to a moved file, yet the shortcut still works. This may present its own new potential for confusion, but it’s a big improvement over the easily broken links of previous Windows releases.

In other words, if you create a shortcut to an executable file and place it on the Windows 2000 desktop, then rename the original executable, the shortcut will not be severed. This is another significant advantage of Windows 2000 over previous Windows releases. Thus, a Windows 2000 upgrade may help reduce tech-support nightmares that plague many IT managers.

Intellimouse and Natural Keyboard support

Certain types of keyboards, such as the Microsoft Natural Keyboard, and most recent "clone" keyboards, have special keys that enhance the way you can work with Windows 2000.

All applications running under Windows 2000 support the wheel on the Microsoft IntelliMouse, to enable scrolling of windows and documents. The Windows 2000 mouse driver is apparently based on the Intellimouse 2.2 driver for Windows 9x, which extends the scrolling wheel's functionality to virtually all programs. The optical IntelliMouse Explorer and ergonomically shaped Natural Keyboard are also directly supported. This "Ergo" keyboard has 19 hot keys programmable for launching anything from a web browser or email program to a calculator; a "straight keyboard" version with 10 hot buttons is also available. These USB devices come with a PS/2 adapter as well.

Details on the five-button Intellimouse Explorer are available at www.microsoft.com/intellipoint.

Other changes

Icon in upper-left of any window (in Windows 3.1, this was known as the Control menu): Click this button to open menu commands for moving, resizing, or closing a window. However, using your mouse is a much faster and easier way of doing these things.

Single- or Double-clicking -- The Active Desktop provides an option to open programs or files with a single-click, if you prefer.

Title bars -- Bars are now drawn in two (customizable) colors.

New PostScript 3.0 driver -- co-developed with Adobe.

Support for OpenType -- co-developed with Adobe.

Support for Color Management. Developed by Linotype-Hell, the CMS2.0 in Windows 2000 is the same as the one in Windows 98 and is compatible with Apple's ColorSync 2. Color management is also provided in Internet Explorer. (It's also worth mentioning that Apple has cancelled its plans to release ColorSync for Windows.)

New Features
Some features originally found in the optional Microsoft Plus! pack for Windows 95 are now standard in Windows 2000, including high-color icons, full-window drag, antialiased fonts and more. Additionally, Windows 2000's Display control panel lets you optionally test and apply color bit depth and resolution changes without restarting.

Here's how: Right-click on the desktop and select Properties from the pop-up menu. Choose the settings Tab to quickly get to the screen where you can adjust your color palette, screen resolution and font size. Note that you do not have to restart your computer to adjust the resolution. If you choose a resolution or color setting that your system doesn't support, the "Test" button will revert back to your old setting after 15 seconds or so. Windows 2000, like NT 4.0, also provides a plain VGA driver option at startup time for troubleshooting purposes.

All the following items are expected to appear in Windows 2000.

Internet Connection Wizard
Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.0
Personal Web Server
Internet Mail and News
NetMeeting
DirectX 7.0 (including Direct3D - thus, most Windows 9x game titles are now Windows 2000 compatible!)
Windows Media Technologies 4.0 support, including streaming server capabilities in Windows 2000 Server.
ActiveMovie (now known as Windows Media Technologies)
ISDN Accelerator Pack 1.1
Unimodem V (Support for Voice Modems)
MSN setup
Kodak Imaging for Windows
Fixes/Updates

Section 4
Online
One of the things strongly in favor of Windows 2000 is its excellent Internet and network connectivity. Windows 2000 eliminates some of the previous release's network-related annoyances, such as the DHCP error message that would pop up the next time you restarted, even if you clicked the button that said you did not want to see the message again.

Windows 2000's built-in TCP/IP and dial-up services are more similar to those in Windows 9x than previous NT releases.

Program Manager
Although Windows 95 and Windows 98 included "WinFile," the often reviled File Manager from Windows 3.1, it is not present in Windows 2000. However, PROGMAN is still present, although it loads without GRP files and, unlike Win95, does not automatically convert existing ones.

If, however, you have previously backed up your Win3.1 GRP files, you can access them via the classic Program Manager in Windows 2000.

Type the following into the Run command dialog (found in the Start menu) to launch Program Manager:

Progman
Section 5

Customizable Help, Screens

Windows 2000 provides an extensive HTML-based Help system. In Windows 2000, the Help system is HTML based. You can use it to look up information on how the commands or functions of virtually any aspect of the OS. This opens the door to customization possibilities, just as the Active Desktop customization options make it possible for Administrators (or, indeed, even end-users) to customize windows by adding HTML backdrops to shared directories.

