INTRODUCTION TO WINDOWS 2000

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1 DATA COMMUNICATIONS MANAGEMENT INTRODUCTION TO WINDOWS 2000 Gilbert Held INSIDE Versions; Features; New Features; Graphic Improvements; Active Directory; Encryption and Compression; Disk Quotas; Synchronization; Other Features This article first discusses the versions of Windows 2000 available for use. Once this is accomplished, attention focuses on obtaining an appreciation of several of the new features incorporated into Windows From this examination of key features, one should be able to decide whether an organization s requirements justify an upgrade to Windows 2000, or if future PC acquisitions should specify this operating system. VERSIONS Unlike early versions of Windows NT that were restricted to workstation and server versions, Microsoft both changed terminology as well as expanded product offerings when Windows 2000 was released. What was formerly known as Windows NT Workstation is now called Windows 2000 Professional and represents the desktop version of the new operating system. To use Windows 2000 Professional, Microsoft recommends a minimum hardware configuration of a 133-MHz Pentium or equivalent CPU. Windows 2000 Professional supports a minimum of 32 Mbytes RAM and Microsoft recommends a 2-GB hard drive with 650 Mbytes available space, a CD-ROM or DVD-ROM, and a VGA or higher-resolution monitor. Although Microsoft recommends a minimum 133-MHz CPU and supports 32 Mbytes RAM, from personal PAYOFF IDEA The long-awaited release of Windows 2000 occurred during February 2000, more than a year later than originally anticipated. As a successor to Windows NT, Windows 2000 was first referred to as NT Version 5.0 in a preliminary beta release prior to Microsoft changing its name. Regardless of the name used for the new operating system, the key questions in the minds of potential purchasers should remain focused on what versions should be considered, their features, and most importantly, should an organization upgrade its existing infrastructure to the new release? Hopefully, each of these questions and more are answered in this introduction to Windows 2000.

2 DATA COMMUNICATIONS MANAGEMENT experience those system parameters result in the operation of Windows 2000 being equivalent to watching paint dry. As a minimum, this author recommends 64 Mbytes RAM, with 128 Mbytes even better because it allows most operations to occur in memory, which eliminates a considerable degree of waiting that occurs with 64 Mbytes and is most pronounced when a computer is limited to 32 Mbytes RAM. There are currently three versions of Windows 2000 server, with the key difference between server versions being in their support of multiple processors and gigabytes of RAM. The workhorse of the Windows 2000 server family is Windows 2000 Server. This version of the operating system scales to support up to four processors and up to 4 Gbytes RAM. Advanced Server adds support for more processors and memory, scaling up to eight processors and 8 Gbytes RAM. In addition, Advanced Server supports two-node clustering and 32-node load balancing. The third member of the Windows 2000 server family, Windows Datacenter Server, represents the premier version of Windows This operating system is designed to support enterprisewide operations as well as corporate Web servers. To provide this high level of support, Windows 2000 Datacenter Server scales up to 32 processors, supports up to 64 Gbytes RAM, and can be employed in four-node clusters with a 32- node load-balancing capability. For each member of the Windows 2000 server family, Microsoft recommends the use of at least a 133-MHz Pentium or equivalent CPU, a minimum of 128 Kbytes RAM with 256 Mbytes recommended and 1 GB of disk space. From a practical perspective, Microsoft s server hardware recommendations do not consider the fact that the use of servers can vary considerably between organizations. Due to this, it is important to consider the use of the server to better tailor the hardware platform to its level of utilization. For example, in a Web server environment, one would probably want to expand memory to place Web pages in cache to expedite responses to URL requests. In comparison, in a graphics processing environment, one would more than likely need to consider both expanded RAM as well as a relatively high processing capability. Given an appreciation for the different versions of Windows 2000, one can now focus on the key reason to consider this operating system: its features. In doing so, the primary focus is on new features and capabilities beyond that offered by Windows NT. FEATURES One of the major reasons for the popularity of Windows NT was the fact that both Workstation and Server versions provided users with a common interface and full range of common features. This capability that made Windows NT popular was carried over to Windows 2000, with each member of the family of four products having a common set of features,

