Microsoft Windows.NET RC1 Enterprise Server serial key or number

Daniel

.NET 5 Release Candidate 1 (RC1) is now available and is ready for evaluation. .NET 5 RC1 is a “go live” release; you are supported using it in production. Here’s what’s new in this release:

• Blazor WebAssembly performance improvements
• Blazor component virtualization
• Blazor WebAssembly prerendering
• Browser compatibility analyzer for Blazor WebAssembly
• Blazor JavaScript isolation and object references
• Blazor file input support
• Custom validation class attributes in Blazor
• Blazor support for event
• Model binding as UTC
• Control class activation
• Open API Specification (Swagger) on-by-default in ASP.NET Core API projects
• Better F5 Experience for ASP.NET Core API Projects
• SignalR parallel hub invocations
• Added Messagepack support in SignalR Java client
• Kestrel endpoint-specific options via configuration

See the .NET 5 release notes for additional details and known issues.

Get started

To get started with ASP.NET Core in .NET 5 RC1 install the .NET 5 SDK. .NET RC1 also is included with Visual Studio 2019 16.8 Preview 3.

You need to use Visual Studio 2019 16.8 Preview 3 or newer to use .NET 5 RC1. .NET 5 is also supported with the latest preview of Visual Studio for Mac. To use .NET 5 with Visual Studio Code, install the latest version of the C# extension.

Upgrade an existing project

To upgrade an existing ASP.NET Core app from .NET 5 Preview 8 to .NET 5 RC1:

• Update all Microsoft.AspNetCore.* package references to .
  • If you’re using the new Microsoft.AspNetCore.Components.Web.Extensions package, update to version . This package doesn’t have an RC version number yet because we expect to make a few more design changes to the components it contains before it’s ready to ship.
• Update all Microsoft.Extensions.* package references to .
• Update System.Net.Http.Json package references to .

In Blazor WebAssembly projects, also make the follwowing updates to the project file:

• Update the SDK from “Microsoft.NET.Sdk.Web” to “Microsoft.NET.Sdk.BlazorWebAssembly”
• Remove the and properties.

That’s it! You should be all ready to go.

See also the full list of breaking changes in ASP.NET Core for .NET 5.

What’s new?

Blazor WebAssembly performance improvements

For .NET 5, we’ve made significant improvements to Blazor WebAssembly runtime performance, with a specific focus on complex UI rendering and JSON serialization. In our performance tests, Blazor WebAssembly in .NET 5 is 2-3x faster for most scenarios.

Runtime code execution in Blazor WebAssembly in .NET 5 is generally faster than Blazor WebAssembly 3.2 due to optimizations in the core framework libraries and improvements to the .NET IL interpreter. Things like string comparisons, dictionary lookups, and JSON handling are generally much faster in .NET 5 on WebAssembly.

As shown in the chart below, JSON handling is almost twice as fast in .NET 5 on WebAssembly:

We also optimized the performance of Blazor component rendering, particularly for UI involving lots of components, like when using high-density grids.

To test the performance of grid component rendering in .NET 5, we used three different grid component implementations, each rendering 200 rows with 20 columns:

• Fast Grid: A minimal, highly optimized implementation of a grid
• Plain Table: A minimal but not optimized implementation of a grid.
• Complex Grid: A maximal, not optimized implementation of a grid, using a wide range of Blazor features at once, deliberately intended to create a bad case for the renderer.

From our tests, grid rendering is 2-3x faster in .NET 5:

You can find the code for these performance tests in the ASP.NET Core GitHub repo.

You can expect ongoing work to improve Blazor WebAssembly performance. Besides optimizing the Blazor WebAssembly runtime and framework, the .NET team is also working with browser implementers to further speed up WebAssembly execution. And for .NET 6, we expect to ship support for ahead-of-time (AoT) compilation to WebAssembly, which should further improve performance.

Blazor component virtualization

You can further improve the perceived performance of component rendering using the new built-in virtualization support. Virtualization is a technique for limiting the UI rendering to just the parts that are currently visible, like when you have a long list or table with many rows and only a small subset is visible at any given time. Blazor in .NET 5 adds a new component that can be used to easily add virtualization to your components.

A typical list or table-based component might use a C# foreach loop to render each item in the list or each row in the table, like this:

If the list grew to include thousands of rows, then rendering it may take a while, resulting in a noticeable UI lag.

Instead, you can replace the foreach loop with the component, which only renders the rows that are currently visible.

The component calculates how many items to render based on the height of the container and the size of the rendered items.

If you don’t want to load all items into memory, you can specify an , like this:

An items provider is a delegate method that asynchronously retrieves the requested items on demand. The items provider receives an , which specifies the required number of items starting at a specific start index. The items provider then retrieves the requested items from a database or other service and returns them as an along with a count of the total number of items available. The items provider can choose to retrieve the items with each request, or cache them so they are readily available.

Because requesting items from a remote data source might take some time, you also have the option to render a placeholder until the item data is available.

Blazor WebAssembly prerendering

The component tag helper now supports two additional render modes for prerendering a component from a Blazor WebAssembly app:

• WebAssemblyPrerendered: Prerenders the component into static HTML and includes a marker for a Blazor WebAssembly app to later use to make the component interactive when loaded in the browser.
• WebAssembly: Renders a marker for a Blazor WebAssembly app to use to include an interactive component when loaded in the browser. The component is not prerendered. This option simply makes it easier to render different Blazor WebAssembly components on different pages.

To setup prerendering in an Blazor WebAssembly app:

1. Host the Blazor WebAssembly app in an ASP.NET Core app.
2. Replace the default static index.html file in the client project with a _Host.cshtml file in the server project.
3. Update the server startup logic to fallback to _Host.cshtml instead of index.html (similar to how the Blazor Server template is set up).

