Windows 2000

Click Here to become a ValueClick Member Site

Click Here to Visit our Sponsor

Windows 98

Windows 2000
New Features
Bugs and Fixes
Downloads
Screenshots

Office 2000

Internet Explorer 5

Windows 2000 Main Page

November 12, 1998

The newest build of Windows 2000 is 1916 and has an ever newer build of IE 5 than beta 2, namely 5.00.910.1900(instead of 5.00.910.1309).(Stefan98.com)

October 27, 1998

Microsoft Corp. today announced at a press conference in San Francisco that the next major release of the Microsoft^® Windows NT^® operating system line of products - the most significant update to Windows NT ever - will be named Windows^® 2000. This announcement reflects the continuing and substantial marketplace momentum driving Windows NT-based products into the mainstream for millions of business customers worldwide.

With this announcement Windows NT Workstation 5.0 becomes Windows 2000 Professional and Windows NT Server 5.0 becomes Windows 2000 Server. Businesses, work-at-home professionals and mobile users will benefit from the new, more consistent packaging and the features of Windows 2000. The company also said it will use the tag line "Built on
Windows NT technology" with Windows 2000 products to help the many customers who know and understand the value of the Windows NT architecture.

Also, today Microsoft announced an expanded line of server product offerings to better address specific customer scenarios. Windows 2000 server products now include Windows 2000 Server, Windows 2000 Advanced Server and Windows 2000 Datacenter Server, a new packaging option being discussed for the first time today.

"Windows NT was first released five years ago as a specialized operating system for technical and business needs," said Jim Allchin, senior vice president of the personal and business systems group at Microsoft. "Today it has proven its value as the preferred technology for all users who want industry-leading cost effectiveness, rich security features and demonstrated scalability. Windows NT will be the basis for all Microsoft PC operating systems from consumer products to the highest-performance servers. Windows NT is going mainstream." "The new name also serves our goal of making it simpler for customers to choose the right Windows products for their needs," said Brad Chase, vice president of marketing for the personal and business systems group at Microsoft. "The new naming system eliminates customer confusion about whether 'Windows NT' refers to client or server technology. Also, it was time to eliminate the term 'workstation' from Windows NT Workstation. With improvements across the board in ease of use, mobile support and total cost of ownership, Windows 2000 Professional is the right choice for all business users. It's no longer just for high-end workstations."

Although Windows 2000 is expected to ship in 1999, it will be a major milestone product deployed throughout the year 2000.

The following products now make up the Microsoft Windows 2000 line of products:

Windows 2000 Professional (formerly Windows NT Workstation 5.0) will be the Microsoft mainstream desktop operating system for businesses of all sizes. Windows 2000 Professional will deliver the easiest Windows-based environment yet, the highest level of security, state-of-the-art features for mobile users, industrial-strength reliability and better performance (with two-way SMP) while lowering the total cost of ownership through improved manageability.

Windows 2000 Server (formerly Windows NT Server 5.0) will offer industry-leading functionality and will support new systems with up to two-way SMP. Ideal for small to medium-sized enterprise application deployments, Web servers, workgroups and branch offices, this version of Windows 2000 is expected to be the most popular server version. Existing Windows NT Server 4.0 operating systems with up to four-way SMP can be upgraded to this SKU.

Windows 2000 Advanced Server (formerly Windows NT Server 5.0 Enterprise Edition) will be a more powerful departmental and application server, and will also provide rich NOS and Internet services. Supporting new systems with up to four-way SMP, this new product offering is ideal for database-intensive work and integrates clustering and load balancing support to provide excellent system and application availability. Existing Windows NT Server 4.0 Enterprise Edition servers with up to eight-way SMP can install this SKU, which is expected to be priced below today's Windows NT Server Enterprise Edition product.

Windows 2000 Datacenter Server (new) will be the most powerful and functional server operating system ever offered by Microsoft. It supports up to 16-way SMP and up to 64 GB of physical memory (depending on system architecture). Like Windows 2000 Advanced Server, it provides both clustering and load balancing services as standard features. It is optimized for large data warehouses, econometric analysis, large-scale simulations in science and engineering, OLTP, and server consolidation projects.

