Talk:Windows 2000

WPA

any chance of a note on lack of WPA, and solutions.. ? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 81.107.93.248 (talk • contribs) 00:23, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Power users

I'd thought that "power user" was merely a marketing term of the 1990s, intended to flatter people into thinking that they were regarded as something other than corporate drones on the one hand or game playing teens on the other. But this article takes it seriously:

Windows 2000 Professional was designed as the desktop operating system for businesses and power users.

I wonder what wasn't laptoppy about it. That aside, "power users" is linked to power user, which tells us that

A power user is a user of a personal computer who can use advanced features of programs which are outside the expertise of "normal" users, yet is not capable of advanced, non application-oriented tasks like programming or system administration.

Taken literally, this would seem to mean that intended non-business Win2K users weren't thought of as able to administer their own systems. So were they supposed to take them back to the store whenever they wanted to install new software? (It also makes the surprising, dubious and anyway irrelevant claim that they couldn't program.) I don't suppose that this is what was intended. So what was intended?

Or how about cutting the marketing term and saying something like

Windows 2000 Professional was designed as the desktop operating system for businesses and individuals dissatisfied with Windows 98. Morenoodles (talk) 07:08, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

In case you do not know, a client piece of software is sometimes referred to as desktop to distinguish it from server. e.g. desktop operating system, desktop virtualization. - xpclient ^Talk 12:56, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Sure. Wouldn't "workstation" be better? Morenoodles (talk) 08:18, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Such a statement would be even more inappropriate since satisfaction with 98 may not be the only reason, 98 lacked the enterprise features of Windows 2000. An enterprise user can be said to be dissatisfied with 98 since it is not aimed at users like him. Satisfaction is harder to define than power user. - xpclient ^Talk 13:15, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

I bought a computer with Win2K because I wanted Windows, wanted various character sets (and therefore UTF-8), and wanted stability. I don't claim I was normal, but I've no reason to think I was very unusual. I was perfectly capable of administering my system, and indeed I've done some programming in my time, so I'm not a "power user" as the term is described in Wikipedia. So what does "power user" mean? (Or indeed "enterprise feature"?) Morenoodles (talk) 08:15, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

'Workstation' would not be incorrect. Btw Power user is not a marketing term, it exists in IT use, even in the Windows 2000/XP documentation. There is a Power users group in 2000/XP? See the Google definition. That said, I agree the line can be better worded - xpclient ^Talk 08:58, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

But as I've tried to say, MS's use of the term for the "Power users" group (somebody who has more than minimal control but doesn't have full control of Windows) seems to conflict with the notion that the company was selling the computer to "power users". My own memories of the advertising of the day are dim (and even if they were vivid they'd be discounted as "original research"), but I think that MS did rather little advertising of Win2K and instead got the computer companies to add to their adverts something bland and uninformative like Compaq [etc] recommends Windows 98 for personal use. / Compaq [etc] recommends Windows 2000 Professional for corporate use. I certainly don't remember MS or any hardware company saying If you're like most individuals, you'll be happy with Windows 98. But if you want any of [features X, Y, Z...] you should get Windows 2000 Professional instead. (I do remember hearing from friends such useful advice as If you're sick of the BSoD with 98, do yourself a favor and get 2000.) Morenoodles (talk) 09:28, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Active Directory

"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."

MS released an AD client for NT4 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.16.160.17 (talk) 07:19, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

That still seems to be available, however it doesn't support core features of AD like Kerberos, Group Policy, IntelliMirror. Full functionality wasn't available. The AD extensions offered minimal NT4 client compatibility. - xpclient ^Talk 14:44, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Good Article?

I think most of the complaints from when this article was de-featured have been dealt with, the largest workload amount being the references. At a minimum this is a Good Article. Do I get a second for nomination for the latter? Tempshill (talk) 03:39, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

NT4 not "last" multi-architecture.

I just removed a comment that "Windows NT 4.0 is the last version to support multiple architectures, until Windows XP introduced support for x86-64". Aside from being confusingly worded, it is inaccurate on two counts. I had made this edit once, to be reverted. The revert was apparently due to other edits, though, so I'm re-doing my edit. Windows 2000 was available for the majority of its life solely on x86, yes. But toward the end, there was a public Itanium (IA64) port. Therefore, 2000 *WAS* multi-architecture. In addition, XP had IA64 support before x86-64 was even released, so even the "until ... x86-64" comment is inaccurate. (If Windows Home Server is counted separately from Windows Server 2003, then WHS is the only NT to NOT be multi-architecture. If you count WHS as a W2k3 version, then every NT has been multi-architecture.) Ehurtley (talk) 03:10, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Don't merge the articles

Windows 2000 and Windows 2000 Server should not be merged, unless Windows Server 2003 is going to be merged with Windows XP and Windows Server 2008 merge with Vista. Like the afore sarcastically mentioned merges, the only "similarities" between Windows 2000 pro and server are the looks, everything else is different, i.e. an updated kernel for the server that the workstation did not possess and the obvious enhancements like active directory administration although it was still somewhat primitive then. Another reason is because of the server editions: server, server advanced, and datacenter, with enough feature and system requirement differences to keep the two as separate articles. If the server article needs expansion, I'll personally fill it in, as someone who has administered Windows (and Unix and Novell) servers since practically their dawn, and as someone who has had a peek at the Windows 2000 (including server) source code (which, I read off a friend's computer, I did not download it nor do I condone the download of trade secret source, don't sue me Microsoft).

Anthony cargile (talk) 02:48, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

I beleve as well the Server and Workstation (Professional) editions be separate because they are not the same thing Mmanley (talk) 03:30, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

They are the same. However, Windows 2000 Pro does not include server-based options. But the components, and optional add-ons are the same. // A Raider Like Indiana 02:46, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

No, they aren't. If you meant NT ("razzle"), yes NT almost perfectly fits your description except for the internal Microsoft NT used that became the basis for what we now know as Windows 2000 and Windows 2000 server, which was the first to really experiment with WAN-crossing domain controllers (Orville was the name of the first MS domain controller, for reference. Helps being on the actual NT team back in the day.). 70.89.148.13 (talk) 03:10, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Merge because "Windows 2000" refers to only the base that is beneath both Professional and Server. A separate article can be created discussing the difference between the builds, but I maintain that "Windows 2000" refers to both, just as "Windows XP" refers to both Home and Professional. If you don't merge, then at least move this article to "Windows 2000 Professional" so that we can at least not be misleading in the name of the article. --Voidxor (talk) 02:49, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

No, it isn't. windows XP and Windows server 2003 are NOT the same underlying OS, although as you mentioned Windows XP Home and Professional are except for some networking and security features. Windows 2000 is only one distribution (professional, ME was 'home'), but Windows 2000 server is comparable to Windows Server 2003 in that its code base is built on top of the nearest non-server release (adding extra security features and networking services, of course, and we always use a new kernel for server releases, save using 2003 for Vista). If it was instead Windows 2001 Server instead of Windows 2000 server, then we really wouldn't be having this conversation, much like the server 2003 and XP articles don't want to merge. The names do not necessarily reflect the underlying codebase. 70.89.148.13 (talk) 03:10, 10 October 2008 (UTC)