4. Update _Host.cshtml to use the component tag helper to prerender the root component:

You can also pass parameters to the component tag helper when using the WebAssembly-based render modes if the parameters are serializable. The parameters must be serializable so that they can be transferred to the client and used to initialize the component in the browser. If prerendering, you’ll also need to be sure to author your components so that they can gracefully execute server-side without access to the browser.

In additional to improving the perceived load time of a Blazor WebAssembly app, you can also use the component tag helper with the new render modes to add multiple components on different pages and views. You don’t need to configure these components as root components in the app or add your own marker tags on the page – the framework handles that for you.

Browser compatibility analyzer for Blazor WebAssembly

Blazor WebAssembly apps in .NET 5 target the full .NET 5 API surface area, but not all .NET 5 APIs are supported on WebAssembly due to browser sandbox constraints. Unsupported APIs throw when running on WebAssembly. .NET 5 now includes a platform compatibility analyzer that will warn you when your app uses APIs that are not supported by your target platforms. For Blazor WebAssembly apps, this means checking that APIs are supported in browsers.

We haven’t added all of the annotations yet to the core libraries in .NET 5 to indicate which APIs are not supported in browsers, but some APIs, mostly Windows specific APIs, are already annotated:

To enable browser compatibilty checks for libraries, add “browser” as a supported platform in your project file (Blazor WebAssembly projects and Razor class library projects do this for you):

When authoring a library, you can optionally indicate that a particular API is not supported in browsers by applying the :

Blazor JavaScript isolation and object references

Blazor now enables you to isolate your JavaScript as standard JavaScript modules. This has a couple of benefits:

1. Imported JavaScript no longer pollutes the global namespace.
2. Consumers of your library and components no longer need to manually import the related JavaScript.

For example, the following JavaScript module exports a simple JavaScript function for showing a browser prompt:

You can add this JavaScript module to your .NET library as a static web asset (wwwroot/exampleJsInterop.js) and then import the module into your .NET code using the service:

The “import” identifier is a special identifier used specifically for importing a JavaScript module. You specify the module using its stable static web asset path: _content/[LIBRARY NAME]/[PATH UNDER WWWROOT].

The imports the module as a , which represents a reference to a JavaScript object from .NET code. You can then use the to invoke exported JavaScript functions from the module:

greatly simplifies interacting with JavaScript libraries where you want to capture JavaScript object references, and then later invoke their functions from .NET.

Blazor file input support

Blazor now offers an component for handling file uploads, or more generally for reading browser file data into your .NET code.

The component renders as an HTML input of type “file”. By default, the user can select single files, or if you add the “multiple” attribute then the user can supply multiple files at once. When one or more files is selected by the user, the component fires an event and passes in an that provides access to the selected file list and details about each file.

To read data from a user-selected file, you call on the file and read from the returned stream. In a Blazor WebAssembly app, the data is streamed directly into your .NET code within the browser. In a Blazor Server app, the file data is streamed to your .NET code on the server as you read from the stream. In case you’re using the component to receive an image file, Blazor also provides a convenience method for resizing images data within the browser’s JavaScript runtime before they’re streamed into your .NET application.

Custom validation class attributes in Blazor

You can now specify custom validation class names in Blazor. This is useful when integrating with CSS frameworks, like Bootstrap.

To specify custom validation class names, create a class derived from and set it on the instance.

Blazor support for event

Blazor now has support for the event:

Thank you Vladimir Samoilenko for this contribution!

Model binding as UTC

Model binding in ASP.NET Core now supports correctly binding UTC time strings to . If the request contains a UTC time string (for example ), model binding will correctly bind it to a UTC without the need for further customization.

Control class activation

We’ve provided an additional overload that lets you provide a factory method for controlling class activation. This is useful if you want to pass additional parameters to that are initialized along with the host.

Open API Specification On-by-default

Open API Specification is a industry-adopted convention for describing HTTP APIs and integrating them into complex business processes or with 3rd parties. Open API is widely supported by all cloud providers and many API registries, so developers who emit Open API documents from their Web APIs have a variety of new opportunities in which those APIs can be used. In partnership with the maintainers of the open-source project Swashbuckle.AspNetCore, we’re excited to announce that the ASP.NET Core API template in RC1 comes pre-wired with a NuGet dependency on Swashbuckle, a popular open-source NuGet package that emits Open API documents dynamically. Swashbuckle does this by introspecting over your API Controllers and generating the Open API document at run-time, or at build time using the Swashbuckle CLI.

In .NET 5 RC1, running will result in the Open API output being enabled by default, but if you prefer to have Open API disabled, use . All files that are created for Web API projects will come with the NuGet package reference.

In addition to the NuGet package reference being in the file we’ve added code to both the method in that activates Open API document generation.

The method is also pre-wired to enlist in the Swashbuckle middleware. This lights up the document generation process and turns on the Swagger UI page by default in development mode. This way you’re confident that the out-of-the-box experience doesn’t accidentally expose your API’s description when you publish to production.

Azure API Management Import

When ASP.NET Core API projects are wired to output Open API in this way, the Visual Studio 2019 version 16.8 Preview 2.1 publishing experience will automatically offer an additional step in the publishing flow. Developers who use Azure API Management have an opportunity to automatically import their APIs into Azure API Management during the publish flow.

This additional publishing step reduces the number of steps HTTP API developers need to execute to get their APIs published and used with Azure Logic Apps or PowerApps.