3 INTRODUCTION TO WINDOWS 2000 which facilitates user operations. Thus, a person familiar with Windows 2000 Professional will have no trouble operating any version of the Windows 2000 server family and vice versa a situation that may not be true when some versions of UNIX are used. This section takes a look at many of the new features incorporated into Windows Although the primary focus is on new features, when applicable, some Windows NT applications and administrative tools that were either renamed or revised when incorporated into Windows 2000 are also mentioned. NEW FEATURES Regardless of one s personal opinion of Microsoft and the U.S. Government anti-trust trial, the company should be commended for adding many features to Windows 2000 that NT users had to previously obtain from third-party products. Those features include disk quotas, disk fragmentation, file encryption, and data synchronization. In addition, Microsoft added a new directory structure, called Active Directory, that scales far larger than the domain system supported under Windows NT, considerably enhanced the operation of the new operating system by limiting the number of system reboots required to perform many operations; and revised a portion of the graphic user interface which provides users with some valuable information that was previously difficult to obtain. Other noteworthy features associated with Windows 2000 include support for off-line storage, which permits online disk storage to be considerably supplemented; terminal services that let a Windows 2000 server pretend it is a UNIX server; and Web-based support for managing printers and printing documents across a TCP/IP network. With the preceding in mind, one can take a virtual tour of some of these new features along with a brief description of some of the revisions of Windows NT tools migrated to Windows GRAPHIC IMPROVEMENTS Throughout Windows 2000, one gradually notices many graphical improvements over Windows NT. Perhaps one area that deserves special mention is when working with the My Computer folder. Unlike prior editions of Windows that required users to revert to the use of DOS and a calculator to determine used and available disk capacity, under Windows 2000 this information is merely a click away. Exhibit 1 illustrates several new graphical improvements associated with the My Computer folder. First, note in the left portion of the display a pic chart that indicates used and free capacity for the selected storage device, which in this example is the floppy disk. As one highlights different storage devices, Windows 2000 displays the storage capacity in terms of used and free storage associated with the device.

4 DATA COMMUNICATIONS MANAGEMENT EXHIBIT 1 Pop-Up Display of Storage-Related Information

5 INTRODUCTION TO WINDOWS 2000 A second improvement to the My Computer folder is the tabulation of total size and free space information for each storage device except removable devices that are not installed when this folder is opened. One can see two columns with the previously mentioned information in the upper-right portion of Exhibit 1. A third improvement to the My Computer folder occurs as one moves a cursor over the name of a storage device. In doing so, a rectangular box will pop up. This box displays the free space and capacity of the drive. In Exhibit 1, the rectangular box shown resulted from the cursor being placed on the Disk (D) name. While the rectangular box may appear redundant with the previously described column information, it is important to remember that when working with multiple windows on a screen, one may have resized the My Computer window so that the size and free space column information is not visible. In this situation, the ability to simply move the cursor over a device name instead of having to resize a window can considerably boost one s productivity. ACTIVE DIRECTORY The Active Directory (AD) more than likely represents the most important feature added to Windows 2000 if an organization has a large number of employees and devices. Under this new directory service, information about network resources and users provides access to millions of objects. The Active Directory provides a hierarchical level of support for objects and uses the Internet Domain Name Service (DNS) naming convention. Active Directory can share information with any application and represents a cornerstone for literally supporting up to millions of objects. Under Active Directory, each user account has a logon name, a pre- Windows 2000 user logon name, and a user principal name suffix. The pre-windows 2000 user logon name provides compatibility with computers running pre-windows 2000 operating systems. The principal name suffix identifies the domain name in which the user account is located. Normally, this is a DNS domain name; however, it can be an alternate name created by an administrator. By providing a hierarchical directory structure that supports DNS naming, Microsoft has considerably extended the capability of its Windows directory structure. Exhibit 2 illustrates how one can use Active Directory on one computer to connect to a domain that can reside on another computer, which adds additional flexibility to the capabilities of Active Directory. ENCRYPTION AND COMPRESSION A new addition to the NT file system (NTFS) is the ability to encrypt data in selected NTFS files and the contents of folders. The actual process in-