The Add/Remove Software Control Panel allows you to easily install or remove "well-behaved" Windows 2000 programs. Look here before attempting to manually remove a program. (Beta 1 provided two such panels. Go figure.)
Section 6

Customizing the Graphical User Interface

Windows 2000 allows user interface customization. You can add, move or remove items from the Start Menu simply by dragging them to the desired location. Alternatively, you can right-click the Start button to access the window that contains the Start menu items.

To add items to the sub-menu that pops up when you invoke the "Send to" function (also available when right-clicking files or folders), Click on the Run.... item in the Start menu and type "sendto" to open the send to window. Or, as before, simply drag icons for disk drives, folders, applications, etc., there.

"View as Webpage" Preview icons:

Although you may have noticed that you can view files on your hard disk by double-clicking the icon labeled My Computer and then double-clicking the icon for any of the drives on your system, but check this out:

Open any folder and choose "As Web Page" from the View menu. Icons of GIFs, JPEGs, HTML files, etc. are now visible with preview icons.

You can turn on or off this Web view option on a per folder basis. If you want to disable it entirely, use the Custom option in the View menu's Folder View. Microsoft's IE website has details on this and other tips that can help optimize the system's "web integration" features.

Here's another useful technique:

Right-click the Start button on the Taskbar. Select Open and have a look inside the folders you see here. Notice that you are viewing the Start menu as if it was a Program Manager, similar to that of Windows 3.1. You can arrange your Start menu easily by adding or rearranging files this way.
In fact, if you really, really miss the Windows 3.1 Program Manager, it’s still here! Click the Run button in the Start menu and type PROGMAN to access it.
Double-click on all program group icons to expand them.
Click on Window of the Program Manager menu bar to activate its pull-down menu.
Click on Tile. All program groups are now neatly arranged.
Click on Options of the Program Manager menu bar to activate its pull-down menu.
Click on Auto Arrange. This option will permanently keep all icons neat & tidy.
Reduce the groups to icons by double-clicking on each control menu button.

Windows 2000's Active Desktop Task bar allows you to easily hide or show an application without invoking a Minimize command. Just click its name in the taskbar at the bottom of the screen and it will be hidden if visible, or vice versa. You can drag the bar to any edge of the screen. To open a minimized window, you just click on its name. To hide all windows and show the desktop, just click the Desktop icon in the taskbar. You can also add items to the taskbar by simply dragging shortcuts there.

Other useful window management commands

Hold the shift key as you close a window and all windows belonging to that drive will close at once.
Alt-F4 closes windows and applications (you can even shut Windows 2000 down this way).

Voice Control?
Although not supplied as a standard feature of Windows 2000, voice recognition systems are available for 32-bit Windows from a number of companies. The best we've seen is Dragon NaturallySpeaking. It, like IBM's ViaVoice and Lernout & Hauspie's Voice Xpress, is Win9x and Windows 2000 compatible. Most voice recognition systems require 48MB of RAM and a P166 or better to work with Windows 2000.

Scripting
Windows 2000 also includes scripting features.

A feature called the Windows Scripting Host (WSH) provides native side-by-side support for both JavaScript and Visual Basic Script. The Windows 2000 Help file provides details, available by searching for the word "Script."

Anti-virus
The Cheyenne Innoculan Virus checker is included on the Windows 2000 CD, although the Windows 2000 Setup program doesn't install it by default. For proper anti-virus protection, be sure to install a virus checker specifically designed for Windows Windows 2000 and keep it up to date.
Section 8

Hardware setup and configuration

Plug-and-play
Anybody who's ever installed a multimedia upgrade kit, network adapter or other expansion card in an ISA-bus PC will surely agree that manually configuring IRQs and memory addresses is a big pain in the you-know-where. While Windows 2000 isn't perfect at the PNP game, it's a huge leap forward from version 4.0. Even in its imperfect beta 1 state, it was a giant leap ahead of Windows NT 4.0, which had only the most cursory PNP support. Beta 2 and Beta 3, of course, further improved plug and play support to the point that it is now at a level similar to that of Windows 98 -- in other words, pretty darn good. Nevertheless, there are still some devices not supported under Windows 2000. (We had problems with a LavaPort PCI serial card and virtually any PCI sound card you care to name.) In terms of hardware compatibility, Win98 and 95 are still far ahead of Windows 2000.