Better F5 Experience for Web API Projects

With Open API enabled by default, we were able to significantly improve the F5 experience for Web API developers. With .NET 5 RC1, the Web API template comes pre-configured to load up the Swagger UI page. The Swagger UI page provides both the documentation you’ve added for your API, but enables you to test your APIs with a single click.

SignalR parallel hub invocations

In .NET 5 RC1, ASP.NET Core SignalR is now capable of handling parallel hub invocations. You can change the default behavior and allow clients to invoke more than one hub method at a time.

Added Messagepack support in SignalR Java client

We’re introducing a new package, , that adds messagepack support to the SignalR java client. To use the messagepack hub protocol, add to the connection builder.

Kestrel endpoint-specific options via configuration

We have added support for configuring Kestrel’s endpoint-specific options via configuration. The endpoint-specific configurations includes the Http protocols used, the TLS protocols used, the certificate selected, and the client certificate mode.

You are able to configure the which certificate is selected based on the specified server name as part of the Server Name Indication (SNI) extension to the TLS protocol as indicated by the client. Kestrel’s configuration also support a wildcard prefix in the host name.

The example belows shows you how to specify endpoint-specific using a configuration file:

Give feedback

We hope you enjoy this release of ASP.NET Core in .NET 5! We are eager to hear about your experiences with this latest .NET 5 release. Let us know what you think by filing issues on GitHub.

Thanks for trying out ASP.NET Core!

Windows 2000 is a business-oriented operating system that was produced by Microsoft and was released as part of the Windows NT family of operating systems. It was succeeded by Windows XP in 2001, releasing to manufacturing on December 15, 1999^[2] and being officially released to retail on February 17, 2000.^[3] It is the successor to Windows NT 4.0.

Four editions of Windows 2000 were released: Professional, Server, Advanced Server, and Datacenter Server;^[6] the latter was both released to manufacturing and launched months after the other editions.^[7] While each edition of Windows 2000 was targeted at a different market, they shared a core set of features, including many system utilities such as the Microsoft Management Console and standard system administration applications.

Windows 2000 introduces NTFS 3.0,^[8]Encrypting File System,^[9] as well as basic and dynamic disk storage.^[10] Support for people with disabilities was improved over Windows NT 4.0 with a number of new assistive technologies,^[11] and Microsoft increased support for different languages^[12] and locale information.^[13] The Windows 2000 Server family has additional features, most notably the introduction of Active Directory,^[14] which in the years following became a widely used directory service in business environments.

Microsoft marketed Windows 2000 as the most secure Windows version ever at the time;^[15] however, it became the target of a number of high-profile virus attacks such as Code Red^[16] and Nimda.^[17] For ten years after its release, it continued to receive patches for security vulnerabilities nearly every month until reaching the end of its lifecycle on July 13, 2010.^[5]

Windows 2000 is the last version of Microsoft Windows to display the "Windows NT" designation, and the last version where the desktop and server versions of Windows shared the same name. It is succeeded by Windows XP (released in October 2001) and Windows Server 2003 (released in April 2003).

History[edit]

Windows 2000 is a continuation of the Microsoft Windows NT family of operating systems, replacing Windows NT 4.0. The original name for the operating system was Windows NT 5.0 and the first beta was released in September 1997, followed by Beta 2 in August 1998.^[18] On October 27, 1998, Microsoft announced that the name of the final version of the operating system would be Windows 2000, a name which referred to its projected release date.^[19] Windows 2000 Beta 3 was released in May 1999.^[18] NT 5.0 Beta 1 was similar to NT 4.0, including a very similarly themed logo. NT 5.0 Beta 2 introduced a new 'mini' boot screen, and removed the 'dark space' theme in the logo. The NT 5.0 betas had very long startup and shutdown sounds, though these were changed in the early Windows 2000 beta, but during Beta 3, a new piano-made startup and shutdown sounds were made, featured in the final version as well as in Windows Me. The new login prompt from the final version made its first appearance in Beta 3 build 1946 (the first build of Beta 3). The new, updated icons (for My Computer, Recycle Bin etc.) first appeared in Beta 3 build 1964. The Windows 2000 boot screen in the final version first appeared in Beta 3 build 1983. Windows 2000 did not have a codename because, according to Dave Thompson of Windows NT team, "Jim Allchin didn't like codenames".^[20]

Windows 2000 Service Pack 1 was codenamed "Asteroid"^{[21][dead link]} and Windows 2000 64-bit was codenamed "Janus."^[22][23] During development, there was a build for the Alpha which was abandoned some time after RC1^[24] after Compaq announced they had dropped support for Windows NT on Alpha. From here, Microsoft issued three release candidates between July and November 1999, and finally released the operating system to partners on December 12, 1999.^[25] The public could buy the full version of Windows 2000 on February 17, 2000. Three days before this event, which Microsoft advertised as "a standard in reliability," a leaked memo from Microsoft reported on by Mary Jo Foley revealed that Windows 2000 had "over 63,000 potential known defects."^[26] After Foley's article was published, she claimed that Microsoft blacklisted her for a considerable time.^[27] However, Abraham Silberschatz et al. claim in their computer science textbook that "Windows 2000 was the most reliable, stable operating system Microsoft had ever shipped to that point. Much of this reliability came from maturity in the source code, extensive stress testing of the system, and automatic detection of many serious errors in drivers."^[28]InformationWeek summarized the release "our tests show the successor to NT 4.0 is everything we hoped it would be. Of course, it isn't perfect either."^[29]Wired News later described the results of the February launch as "lackluster."^[30]Novell criticized Microsoft's Active Directory, the new directory service architecture, as less scalable or reliable than its own Novell Directory Services (NDS) alternative.^[31]

Windows 2000 was initially planned to replace both Windows 98 and Windows NT 4.0. However, this changed later, as an updated version of Windows 98 called Windows 98 Second Edition was released in 1999.