6 EXHIBIT 2 Using Active Directory to Connect to a Domain Residing on Another Computer DATA COMMUNICATIONS MANAGEMENT

7 INTRODUCTION TO WINDOWS 2000 volved in encrypting a file can be considered as representing a point-andclick sequence of operations. That is, one would right-click on a file or folder, select the properties option from the resulting pop-up menu, and select the button labeled Advanced from the tab labeled General. The resulting Advanced Attributes dialog box provides the ability to either compress or encrypt the contents of a previously selected folder or file. The left portion of Exhibit 3 illustrates the properties dialog box for the file INTRO-5C.TIF, an image file. To encrypt the file, one would click on the button labeled Advanced, which will display another dialog box that is shown in the right portion of Exhibit 3. One would then simply click on the checkbox to the left of Encrypt contents and the click on the button labeled OK to encrypt the file. Because the operating system generates and stores a unique file encryption key which is then protected by a user s public key, it is most difficult if not impossible for an unauthorized user to decrypt an encrypted file. Due to the addition of file encryption, Windows 2000 provides a significant enhancement to data security. In addition, by including this feature within the operating system network, managers and computer administrators do not have to acquire a separate third-party product. DISK QUOTAS Until the introduction of Windows 2000, users working in a Microsoft operating system environment had to depend on the use of a third-party product if they required the ability to control the use of disk storage. The introduction of Windows 2000 resulted in the inclusion of a disk quota capability that enables administrators to control the use of storage. Disk quotas are only applicable to NTFS volumes, providing another reason to convert any FAT volumes one may still maintain to the enhanced and significantly more secure NTFS file system. Exhibit 4 illustrates the Quota tab that is displayed when one rightclicks on an NTFS drive and selects the Properties entry from the resulting pop-up box. One of the more interesting omissions from Windows 2000 that can initially appear puzzling to many people is the fact that, if one right-clicks on a FAT formatted volume and selects the Properties entry from the resulting pop-up menu, the dialog box will not contain a Quota tab. This results from the fact that disk quotas are not supported by the FAT file system. Perhaps a better method than a simple omission of the tab would be to include it but shade the entries to indicate they cannot be set and add a message that quotas cannot be assigned to a FAT volume. Perhaps in a future release Microsoft will consider a better method to indicate the lack of support for certain features based upon the file system used on a volume. Returning to Exhibit 4, note that one can both limit disk space as well as set a warning level. In addition, one can log such situations as when

8 DATA COMMUNICATIONS MANAGEMENT EXHIBIT 3 Encrypting Individual Files and the Contents of Folders

9 INTRODUCTION TO WINDOWS 2000 EXHIBIT 4 Limiting Disk Space, Setting a Warning Level, and Logging Occurrences When a User Exceeds Warning Level or Attempts to Exceed Quota Limit users exceed their warning levels and when users attempt to exceed their quota limits. Concerning the latter, while quotas are an important tool to control disk storage, their use deserves careful consideration. For example, if quotas are set too low, one runs the risk of employees frequently performing an operation only to run out of available disk space, forcing them to put aside whatever they were doing and contact the system administrator to ask for additional disk space. By carefully considering the disk storage requirements of users prior to setting quotas, one can avoid or minimize potential problems as well as control the use of disk storage, which is the primary goal associated with the use of disk quotas. SYNCHRONIZATION For mobile users, Windows 2000 now makes it easier than ever for workers who travel to take their data with them. Then, upon return, it is liter-

10 DATA COMMUNICATIONS MANAGEMENT ally a snap to update files on a remote server with the revisions performed on the traveler s computer. To provide synchronization support, Windows 2000 includes a Synchronization application which is accessed via Programs>Accessories. The left portion of Exhibit 5 illustrates the screen to select or add data to be synchronized, while the right portion of the screen capture illustrates the dialog box used to specify how synchronization should occur and when it should occur. Although synchronization offers little benefit if all one s employees are always directly connected to one s network, for the modern workplace where employees typically take their work with them, synchronization can represent a valuable feature. OTHER FEATURES In addition to the previously examined features, Windows 2000 contains numerous other features. Some features, such as Event Viewer and Performance Monitor, are carryovers from Windows NT. Other features, such as Telnet Server Administration and Indexing Service, represent new features added with the introduction of Windows Telnet Server Administration provides users with the ability to set up and manage a Telnet server module on their Windows 2000 server. The indexing service can be used to extract information from documents, which facilitates queries to locate information. The indexing service can index HTML, text, Internet mail, Microsoft Office 95, and later types of documents, as well as other types of documents. Searching of documents can be accomplished via an indexing service query form or a Web browser. Although the Windows 2000 Indexing Service provides a significant text location capability that can alleviate the necessity of obtaining a third-party product, its use is not without cost. That cost is in the form of additional storage required to hold the index of documents. Recognizing this problem, as well as the fact that Web surfing can result in a significant amount of cached pages that also take up storage capability, Microsoft has added a new feature to Windows 2000, referred to as Disk Cleanup. Through the use of this program, one can automatically schedule the removal of Indexing Service index files, cached Web pages, and other files, such as those previously sent to the Recycle Bin. Concerning scheduling, Microsoft revised the command-line scheduling capability of Windows NT into a graphic user interface program that is now very easy to use. Thus, Windows 2000 users can look forward to a significant number of new and revised features that can facilitate the operation and utilization of applications used under this new operating system.

11 INTRODUCTION TO WINDOWS 2000 EXHIBIT 5 Update Files on a Remote System

12 DATA COMMUNICATIONS MANAGEMENT Gilbert Held is an award-winning author and lecturer. Gil is the author of over 40 books and 400 technical articles covering personal computers and computer communications. Some of Gil s recent titles include Cisco Access Lists, Cisco Router Performances, and Data over Wireless Networks (McGraw-Hill). Among his many books and articles, Gil is the author of TCP/IP Professional Reference Guide (, 2000, ISBN ), from which this article is extracted. Gil can be reached via at gil_held@yahoo.com