Running under Windows 2000, many types of hardware can potentially be as easy as "plug and play." A wide variety of plug and play expansion options are available. If an expansion card, printer, monitor, etc., is properly termed "plug and play" compliant and has drivers for Windows 2000, you simply install the device and turn the machine on. Windows 2000 recognizes the device, prompts you to insert one or more diskettes (or CD-ROM discs as the case may be), and that's it. With the emergence of computers adhering to the PC99 specification, plug-and-play ease should be further enhanced as ISA slots are eliminated from new PC designs.

Solving Hardware Hassles
First, try deleting the existing hardware driver from the System control panel's Device Manager tab and then running the Hardware Wizard (both are also available by right-clicking My Computer, selecting Properties and then clicking the Hardware tab) or clicking Refresh.

If Windows 2000 finds your hardware device, chances are good it will set it up correctly--a welcome change from the grief of installing PC hardware under DOS or previous Windows releases.

If, after restarting, all is not well, see Section 9: Problems with Existing Hardware.

Adding a hard drive, CD-ROM, or other storage device
Despite occasional complexities, SCSI is a good way of adding hard drives, CD-ROMs, scanners, and other storage devices to a Windows 2000-based PC. Particularly on Windows 2000, which includes the aforementioned plug-and-play support for most popular SCSI interfaces, SCSI is the easiest and most versatile way to add additional storage devices to your computer. On systems with recent motherboards, Windows 2000 supports UltraIDE drives (including those based on the forthcoming UDMA/66 spec), AGP, and hardware-assisted 3D acceleration and audio. As well, on systems equipped with USB and/or FireWire ports, Windows 2000 provides full hot-swap device driver installation and auto-configuration.

Removable Media - Windows 2000 directly supports popular storage devices from Iomega, SyQuest and other manufacturers, including 3.5" and 5.25" floppies, floptical, Laser-Servo, magneto-optical, Dual-Phase (PD), hard disks, DVD and some other removable storage media. Drivers from companies such as Adaptec add support for UDF devices such as CD-R, CD-RW and DVD-RAM discs, through Windows 2000 compatible programs such as DirectCD, EasyCD Creator, or Ahead Software's Nero. However, the ASPI32 driver for our test system's AHA 2940UW adapter was not supported in beta 2, hence a CD-R drive that was usable as a CD-ROM under Win98 did not show up on the Windows 2000 desktop.

The CD Player has been enhanced, too. Now dubbed "Deluxe CD Player," it is similar to the one in the Plus Pack for Windows 98 and provides Internet Links for automatically downloading album information from sources such as Tunes.com, multiple playlists, and an enhanced interface that permits, among other things, the use of optional audio mixers.

Going Mobile
Windows 2000 is not the nearly ideal operating system for portable computers that Windows 98 is, but it is a big improvement over version 4.0, which lacked hot-swap PC Card support for portables and power management entirely. In Windows 2000, you can add or remove PCMCIA (also known as "PC Card") expansion cards without needing to reboot or shut down. Windows 2000 also adds Cardbus support for the latest generation of PC Card devices. The system handles multiple telecommunications and network protocols, allowing modem and network cards (etc.) to be "hot swapped" in and out of most portable machines without turning the power off. PC Cards are now, for the most part, truly Plug and Play.

Windows 2000 might even teach your portable or desktop computer a few new tricks. For example, on Compaq LTE series portables, AST Ascentia 900 series notebooks and certain IBM models, shutting down Windows 2000 turns the computer off completely (NT 4.0 couldn't do this); on some other notebooks (Samsung NoteMaster, Toshiba 320CT, etc.), Windows 2000 will support an internal pointing device and a plug-in mouse simultaneously and can switch resolutions or color depths on an external monitor without rebooting.

Tip: if your portable has an infrared port, Windows 2000 will install an IRDA driver, which allows two IR-equipped portables to communicate via a wireless IR connection.

PC Cards
As mentioned above, you no longer need to reboot before adding or removing PCMCIA devices. Such devices are controlled via a Task Bar icon that is labeled "Unplug or Eject Hardware." As the name implies, such devices can be added or removed at will, much as they are in Windows 9x.

Windows 2000, like Win98, also supports the OnNow ACPI power management spec on systems with the right hardware (e.g., LX type motherboards, or other systems supporting the AGP chipset). Even on systems lacking ACPI hardware, Windows 2000 has a few new tricks. A hibernate function allows applications to resume at the exact point they had been at before a shutdown. This rapid resume feature is a great timesaver.

