Windows 2000: dig deep to find the meaty bits

By Michael Foreman

When the Windows 2000 operating system finally starts shipping on February 17, many ordinary users will be left wondering what all the fuss was about.

At the same time, those whose job it is to administrate could well be claiming that the successor to NT has changed their lives.

Windows 2000 will initially be available in three versions: Professional, Server and Advanced Server. Professional is the standalone version that will be running on most desktops and notebooks, while Server is the component that runs a group of computers over a network. Advanced Server adds network load balancing features to Server, allowing "farms" of up to 32 servers to share tasks such as handling internet traffic, and allows two servers to be joined into one fail-safe "cluster."

The first thing users will notice about Windows 2000 are minor cosmetic changes to the user interface. The on-screen icons for My Computer, My Documents, and so on have been redesigned to give a more casual cartoon-like appearance, and some have been renamed. You now have an oval wastepaper Recycle Bin instead of a square one, and the Network Neighborhood icon becomes My Network Places - with the graphic now sporting a globe to signify that these days a network is not just local.

When you start running programs you begin to come across the meatier changes. In Windows 98 and NT 4 the Start menu is prone to become very cluttered as more and more applications are installed on the PC. Microsoft's solution is to display only the most frequently used programs in the first instance. A double arrow indicates more options are available, and if you hold the cursor over that arrow for a moment the full list appears.

It's a similar system to Office 2000 and it works well once you get used to it, and the system has had a chance to gauge which applications you are most likely to use. However, unless new users are told about it, technical support staff are bound to receive anxious calls from people wondering where their programs have gone.

Two new features are designed to protect users from themselves. As with Windows 98, Windows 2000 system and program folders no longer reveal the files inside them on first opening - instead a rather condescending message appears warning you that there is no need to modify the contents.

However, if you persisted, clicked "Show Files" and then deleted an important system file, you would come across a very significant change to Windows 2000 - the self-repairing feature. Windows 2000 now checks for the presence of core systems files and if they are absent or have been modified it will recreate them.

This has important implications for third-party programs as some overwrite system files, especially dynamic link library (DLL) files, when they are installed. This can lead to a condition known as "DLL hell" when the system suits the last-installed application but other programs are compromised. The self-repairing feature should mean that the operating system will always maintain its integrity but this may be at the cost of some applications refusing to run properly.

Windows 2000 includes much improved "plug and play" support for devices such as printers, scanners and digital cameras and the USB (Universal Serial Bus) interface. In most cases, Microsoft says USB devices may be installed simply by plugging them in with the PC still running. This is similar to Windows 98, but 2000 goes further in that the drivers for many devices are already present in the operating system, so that in most cases the user will not be asked to insert a CD-ROM.

Another less-welcome attempt at improving user-friendliness is the Net Configuration Wizard, which is used to establish internet connections. This Wizard insists you use the Microsoft Internet Referral Service to hook up to an ISP. This forces you to rely on Microsoft to maintain up-to-date lists of dial-up numbers and our experience shows it may not even be working when you need it. The Microsoft server dropped the connection on several attempts.

Most users will be better served by going directly to the Network and Dial-Up Connections menu, which incidentally has now been promoted out of the Control Panel folder and has a separate place within the Settings menu.

A notable deletion from the Windows 2000 screen is the My Briefcase icon. It has been replaced with the Synchronise item in the Accessories menu, a feature which will be of most use to notebook users as it updates the local area network with documents you have changed while working offline.

The most profound changes compared to Windows NT are to be found in Windows 2000 Server, but many of these will also affect Professional users if the Server component is running.

IntelliMirror is a set of functions that are designed to separate the computer from the person using it, by keeping copies of user files, applications and system configurations on a central server. Users can now work on different PCs around the office and their preferences, browser bookmarks and applications will follow them.

In tandem with IntelliMirror comes Active Directory, similar in concept to Novell's NDS (Novell Directory Services). System administrators can keep tabs on any resource on the network, including files and peripheral devices and also users. A whole host of details about users can be stored, including their e-mail addresses, phone numbers and even a photo.

The Active Directory will be used by the tremendously powerful Microsoft Management Console to identify users and set "policies" for individuals or groups.

With Windows 2000, administrators now have significant control over users, including the ability to set disk storage limits on the server, stop them changing the contents of certain folders, or even specify the background of their desktops.

Contentiously, Windows 2000 allows an administrator to monitor what a user is doing, ostensibly as an aid to technical support. The administrator can view a user's session, and also "interact" with it - in other words, override the user with or without that person's permission. According to Microsoft, a pop-up window will always advise the user when a session is being monitored.

Whether the implications of that message will be understood by many users remains to be seen.