The name changes are effective immediately. Windows NT 4.0 and Windows 98 products will retain their current names

"We're seeing increased customer demand for Windows NT Workstation across our range of business PCs - not just our high-end workstations," said Jacques Clay, vice president and general manager of the extended desktop business unit of Hewlett-Packard Co.'s personal systems group. "This new name more accurately reflects our customers' choice of Windows NT Workstation as the mainstream desktop operating system for all business users."

Worldwide, PC manufacturers are seeing increased customer demand for PCs preinstalled with Windows NT Workstation 4.0. Investing in Windows NT Workstation 4.0 today is the easiest way for corporations to prepare for deployments of Windows 2000 Professional.

"The new capabilities of Windows 2000 Datacenter Server pave the way for customers to take full advantage of enterprise server architectures, such as the Unisys Cellular MultiProcessing (CMP) architecture," said Don Johnson, vice president and general manager of Windows NT Server business at Unisys Computer Systems Group. "Microsoft Windows 2000 will help our mutual customers - especially in financial services and government - to drive down computing costs in mission-critical, high-performance and high-availability applications, which affect the bottom line."

October 27, 1998

Microsoft will announce today that Windows NT 5.0, its upcoming operating system for corporations, will be renamed Windows 2000, sources say. Brad Chase, vice president of Windows marketing and developer relations for Microsoft, is expected to make the announcement, sources say. Microsoft was widely expected to use the brand name for the consumer version of Windows NT, which is still three or four years away.

Microsoft would not confirm or deny the name change for the delayed upgraded corporate operating system. At a press conference in San Francisco tomorrow, Chase will elaborate on "marketing plans for the Windows family of operating systems," according to Microsoft.

It is unclear whether Windows 2000 will refer to both the server and client components of NT 5.0.

--News.com

October 19, 1998

Microsoft's latest version of Windows NT 5.0 became publicly available for the first time today, as the "Windows NT 5.0 Preseason Mini-Camp" kicked off in Seattle. Camp attendees each received a free copy of beta 2, as well as a certificate for a free copy of beta 3 and a CD-ROM "playbook" of technical information. The camp, featuring Windows NT expert Keith Pleas, is geared primarily toward MIS professionals.

"Anyone involved in planning, implementing, or managing a network that uses Windows NT should attend," Pleas said.

The one-day conference addresses several topics specific to the beta release, including: using Windows NT 5.0 to help solve Y2K problems; reducing the number of servers in an organization and lowering its overall infrastructure cost; migrating to Windows NT 5.0 from Windows 95, Windows 98 and Windows NT 4.0; and integrating Windows NT 5.0 with Netware and UNIX.

Attendees focus on five key areas during the seminar: planning the enterprise to accommodate growth; implementing key domain-wide services, such as naming and security; deploying Windows NT 5.0 Workstation; managing system infrastructure with Windows NT 5.0 Server; and accomplishing key business objectives with Windows NT 5.0.

"We're very pleased to see this level of in-depth instruction," said Jonathan Perera, Lead Product Manager for Windows NT 5.0. "Keith has structured the Mini-Camp so that by the end of the day, attendees are ready to go home and begin working with NT 5.0 beta 2 immediately."

The Mini-Camp, which launched in Seattle, will be in Boston on Nov. 16; Washington, DC, on Nov. 18; Los Angeles on Nov. 20; and Chicago on Dec. 11.

October 13, 1998

In his opening keynote today to 6,000 software developers at Microsoft's Professional Developers Conference (PDC), Microsoft Chairman and CEO Bill Gates predicted that when Windows NT 5.0 ships, it will have more available applications than any previous operating system.

"This kind of applications support is unprecedented," Gates told developers of some of the 60,000 applications expected to be ready for NT 5.0. He added that within 18 months after Windows NT 5.0 is released, Microsoft expects availability of more than 100,000 supporting applications for the new operating system.