Synchronize
Windows 2000 greatly improves upon the Briefcase feature of Win95 and Win98 with its Synchronization Manager feature, found in the Accessories section of the Start menu. Using it, you can specify items to be synchronized when your computer is idle for a certain time, and add or edit synchronization tasks to your schedule. Mobile users can elect to suspend synchronization while a computer is on battery power.
Section 9

Problem Solving

Crashes
Windows 2000 has true preemptive multitasking for both 16- and 32-bit apps. In Windows 95 or 98, 16-bit apps are multitasked cooperatively, which means that a single rogue 16-bit task (such as a Windows 3.1 application) can still bring down the whole system. This is unlikely to happen under Windows 2000, due to its protected memory design. When a task crashes under Windows 2000, it brings up a box advising you that the task has performed an illegal operation and must quit. This almost never crashes the OS.

Rarely, you may run into a situation where a task has stopped responding or may have has frozen the system. Pressing Control-Alt-Delete brings up a "task not responding" message in a Task Manager window, or more rarely, on a blue `crash page' screen. This screen will be familiar to Windows 3.1 users who are familiar with this key combination (affectionately known as the Vulcan Neck Pinch). It is also possible to end a task from the Task List window. Pressing Control-Alt-Delete brings up this Task List, making it easy to kill unwanted tasks.

When you DO crash, Windows 2000 makes more technical information available than Windows 95 did, and the messages are more helpful to average users. As with Win95, this info is available by clicking on a button labeled "Details." Windows 2000, unlike its predecessor, includes a GUI version of ScanDisk.

Backup Wizards
Windows 2000's backup services are improved, too. The system includes a "Backup Wizard" to ease the important task of backing up drives, directories or files. A number of options are available: normal, copy, incremental, differential, and daily. You can also elect to back up the local Active Directory and migrated Remote Storage data, or backup mounted network volumes. The backup tool provides estimates of how long the operation will take, and reports problems encountered. Note that this tool cannot backup files that are in use.

The system also includes a "Disaster Recovery Preparation Wizard." This tool, available from the main Backup Wizard screen, makes a backup of your system and prepares a diskette containing all the information necessary to restore your system from scratch after a catastrophic failure.

The Backup Wizard also includes a "Restore Wizard" to ease the task of restoring data that has previously been backed up.

See Emergency Troubleshooting info at the end of this document for more info.

Problems with Existing Hardware or Software:
Right-click the My Computer icon and choose Properties to quickly access the Hardware Wizard, Device Manager and Hardware Profiles features of Windows 2000. The Hardware Wizard can help you to add, remove, repair, upgrade and customize your hardware. Device Manager lists all the hardware devices installed on the computer. Right-clicking device icons will allow you to view and edit properties, uninstall devices, or make them available only in specific configurations.

As with version 4.0, Windows 2000 has much more strict hardware and software compatibility requirements than Win98 or Win95. Basically, Windows 2000 does not work with any device or software that tries to directly access hardware. This, in general, means that it is not able to work with any device that does not have drivers written especially for NT. We had problems with an HP ScanJet 5100C, HP SureStore CD Writer 7100, Applica U2 sharing device, LavaPort serial card, and Terratec XL64 and Sound Track 128 sound cards. RC2 (and subsequent releases) fixed a few problems we'd noted with RC1 and previous releases. Notably, the Creative Labs Sound Blaster Live now works as expected, and a subsequent Creative Labs driver update (available at www.soundblaster.com) further improved performance, adding support for the optional optical I/O card and digital output to speakers.

However, Microsoft has included drivers for many new types of devices in Windows 2000, including PCMCIA cards, 3D video and sound cards and other current hardware such as USB, IEEE 1394 (FireWire), etc. Also, if the user downloads and installs Apple's QuickTime 4.0 or later, Windows 2000 can support the DVcam digital video format as well.

Speaking of Apple, companies such as Intergraph boast that Windows NT is the market's best AppleShare server, and Windows 2000 provides comparable performance. Windows 2000 provides AppleShare connectivity that allows Macintosh users to connect to a computer running Windows 2000 and gain access to Macintosh file volumes and AppleTalk printers. In addition, Apple Remote Access client versions 1.0, 2.x and 3.x are supported, although Windows 2000 requires Macs to be running the AppleShare 3.8 client or newer. Version 3.8 is included with Mac OS 8.5. (www.macwindows.com has additional details on this subject.)