On or shortly before February 12, 2004, "portions of the Microsoft Windows 2000 and Windows NT 4.0 source code were illegally made available on the Internet."^[32] The source of the leak remains unannounced. Microsoft issued the following statement:

"Microsoft source code is both copyrighted and protected as a trade secret. As such, it is illegal to post it, make it available to others, download it or use it."

Despite the warnings, the archive containing the leaked code spread widely on the file-sharing networks. On February 16, 2004, an exploit "allegedly discovered by an individual studying the leaked source code"^[32] for certain versions of Microsoft Internet Explorer was reported.

Microsoft planned to release a 64-bit version of Windows 2000, which would run on 64-bit Intel Itaniummicroprocessors, in 2000.^[33][34] However, the first officially released 64-bit version of Windows was Windows XP 64-Bit Edition, released alongside the 32-bit editions of Windows XP on October 25, 2001,^[35] followed by the server versions Windows Datacenter Server Limited Edition and later Windows Advanced Server Limited Edition, which were based on the pre-release Windows Server 2003 (then known as Windows .NET Server) codebase.^[36][37] These editions were released in 2002, were shortly available through the OEM channel and then were superseded by the final versions of Server 2003.^[37]

New and updated features[edit]

Windows 2000 introduced many of the new features of Windows 98 and Windows 98 SE into the NT line,^[38] such as the Windows Desktop Update,^[38]Internet Explorer 5 (Internet Explorer 6, which followed in 2001, is also available for Windows 2000),^[38]Outlook Express, NetMeeting, FAT32 support,^[39]Windows Driver Model,^[40]Internet Connection Sharing,^[38]Windows Media Player, WebDAV support^[41] etc. Certain new features are common across all editions of Windows 2000, among them NTFS 3.0,^[8] the Microsoft Management Console (MMC),^[42]UDF support, the Encrypting File System (EFS),^[43]Logical Disk Manager,^[44] Image Color Management 2.0,^[45] support for PostScript 3-based printers,^[45]OpenType and Type 1 PostScript font support^[45] (including a new font—Palatino Linotype—to showcase some OpenType features^[46]), the Data protection API (DPAPI),^[47] an LDAP/Active Directory-enabled Address Book,^[48] usability enhancements and multi-language and locale support. Windows 2000 also introduced USB device class drivers for USB printers, Mass storage class devices,^[49] and improved FireWire SBP-2 support for printers and scanners, along with a Safe removal applet for storage devices.^[50] Windows 2000 is also the first Windows version to support hibernation at the operating system level (OS-controlled ACPI S4 sleep state) unlike Windows 98 which required special drivers from the hardware manufacturer or driver developer.^[51]

A new capability designed to protect critical system files called Windows File Protection was introduced. This protects critical Windows system files by preventing programs other than Microsoft's operating system update mechanisms such as the Package Installer, Windows Installer and other update components from modifying them.^[52] The System File Checker utility provides users the ability to perform a manual scan of the integrity of all protected system files, and optionally repair them, either by restoring from a cache stored in a separate "DLLCACHE" directory, or from the original install media.

Microsoft recognized that a serious error (a Blue Screen of Death or stop error) could cause problems for servers that needed to be constantly running and so provided a system setting that would allow the server to automatically reboot when a stop error occurred.^[53] Also included is an option to dump any of the first 64 KB of memory to disk (the smallest amount of memory that is useful for debugging purposes, also known as a minidump), a dump of only the kernel's memory, or a dump of the entire contents of memory to disk, as well as write that this event happened to the Windows 2000 event log.^[53] In order to improve performance on servers running Windows 2000, Microsoft gave administrators the choice of optimizing the operating system's memory and processor usage patterns for background services or for applications.^[54] Windows 2000 also introduced core system administration and management features as the Windows Installer,^[55]Windows Management Instrumentation^[56] and Event Tracing for Windows (ETW)^[57] into the operating system.

Plug and Play and hardware support improvements[edit]

The most notable improvement from Windows NT 4.0 is the addition of Plug and Play with full ACPI and Windows Driver Model support. Similar to Windows 9x, Windows 2000 supports automatic recognition of installed hardware, hardware resource allocation, loading of appropriate drivers, PnP APIs and device notification events. The addition of the kernel PnP Manager along with the Power Manager are two significant subsystems added in Windows 2000.

Windows 2000 introduced version 3 print drivers (user mode printer drivers)^[58] based on Unidrv, which made it easier for printer manufacturers to write device drivers for printers.^[59] Generic support for 5-button mice is also included as standard ^[60] and installing IntelliPoint allows reassigning the programmable buttons. Windows 98 lacked generic support.^[61]Driver Verifier was introduced to stress test and catch device driver bugs.^[62]

Shell[edit]

Windows 2000 introduces layered windows that allow for transparency, translucency and various transition effects like shadows, gradient fills and alpha-blended GUI elements to top-level windows.^[63] Menus support a new Fade transition effect.

Improvements in Windows Explorer: "Web-style" folders, media preview and customizable toolbars

The Start menu in Windows 2000 introduces personalized menus, expandable special folders and the ability to launch multiple programs without closing the menu by holding down the key. A Re-sort button forces the entire Start Menu to be sorted by name. The Taskbar introduces support for balloon notifications which can also be used by application developers. Windows 2000 Explorer introduces customizable Windows Explorer toolbars, auto-complete in Windows Explorer address bar and Run box, advanced file type association features, displaying comments in shortcuts as tooltips, extensible columns in Details view (IColumnProvider interface), icon overlays, integrated search pane in Windows Explorer, sort by name function for menus, and Places bar in common dialogs for Open and Save.

