NT 5.0 Beta 1 was similar to NT 4.0, including a very similarly themed logo. Windows 2000 Beta 3 was released in January 1999. 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.

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. Windows 2000 is a continuation of the Microsoft Windows NT family of operating systems, replacing Windows NT 4.0. It is succeeded by Windows XP (released in October 2001) and Windows Server 2003 (released in April 2003). 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. 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. Microsoft marketed Windows 2000 as the most secure Windows version ever at the time however, it became the target of a number of high-profile virus attacks such as Code Red and Nimda. The Windows 2000 Server family has additional features, most notably the introduction of Active Directory, which in the years following became a widely-used directory service in business environments. Support for people with disabilities was improved over Windows NT 4.0 with a number of new assistive technologies, and Microsoft increased support for different languages and locale information. Windows 2000 introduces NTFS 3.0, Encrypting File System, as well as basic and dynamic disk storage. 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. It is the successor to Windows NT 4.0.įour editions of Windows 2000 were released: Professional, Server, Advanced Server, and Datacenter Server the latter was both released to manufacturing and launched months after the other editions. It was released to manufacturing on December 15, 1999, and launched to retail on February 17, 2000. Windows 2000 is an operating system that was produced by Microsoft as part of the Windows NT family of operating systems. Mainstream support ended on June 30, 2005 Service Pack 4 with Update Rollup () / Septem 13 years ago Source-available (through Shared Source Initiative).

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