In general, Windows 2000's compatibility with "legacy" DOS apps is poor, despite its inclusion of a "ForceDOS" command that starts a specified program in the MS-DOS subsystem. (See the Windows 2000 Help system for details.) Alternatively, the "SetWin95" command from the NT4 disk (in the \support\debug\i386 directory) can fool some programs into thinking they are running under Win9x.
Be sure to roll out an OS upgrade with caution on systems where custom software or hardware is used.

Although not present in beta 1, Windows 2000 beta 2 (and later) provides a DVD player, with similar compatibility requirements to the one in Windows 98. Also, Windows 2000 improves upon Microsoft's integrated web browser by installing IE 5.0 and enhances its multimedia capabilities by installing DirectX 7.0. Mouse functionality is also enhanced with built-in Intellimouse wheel support.

Windows 2000 greatly exceeds the capabilities of any previous Windows release (including Windows 98) with its ability to automatically reinstall drivers or applications that have been accidentally deleted or otherwise broken. Also, Windows 2000 can automatically fix links to applications or data files that have been moved.

Like Win98, Windows 2000 includes a smart update feature that can access the Internet to obtain and install system software and OS updates. Of course, having a modem and an Internet account is your best bet for obtaining almost-free tech support, bug-fixes, program updates and other information. It's the smart way to compute, these days.

Windows 2000 provides applications with true pre-emptive multitasking, where each app and device driver has its own separate, "protected" space. In this case, an errant 32-bit app cannot harm the rest of the system. It may be terminated without adversely affecting other portions of the system. Unlike other Windows versions, Windows 2000 also supports systems with multiple CPUs. Windows 2000 is also designed as a portable OS and can run on processors other than Intel. (Alpha is currently considered the high-performance platform for NT power users.) Earlier releases were available for PowerPC, however, support for this processor has been dropped from Windows 2000.

The 32-bit Advantage
Microsoft is encouraging developers to make applications "Windows 2000-friendly," by putting the sort of info that used to clutter up the aforementioned boot-time files into Windows 2000's Registry (AKA the monster INI file from Hell). Although the name implies that it is a single file, it actually consists of a vast number of separate entries, maintained and automatically backed up by the system. As we've mentioned earlier, Microsoft's efforts with IntelliMirror and ZAW should help reduce the effort needed to maintain Windows 2000. Other titles designed for 32-bit Windows, such as Microsoft Office 2000 also have "self-repairing" features that, despite the fact that they don't always work, should help keep Windows 2000 users more productive.

Windows 2000, like Win95 and NT4.0 or later, provides a registry editor called RegEdit (perhaps Microsoft programmers haven't noticed that they have more than eight characters to play with now), although it is a very complex tool, oriented toward the kind of users known for wearing propeller beanies. Usually, we use the Find command in RegEdit to locate and remove VXDs or other entries from incorrectly removed that are causing problems during startup time. Note that there are actually two registry editors in Windows 2000. One is called REGEDIT, and the other is called REGEDT32. The latter version has the ability to set permissions.

On its MSDN website at http://msdn.microsoft.com/developer/, Microsoft provides a number of documents designed to help developers migrate their apps cleanly to Windows 2000. In many cases, apps will be able to run on all Win32 platforms, and will adapt themselves for each system's unique capabilities.

Multitasking
You may ask, "I seldom do more than one thing at once. Do I need multitasking?"
We think it safe to say that few users will ever want to go back to a non-multitasking OS after they've tried one that provides the benefits of printing, copying files, telecommunicating, formatting disks, networking, and so on, in the background. If you're like most users, you'll soon wonder how you ever got along without multitasking. Windows 2000 can set the priority of background tasks, such as a print spooler.
Section 10

Mastering the system

To effectively manage FAT32 or NTFS partitions, use Power Quest's Partition Magic 3.02 or later. Partition Magic can convert NTFS or FAT16 partitions to FAT32 and vice versa. To check FAT32 drives for errors (and repair them), use Symantec Norton Utilities for Windows 95 version 2.0 or later.

Tip: If you can't use NTFS for compatibility reasons, use Partition Magic to increase the amount of FAT root directory entries available.

Administrative Tools
As in previous NT releases, a number of functions are available to the Administrator that are not available to other users. A group of Administrative Tools in the Start Menu allow the Administrative user to manage Certificates, view the Event Log, and manage removable storage devices, computers and the Index Server. These tools are hosted through the Microsoft Management Console, available by right-clicking an item in the various managers and choosing Help. See this Help file for assistance with specific tasks, troubleshooting and other details.