Windows Explorer has been enhanced in several ways in Windows 2000. It is the first Windows NT release to include Active Desktop, first introduced as a part of Internet Explorer 4.0 (specifically Windows Desktop Update), and only pre-installed in Windows 98 by that time.^[64] It allowed users to customize the way folders look and behave by using HTML templates, having the file extension. This feature was abused by computer viruses that employed malicious scripts, Java applets, or ActiveX controls in folder template files as their infection vector. Two such viruses are VBS/Roor-C^[65] and VBS.Redlof.a.^[66]

The "Web-style" folders view, with the left Explorer pane displaying details for the object currently selected, is turned on by default in Windows 2000. For certain file types, such as pictures and media files, the preview is also displayed in the left pane.^[67] Until the dedicated interactive preview pane appeared in Windows Vista, Windows 2000 had been the only Windows release to feature an interactive media player as the previewer for sound and video files, enabled by default. However, such a previewer can be enabled in previous versions of Windows with the Windows Desktop Update installed through the use of folder customization templates.^[68] The default file tooltip displays file title, author, subject and comments;^[69] this metadata may be read from a special NTFS stream, if the file is on an NTFS volume, or from an OLE structured storage stream, if the file is a structured storage document. All Microsoft Office documents since Office 4.0^[70] make use of structured storage, so their metadata is displayable in the Windows 2000 Explorer default tooltip. File shortcuts can also store comments which are displayed as a tooltip when the mouse hovers over the shortcut. The shell introduces extensibility support through metadata handlers, icon overlay handlers and column handlers in Explorer Details view.^[71]

The right pane of Windows 2000 Explorer, which usually just lists files and folders, can also be customized. For example, the contents of the system folders aren't displayed by default, instead showing in the right pane a warning to the user that modifying the contents of the system folders could harm their computer. It's possible to define additional Explorer panes by using DIV elements in folder template files.^[64] This degree of customizability is new to Windows 2000; neither Windows 98 nor the Desktop Update could provide it.^[72] The new DHTML-based search pane is integrated into Windows 2000 Explorer, unlike the separate search dialog found in all previous Explorer versions. The Indexing Service has also been integrated into the operating system and the search pane built into Explorer allows searching files indexed by its database.^[73]

NTFS 3.0[edit]

Microsoft released the version 3.0 of NTFS^[8] (sometimes incorrectly called "NTFS 5" in relation to the kernel version number) as part of Windows 2000; this introduced disk quotas (provided by QuotaAdvisor), file-system-level encryption, sparse files and reparse points. Sparse files allow for the efficient storage of data sets that are very large yet contain many areas that only have zeros.^[74]Reparse points allow the object manager to reset a file namespace lookup and let file system drivers implement changed functionality in a transparent manner.^[75] Reparse points are used to implement volume mount points, junctions, Hierarchical Storage Management, Native Structured Storage and Single Instance Storage.^[75] Volume mount points and directory junctions allow for a file to be transparently referred from one file or directory location to another.

Windows 2000 also introduces a Distributed Link Tracking service to ensure file shortcuts remain working even if the target is moved or renamed. The target object's unique identifier is stored in the shortcut file on NTFS 3.0 and Windows can use the Distributed Link Tracking service for tracking the targets of shortcuts, so that the shortcut file may be silently updated if the target moves, even to another hard drive.^[76]

Encrypting File System[edit]

The Encrypting File System (EFS) introduced strong file system-level encryption to Windows. It allows any folder or drive on an NTFS volume to be encrypted transparently by the user.^[43] EFS works together with the EFS service, Microsoft's CryptoAPI and the EFS File System Runtime Library (FSRTL).^[77] To date, its encryption has not been compromised.^{[citation needed]}

EFS works by encrypting a file with a bulk symmetric key (also known as the File Encryption Key, or FEK), which is used because it takes less time to encrypt and decrypt large amounts of data than if an asymmetric keycipher were used.^[77] The symmetric key used to encrypt the file is then encrypted with a public key associated with the user who encrypted the file, and this encrypted data is stored in the header of the encrypted file. To decrypt the file, the file system uses the private key of the user to decrypt the symmetric key stored in the file header. It then uses the symmetric key to decrypt the file. Because this is done at the file system level, it is transparent to the user.^[78]

For a user losing access to their key, support for recovery agents that can decrypt files is built into EFS. A Recovery Agent is a user who is authorized by a public key recovery certificate to decrypt files belonging to other users using a special private key. By default, local administrators are recovery agents however they can be customized using Group Policy.

Basic and dynamic disk storage[edit]

Windows 2000 introduced the Logical Disk Manager and the diskpart command line tool for dynamic storage.^[10] All versions of Windows 2000 support three types of dynamic disk volumes (along with basic disks): simple volumes, spanned volumes and striped volumes:

• Simple volume, a volume with disk space from one disk.
• Spanned volumes, where up to 32 disks show up as one, increasing it in size but not enhancing performance. When one disk fails, the array is destroyed. Some data may be recoverable. This corresponds to JBOD and not to RAID-1.
• Striped volumes, also known as RAID-0, store all their data across several disks in stripes. This allows better performance because disk reads and writes are balanced across multiple disks. Like spanned volumes, when one disk in the array fails, the entire array is destroyed (some data may be recoverable).

