An Introduction To Windows 2000

By J.C. Lane

 Available Exclusively At 2CPU.com

Perhaps 11:30 PM on February 16, 2000 will find thousands of people lined up in front of CompUSA to buy the newest Microsoft operating system, Windows 2000.  After years of waiting for Windows NT 5.0, Microsoft’s flagship OS will finally be on store shelves February 17^th, and more than a few people are eagerly awaiting its arrival. 

Part One of my Windows 2000 article is devoted to describing many of the new features in Windows 2000 in more detail than you’ll find from Microsoft’s marketing hype.  In addition, since I’ve been working with the product for close to 2 years, I’m also going to tell you what’s good, what’s great, and what sucks. Part Two of my article will detail the installation of Windows NT Professional on two different machines of varying hardware, and Part Three of my article will focus on setting up Windows 2000 Server/Advanced Server on the same two machines. 

The majority of this article is geared towards Windows 2000 Professional, the successor to Windows NT 4 Workstation.  I’ll begin by going over the system requirements from Microsoft.com. 

The stated requirements are these (from Microsoft's site): 

133 MHz or higher Pentium-compatible CPU.

64 megabytes (MB) of RAM recommended minimum; more memory generally improves responsiveness.

2GB hard disk with a minimum of 650MB of free space

Windows 2000 Professional supports single and dual CPU systems.

 I’ve run Windows 2000 on a Pentium 166 MMX with 64MB of RAM, and it’s slow.  Unbearably slow.  The most telling requirement is the second line, where we are informed that more RAM will improve responsiveness. 

While just about any operating system will perform better with more RAM, nowhere is this truer than with Windows 2000.  The speed difference on that P166 MMX when I upgraded from 64MB to 128MB was very noticeable.  While the stated minimums will allow you to run Windows 2000 Professional, I highly recommend the following changes as a minimum for a Windows 2000 Professional system: 

Pentium Pro or greater processor.  Preferably 200 MHz or faster

128MB of RAM Minimum – The more the better.

Fast IDE or preferably SCSI hard drive.

 

RAM is more important than processor speed, within reason.  I have used 2 identical Pentium III 500 machines.  One had 128MB and the other had 384MB.  The machine with 384MB of RAM walked all over the machine with 128MB. 

If I were going to build a new box to run Windows 2000 as my main machine, I would want these specs, although a single processor or single hard drive will work well too:

Dual 300 or greater MHz Processors

256MB of RAM

Two 7200 RPM or greater SCSI Hard Drives: One for the OS, one for applications and data.

While the hardware requirements may be a little high for some, the new feature list in Windows 2000 goes a long way in making up for this. 

Perhaps the most ballyhooed new feature in Windows 2000 is the new hardware support, specifically Plug and Play.    

Plug and Play:

Right now, there are over 6,500 Microsoft certified Plug and Play hardware devices that work on Windows 2000.  PnP on Win2k is just as seamless and easy as on Windows 95/98

DVD works in Windows 2000, although not as well as it could.  Microsoft does not have their own DVD decoder software, and has no plans on developing one.  What this means is that if you have a DVD drive and you want to watch a DVD movie, you need to have a DVD encoder card that has Windows 2000 drivers.  As of Jan, 12 2000, there aren’t many, but the numbers will increase as time goes on.

There are some people who feel that USB and/or PnP could easily have been put into NT 4 via a service pack.  I would like to take this opportunity to dispel that myth.  While I am unable to get into specifics, Microsoft would have had to basically re-architect NT 4 to make these things work.

In addition to what you would expect with Plug and Play, there is even FireWire support in addition to the standard USB support.

I have a standard test to see how good Plug and Play support in an OS really is: I install and configure the OS and some applications on one system, then move the hard drive into another system.  Windows 2000 auto detected all the new hardware, and removed all the old hardware when I tried this.

A big problem with previous versions of Windows was that many programs share files, such as DLL’s.  The reason this is such a problem is that many programs will have different versions of DLL’s, some of which are incompatible with each other.

Windows 2000 catalogs important system files, and uses code signing similar to a certificate to ensure system files are OK.  If a file changes, WFP determines which file was changed, and whether or not it is a signed file. If it isn’t, WFP will replace the file from either a special folder called dllcache, or from the Windows 2000 installation media.  This happens behind the scenes for regular users, but administrators see the following box:   

A file replacement was attempted on the protected system file file name. To maintain system stability, the file has been restored to the correct Microsoft version. If problems occur with your application, please contact the application vendor for support.          

While that aspect of WFP runs behind the scenes, the System File Checker (sfc.exe) is a tool that administrators can run to verify all versions of system files, and verify there is no file corruption.  

SFC first runs at the end of GUI-mode setup to verify that no programs setup for unattended installation overwrote or erased any system files.  If any were, the SFC will replace them  

What files are protected?  Every .SYS, .DLL, .EXE, .TTF, .FON, and .OCX file included with Windows 2000 is protected.  This takes approximately 400MB, and the files reside in %systemroot%\system32\dllcache directory

Microsoft Installer (MSI): 

The Microsoft Installer or MSI is a new specification for programs that simplifies and safeguards program installation and uninstallation.  In addition, MSI also makes it easy to use IntelliMirror and Remote install, two new components of NT server.

MSI also supports remote-installs of software, so diskless workstations and/or roaming profiles will work properly.  This works with IntelliMirror to enable applications to follow users from machine to machine. You can tell if your program supports MSI by looking for an .MSI file, usually in the root of the program’s installation media.

MSI is a case of Microsoft doing something the way they should have done it from the beginning.  An MSI file contains a complete set of instructions on how the program will be installed.  This includes which files to copy where, which registry keys to modify, and any if-then statements depending upon any installation variables.  

The file also has a separate path that deals with how to handle installation if an earlier version of the software is installed. By basically reversing the instructions in the MSI file, Microsoft has made program uninstallation very reliable.  With luck, this will end the need to delete files manually even after an automated uninstall process.

Perhaps the neatest feature of MSI is the self-healing capabilities it enables.  Often, users will accidentally delete or corrupt important program files from their system.  If the application that is damaged is an MSI application, then the user is in good shape.  Upon program initialization, the program scans for it’s files, and if any are missing, it automatically replaces them.  This all happens seamlessly in the background.

One bane of users is that of multiple DLL versions.  With MSI, DLL duplicates are maintained in separate folders and called upon by the program they belong to.  This prevents the installation of one program destroying another program.  While this is a nice feature, it’s also a case of, “It took Microsoft HOW long to figure this out?”

MSI acts as a system service, so users on a network can install programs approved by their network administrator regardless of their local permissions.

The last new part of MSI I’ll cover is its transactional nature:  If an MSI install fails for any reason, such as corrupted files, power outage, etc, the MSI is smart enough to rollback the system to whatever the previous state of the machine was.  This means no more orphan registry settings/system files from failed or uninstalled programs.

MSI should make installing programs a lot simpler and more reliable in the future.  It’s a nice enhancement that should have been developed along the Win95 timeframe.  But then again, better late than never.

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