Tip: you can access the Computer Management service by right-clicking the 'My Computer" icon and selecting "Manage."

Startup Problem Management:
Windows 2000's startup options are similar to those of its predecessor. It can be installed to dual-boot on a system with another version of Windows installed, and the boot loader provides an option to revert to the last known working state. However, with its vastly improved plug-and-play support, serious hardware problems seem to be much less common in our tests.

If you change video cards, you may see an ntosldr kernel error. Restart with the VGA option to select a new video driver.

Drive Maintenance
After a period of use, the data on your hard disk becomes fragmented. Use the Disk Defragmenter (available, along with error-checking and backup services, by right-clicking a drive and selecting Properties) to reduce fragmentation and restore optimum disk performance. Checking your hard disk(s) for errors periodically is an important part of keeping your system in good running order. You'll find Scan Disk (now labeled "Error Checking") in the same drive properties dialog as Disk Defragmenter. We'd recommend running it regularly, at least once a week.

Emergency Troubleshooting info
If you have your system set to dual-boot Windows 2000 (or a previous version of Windows NT), do not delete the file called NTLDR. If you do, you will be unable to boot the system. If this does happen, the easiest solution is to copy the NTLDR file (153K) onto a floppy from another Windows 2000 system, select Properties and uncheck "Hidden." Then, startup your disabled system using a boot floppy, copy NTLDR to the C:\ directory of your system, and reboot.
Note that this is still true, even if you delete all the Windows 2000 references from the BOOT.---- file, which causes Win95 or 98 to boot without displaying the Windows 2000 loader menu.

To remove the Windows 2000 dual-boot loader (thus disabling Windows 2000), boot with a Windows 98 startup floppy and type "sys c:"

The Windows 2000 directory can then be removed from the system.

Recent Changes To this Article:

May 29, 2000: New intro to section 1. Updated ACPI section.
May 17, 2000: updated links.
May 18, 1999: updated DirectX info
Apr. 28: Extensive changes to reflect beta 3 tests and updated hardware compatibility listings.
Feb. 6: Added links to PC Week article on Win2000 compatibility issues.
Jan. 21: Added NT Load Balancing Service (clustering) info and link.
Jan. 19: Added AppleShare info and link. Added Terminal Server info and link. Updated info on DirectX 7.0.
Jan. 18: Added PC99 info and link. Other minor additions and changes.
Jan. 16: Updated expected release dates; added FireWire info.
Oct. 27: Updated references to NT 5.0 to Windows 2000.
Sept. 9: Updated info on Narrator (text-to-speech), Fonts, Drive Maintenance and multiple displays. Added sections on Fax, Synchronize, Windows Update, CD Player, Backup, Administrative Tools, and RegEdt32.
Sept. 8: Updated sections on Windows 5.0 beta 2 updates. Added test results, setup procedures and information, memory/disk requirements for Windows 5.0 beta 2. Updated Microsoft Office 2000 link with new info on IE5 and HTML features.
Sept. 2: Updated NT Made Easy with info on Fixing Registry Problem after removing and reinstalling TCP/IP.
Nov. 4: added official release date and pricing details.

For Further Reading

The Computer Paper's Windows 2000 (beta 3) software compatibility report
The Computer Paper's Windows 2000 (beta 3) hardware compatibility report
Microsoft's Windows 2000 hardware compatibility list
The Computer Paper's Windows 2000 Setup Guide
The Computer Paper's Installation Guide to Windows NT 4.0.
The latest Windows 2000 info from Usenet.
Windows NT Magazine
Windows NT internet Resources
InterGrate
http://www.ntware.com
The Ultimate NT HTTP server
Essential Windows NT Links
Cost To Cost Telecommunications
NT internals
ENT mag
NT Security FAQ
PC Magazine's Guide to Memphis - Installation tips and upgrade advice.
PC Week: ZAW and Windows
PC Week: NT 5 hits delays as Microsoft faces hurdles bringing OS to the enterprise
PC Magazine: New in Windows 2000
Windows Sources: Pondering NT 6
PCWeek: NT 5 Beta 2: 100 'show-stoppers' and counting to delivery.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/developer/ - Developer tools and tips
Microsoft's Windows 2000 beta Web site
PC Week: Win 2000 beta dogged by application incompatibilities
In the near future, we'll be adding additional information and links to this page. Check back soon!

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