In addition to these disk volumes, Windows 2000 Server, Windows 2000 Advanced Server, and Windows 2000 Datacenter Server support mirrored volumes and striped volumes with parity:

• Mirrored volumes, also known as RAID-1, store identical copies of their data on 2 or more identical disks (mirrored). This allows for fault tolerance; in the event one disk fails, the other disk(s) can keep the server operational until the server can be shut down for replacement of the failed disk.
• Striped volumes with parity, also known as RAID-5, functions similar to striped volumes/RAID-0, except "parity data" is written out across each of the disks in addition to the data. This allows the data to be "rebuilt" in the event a disk in the array needs replacement.

Accessibility[edit]

With Windows 2000, Microsoft introduced the Windows 9x accessibility features for people with visual and auditory impairments and other disabilities into the NT-line of operating systems.^[11] These included:

• StickyKeys: makes modifier keys (, and ) become "sticky": a user can press the modifier key, and then release it before pressing the combination key. (Activated by pressing Shift five times quickly.)
• FilterKeys: a group of keyboard-related features for people with typing issues, including:
  • Slow Keys: Ignore any keystroke not held down for a certain period.
  • Bounce Keys: Ignore repeated keystrokes pressed in quick succession.
  • Repeat Keys: lets users slow down the rate at which keys are repeated via the keyboard's key-repeat feature.
• Toggle Keys: when turned on, Windows will play a sound when the , or key is pressed.
• SoundSentry: designed to help users with auditory impairments, Windows 2000 shows a visual effect when a sound is played through the sound system.
• MouseKeys: lets users move the cursor around the screen via the numeric keypad.
• SerialKeys: lets Windows 2000 support speech augmentation devices.
• High contrast theme: to assist users with visual impairments.
• Microsoft Magnifier: a screen magnifier that enlarges a part of the screen the cursor is over.^[79]

Additionally, Windows 2000 introduced the following new accessibility features:

Languages and locales[edit]

Windows 2000 introduced the Multilingual User Interface (MUI).^[12] Besides English, Windows 2000 incorporates support for Arabic, Armenian, Baltic, Central European, Cyrillic, Georgian, Greek, Hebrew, Indic, Japanese, Korean, Simplified Chinese, Thai, Traditional Chinese, Turkic, Vietnamese and Western European languages.^[81] It also has support for many different locales.^[13]

Games[edit]

Windows 2000 included version 7.0 of the DirectXAPI, commonly used by game developers on Windows 98.^[82] The last version of DirectX that was released for Windows 2000 was DirectX 9.0c (Shader Model 3.0), which shipped with Windows XP Service Pack 2. Microsoft published quarterly updates to DirectX 9.0c through the February 2010 release after which support was dropped in the June 2010 SDK. These updates contain bug fixes to the core runtime and some additional libraries such as D3DX, XAudio 2, XInput and Managed DirectX components. The majority of games written for versions of DirectX 9.0c (up to the February 2010 release) can therefore run on Windows 2000.

Windows 2000 included the same games as Windows NT 4.0 did: FreeCell, Minesweeper, Pinball, and Solitaire.^[83]

System utilities[edit]

Windows 2000's Computer Management console can perform many system tasks. This image shows a disk defragmentation in progress.

Windows 2000 introduced the Microsoft Management Console (MMC), which is used to create, save, and open administrative tools.^[42] Each of these is called a console, and most allow an administrator to administer other Windows 2000 computers from one centralised computer. Each console can contain one or many specific administrative tools, called snap-ins.^[42] These can be either standalone (with one function), or an extension (adding functions to an existing snap-in). In order to provide the ability to control what snap-ins can be seen in a console, the MMC allows consoles to be created in author mode or user mode.^[42] Author mode allows snap-ins to be added, new windows to be created, all portions of the console tree to be displayed and consoles to be saved. User mode allows consoles to be distributed with restrictions applied. User mode consoles can grant full access to the user for any change, or they can grant limited access, preventing users from adding snapins to the console though they can view multiple windows in a console. Alternatively users can be granted limited access, preventing them from adding to the console and stopping them from viewing multiple windows in a single console.^[84]

The main tools that come with Windows 2000 can be found in the Computer Management console (in Administrative Tools in the Control Panel).^[85] This contains the Event Viewer—a means of seeing events and the Windows equivalent of a log file,^[86] a system information utility, a backup utility, Task Scheduler and management consoles to view open shared folders and shared folder sessions, configure and manage COM+ applications, configure Group Policy,^[87] manage all the local users and user groups, and a device manager.^[88] It contains Disk Management and Removable Storage snap-ins,^[89] a disk defragmenter as well as a performance diagnostic console, which displays graphs of system performance and configures data logs and alerts. It also contains a service configuration console, which allows users to view all installed services and to stop and start them, as well as configure what those services should do when the computer starts. CHKDSK has significant performance improvements.^[90]

Windows 2000 comes with two utilities to edit the Windows registry, REGEDIT.EXE and REGEDT32.EXE.^[91] REGEDIT has been directly ported from Windows 98, and therefore does not support editing registry permissions.^[91] REGEDT32 has the older multiple document interface (MDI) and can edit registry permissions in the same manner that Windows NT's REGEDT32 program could. REGEDIT has a left-side tree view of the Windows registry, lists all loaded hives and represents the three components of a value (its name, type, and data) as separate columns of a table. REGEDT32 has a left-side tree view, but each hive has its own window, so the tree displays only keys and it represents values as a list of strings. REGEDIT supports right-clicking of entries in a tree view to adjust properties and other settings. REGEDT32 requires all actions to be performed from the top menu bar. Windows XP is the first system to integrate these two programs into a single utility, adopting the REGEDIT behavior with the additional NT features.^[91]

The System File Checker (SFC) also comes with Windows 2000. It is a command line utility that scans system files and verifies whether they were signed by Microsoft and works in conjunction with the Windows File Protection mechanism. It can also repopulate and repair all the files in the Dllcache folder.^[92]

Recovery Console[edit]

The Recovery Console is usually used to recover unbootable systems.