The PDC is one of many Microsoft developer education and training events offered through MSDN, the Microsoft Developer Network, to help developers benefit from business opportunities spurred by innovations on the Windows platform. Premier sponsors of this year's PDC are Casio Computer Corp., Compaq Computer Corp., Creative Labs, Inc., Hewlett-Packard Co. and MSDN. Other event sponsors include Attachmate Corp, Dell, Gemplus, J.D. Edward, Rational Software Corp., AMD, Compuware Corp, InstallShield Software Corp., Level8 Systems, MuTek Solutions, Sharp Electronics Corp., Simware, Summit Software Company and Wrox Press.

This year's PDC focuses on how developing with NT 5.0 will help lower the cost of deploying and managing applications, and the advanced features of NT 5.0, such as Directory Services, Security Services, Component Services and Installation Services. Windows NT 5.0 is the only operating system with a complete set of system services necessary to meet the requirements of today's developers of distributed applications.

"From a developer perspective, this year's PDC is vital," said Andy Staffer, director of research and development for Executive Software. "NT 5.0 is all about providing greater ease of use and lower TCO (total cost of ownership) to the end user." Executive Software will demonstrate its Diskeeper Defragmenter for Windows NT 5.0 at the PDC.

"With Windows NT 5.0 and COM+, Microsoft offers the best integrated platform for building distributed applications in the marketplace," said Bread Wunder, vice president of research and development for Visteon, a provider of information technology for physicians' organizations.

Microsoft made several announcements at the PDC including the following:

An agreement with Level8 Systems to help large organizations address that complex interoperability issues in their enterprise. With this agreement, Microsoft furthers its commitment to support the increasing needs of enterprise developers deploying distributed applications across heterogeneous applications.
New guidelines to help developers integrate their applications with the ActiveDirectory of Windows NT Server 5.0. Baan Company and SAP AG will be demonstrating for the first time versions of their applications that are integrated with ActiveDirectory. By integrating applications with ActiveDirectory, developers can build applications that deliver greater functionality and lower TCO to their users.
A draft of the requirements for the Windows NT Workstation 5.0 Logo Program presented by Microsoft for industry review.
A showcase of independent software vendors who are already building applications optimized for specific Windows NT Workstation 5.0 technologies.
Visual Studio support for COM+. Announced on Monday, attendees saw a technology preview of Visual C++ that includes a new technology called attributes. Attributes is a new development functionality that enables developers to easily create COM+ components.
A VBA licensing agreement with Corel. Corel plans to integrate VBA across its product line including Corel WordPerfect® Suite and CorelDRAW.

Developers attending the event saw a sneak preview of MSDN Start, the new home page for MSDN Online, designed to give one single point of entry into all Microsoft programs and offerings for developers. Based on feedback Microsoft will relaunch MSDN Online early next year to provide improved searching, easier access to technical information and a richer online membership program. More than 2 million developers use resources provided by MSDN to create applications and solutions for the Windows operating systems, the Microsoft BackOffice family server application suite, Microsoft Office desktop applications and the Internet.

MSDN offers something to meet nearly every developer need, including programs like the MSDN Online membership, a free program that provides programming information and technical resources to nearly 700,000 developers; MSDN Subscriptions, a CD-ROM based subscription product that provides online delivery of technical documentation, sample code, technical notes, SDKs and other materials that will help developers write software for Windows or use Microsoft development tools, the MSDN ISV Program, a free program provides business and technical information to more than 6,000 Windows ISVs, the MSDN Startups Program, which offers specific benefits and marketing activities to help young high-tech companies jump-start their business; the MSDN User Group Program, which provides information and support to developer-centric user groups and special interest groups interested in Microsoft's Visual Studio family of tools and other developer offerings; as well as many other resources and opportunities for developers.

October 12, 1998

"Microsoft is revving up the marketing engines for the next millennium and is considering giving the next release of Windows NT a new name and an
earlier-than-expected release date."

"Microsoft officials are mulling a new name for the next-generation server/workstation OS, according to several sources close to the company. And although the software giant reportedly has not yet decided what will replace the "New Technology" abbreviation, sources said two candidates have emerged:Windows Professional, or Pro, and Windows 2000.' (Source-Betanews - Info World)

October 1, 1998

Previewing the Windows NT 5.0 File System.(Source- John's Windows Info Site)