The Recovery Console is run from outside the installed copy of Windows to perform maintenance tasks that can neither be run from within it nor feasibly be run from another computer or copy of Windows 2000.^[93] It is usually used to recover the system from problems that cause booting to fail, which would render other tools useless, like Safe Mode or Last Known Good Configuration, or chkdsk. It includes commands like 'fixmbr', which are not present in MS-DOS.

It has a simple command line interface, used to check and repair the hard drive(s), repair boot information (including NTLDR), replace corrupted system files with fresh copies from the CD, or enable/disable services and drivers for the next boot.

The console can be accessed in either of the two ways:

1. Booting from the Windows 2000 CD, and choosing to start the Recovery Console from the CD itself instead of continuing with setup. The Recovery Console is accessible as long as the installation CD is available.
2. Preinstalling the Recovery Console on the hard disk as a startup option in , via WinNT32.exe, with the /cmdcons switch.^[94] In this case, it can only be started as long as NTLDR can boot from the system partition.

Windows Scripting Host 2.0[edit]

Windows 2000 introduced Windows Script Host 2.0 which included an expanded object model and support for logon and logoff scripts.

Networking[edit]

• Starting with Windows 2000, the Server Message Block (SMB) protocol directly interfaces with TCP/IP. In Windows NT 4.0, SMB requires the NetBIOS over TCP/IP (NBT) protocol to work on a TCP/IP network.
• Windows 2000 introduces a client-side DNS caching service. When the Windows DNS resolver receives a query response, the DNS resource record is added to a cache. When it queries the same resource record name again and it is found in the cache, then the resolver does not query the DNS server. This speeds up DNS query time and reduces network traffic.

Server family features[edit]

The Windows 2000 server family consists of Windows 2000 Server, Windows 2000 Advanced Server, Windows 2000 Small Business Server, and Windows 2000 Datacenter Server.

All editions of Windows 2000 Server have the following services and features built in:

• Routing and Remote Access Service (RRAS) support, facilitating dial-up and VPN connections using IPsec, L2TP or L2TP/IPsec, support for RADIUS authentication in Internet Authentication Service, network connection sharing, Network Address Translation, unicast and multicastrouting schemes.
• Remote access security features: Remote Access Policies for setup, verify Caller ID (IP address for VPNs), callback and Remote access account lockout^[95]
• Autodial by location feature using the Remote Access Auto Connection Managerservice
• Extensible Authentication Protocol support in IAS (EAP-MD5 and EAP-TLS) later upgraded to PEAPv0/EAP-MSCHAPv2 and PEAP-EAP-TLS in Windows 2000 SP4
• DNS server, including support for Dynamic DNS. Active Directory relies heavily on DNS.
• IPsec support and TCP/IP filtering
• Smart card support
• Microsoft Connection Manager Administration Kit (CMAK) and Connection Point Services
• Support for distributed file systems (DFS)
• Hierarchical Storage Management support including remote storage,^[96] a service that runs with NTFS and automatically transfers files that are not used for some time to less expensive storage media
• Fault tolerant volumes, namely Mirrored and RAID-5
• Group Policy (part of Active Directory)
• IntelliMirror, a collection of technologies for fine-grained management of Windows 2000 Professional clients that duplicates users' data, applications, files, and settings in a centralized location on the network. IntelliMirror employs technologies such as Group Policy, Windows Installer, Roaming profiles, Folder Redirection, Offline Files (also known as Client Side Caching or CSC), File Replication Service (FRS), Remote Installation Services (RIS) to address desktop management scenarios such as user data management, user settings management, software installation and maintenance.
• COM+, Microsoft Transaction Server and Distributed Transaction Coordinator
• MSMQ 2.0
• TAPI 3.0
• Integrated Windows Authentication (including Kerberos, Secure channel and SPNEGO (Negotiate) SSP packages for Security Support Provider Interface (SSPI)).
• MS-CHAP v2 protocol
• Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) and Enterprise Certificate Authority support
• Terminal Services and support for the Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP)
• Internet Information Services (IIS) 5.0 and Windows Media Services 4.1
• Network Quality of Service features^[97]
• A new Windows Time service which is an implementation of Simple Network Time Protocol (SNTP) as detailed in IETF RFC 1769. The Windows Time service synchronizes the date and time of computers in a domain^[98] running on Windows 2000 Server or later. Windows 2000 Professional includes an SNTP client.

The Server editions include more features and components, including the Microsoft Distributed File System (DFS), Active Directory support and fault-tolerant storage.

Distributed File System[edit]

The Distributed File System (DFS) allows shares in multiple different locations to be logically grouped under one folder, or DFS root. When users try to access a network share off the DFS root, the user is really looking at a DFS link and the DFS server transparently redirects them to the correct file server and share. A DFS root can only exist on a Windows 2000 version that is part of the server family, and only one DFS root can exist on that server.

There can be two ways of implementing a DFS namespace on Windows 2000: either through a standalone DFS root or a domain-based DFS root. Standalone DFS allows for only DFS roots on the local computer, and thus does not use Active Directory. Domain-based DFS roots exist within Active Directory and can have their information distributed to other domain controllers within the domain – this provides fault tolerance to DFS. DFS roots that exist on a domain must be hosted on a domain controller or on a domain member server. The file and root information is replicated via the Microsoft File Replication Service (FRS).^[99]

Active Directory[edit]

A new way of organizing Windows network domains, or groups of resources, called Active Directory, is introduced with Windows 2000 to replace Windows NT's earlier domain model. Active Directory's hierarchical nature allowed administrators a built-in way to manage user and computer policies and user accounts, and to automatically deploy programs and updates with a greater degree of scalability and centralization than provided in previous Windows versions. User information stored in Active Directory also provided a convenient phone book-like function to end users. Active Directory domains can vary from small installations with a few hundred objects, to large installations with millions. Active Directory can organise and link groups of domains into a contiguous domain name space to form trees. Groups of trees outside of the same namespace can be linked together to form forests.

Active Directory services could always be installed on a Windows 2000 Server, Advanced Server, or Datacenter Server computer, and cannot be installed on a Windows 2000 Professional computer. However, Windows 2000 Professional is the first client operating system able to exploit Active Directory's new features. As part of an organization's migration, Windows NT clients continued to function until all clients were upgraded to Windows 2000 Professional, at which point the Active Directory domain could be switched to native mode and maximum functionality achieved.

Active Directory requires a DNS server that supports SRV resource records, or that an organization's existing DNS infrastructure be upgraded to support this. There should be one or more domain controllers to hold the Active Directory database and provide Active Directory directory services.

Volume fault tolerance[edit]

Along with support for simple, spanned and striped volumes, the server family of Windows 2000 also supports fault-tolerant volume types. The types supported are mirrored volumes and RAID-5 volumes:

• Mirrored volumes: the volume contains several disks, and when data is written to one it is also written to the other disks. This means that if one disk fails, the data can be totally recovered from the other disk. Mirrored volumes are also known as RAID-1.
• RAID-5 volumes: a RAID-5 volume consists of multiple disks, and it uses block-level striping with parity data distributed across all member disks. Should a disk fail in the array, the parity blocks from the surviving disks are combined mathematically with the data blocks from the surviving disks to reconstruct the data on the failed drive "on-the-fly."

Deployment[edit]

Windows 2000 can be deployed to a site via various methods. It can be installed onto servers via traditional media (such as CD) or via distribution folders that reside on a shared folder. Installations can be attended or unattended. During a manual installation, the administrator must specify configuration options. Unattended installations are scripted via an answer file, or a predefined script in the form of an INI file that has all the options filled in. An answer file can be created manually or using the graphical Setup manager. The Winnt.exe or Winnt32.exe program then uses that answer file to automate the installation. Unattended installations can be performed via a bootable CD, using Microsoft Systems Management Server (SMS), via the System Preparation Tool (Sysprep), via the Winnt32.exe program using the /syspart switch or via Remote Installation Services (RIS). The ability to slipstream a service pack into the original operating system setup files is also introduced in Windows 2000.^[100]

The Sysprep method is started on a standardized reference computer – though the hardware need not be similar – and it copies the required installation files from the reference computer to the target computers. The hard drive does not need to be in the target computer and may be swapped out to it at any time, with the hardware configured later. The Winnt.exe program must also be passed a /unattend switch that points to a valid answer file and a /s file that points to one or more valid installation sources.

Sysprep allows the duplication of a disk image on an existing Windows 2000 Server installation to multiple servers. This means that all applications and system configuration settings will be copied across to the new installations, and thus, the reference and target computers must have the same HALs, ACPI support, and mass storage devices – though Windows 2000 automatically detects "plug and play" devices. The primary reason for using Sysprep is to quickly deploy Windows 2000 to a site that has multiple computers with standard hardware. (If a system had different HALs, mass storage devices or ACPI support, then multiple images would need to be maintained.)

Systems Management Server can be used to upgrade multiple computers to Windows 2000. These must be running Windows NT 3.51, Windows NT 4.0, Windows 98 or Windows 95 OSR2.x along with the SMS client agent that can receive software installation operations. Using SMS allows installations over a wide area and provides centralised control over upgrades to systems.

Remote Installation Services (RIS) are a means to automatically install Windows 2000 Professional (and not Windows 2000 Server) to a local computer over a network from a central server. Images do not have to support specific hardware configurations and the security settings can be configured after the computer reboots as the service generates a new unique security ID (SID) for the machine. This is required so that local accounts are given the right identifier and do not clash with other Windows 2000 Professional computers on a network.^[101] RIS requires that client computers are able to boot over the network via either a network interface card that has a Pre-Boot Execution Environment (PXE) boot ROM installed or that the client computer has a network card installed that is supported by the remote boot disk generator. The remote computer must also meet the Net PC specification. The server that RIS runs on must be Windows 2000 Server and it must be able to access a network DNS Service, a DHCP service and the Active Directory services.^[102]

Editions[edit]

Microsoft released various editions of Windows 2000 for different markets and business needs: Professional, Server, Advanced Server and Datacenter Server. Each was packaged separately.

Windows 2000 Professional was designed as the desktop operating system for businesses and power users. It is the client version of Windows 2000. It offers greater security and stability than many of the previous Windows desktop operating systems. It supports up to two processors, and can address up to 4 GB of RAM. The system requirements are a Pentium processor (or equivalent) of 133 MHz or greater, at least 32 MB of RAM, 650 MB of hard drive space, and a CD-ROM drive (recommended: Pentium II, 128 MB of RAM, 2 GB of hard drive space, and CD-ROM drive).^[103]

Windows 2000 Server shares the same user interface with Windows 2000 Professional, but contains additional components for the computer to perform server roles and run infrastructure and application software. A significant new component introduced in the server versions is Active Directory, which is an enterprise-wide directory service based on LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol). Additionally, Microsoft integrated Kerberos network authentication, replacing the often-criticised NTLM (NT LAN Manager) authentication system used in previous versions. This also provided a purely transitive-trust relationship between Windows 2000 domains in a forest