Windows 98 (codenamed Memphis[3] while in development) is a graphical operating systemby Microsoft.

It is
the second major release in the Windows 9x line of operating systems and the successor to Windows 95. It
was released to manufacturing on May 15, 1998 and to retail on June 25, 1998.
Like its predecessor, Windows 98 is a hybrid 16-bit and 32-bit[4] monolithic product with anMSDOS based boot stage.[5] Windows 98 was succeeded by Windows 98 Second Edition on May 5, 1999, [6] which
in turn was succeeded by Windows ME on June 19, 2000.[7] Microsoft ended mainstream support for
Windows 98 and 98 SE on June 30, 2002, and extended support on July 11, 2006. [2]
The famous startup sound for Windows 98 was composed by Microsoft sound engineer Ken Kato, who
considered it to be a "tough act to follow.

Networking enhancements
Main article: Winsock
Windows 98 networking enhancements to TCP/IP include built-in support for Winsock 2, SMB signing, [20] a
new IP Helper API, Automatic Private IP Addressing (APIPA) (also known as link-local addressing), IP
multicasting (including IGMPv2 support and ICMP Router Discovery RFC 1256), and performance
enhancements for high-speed high bandwidth networks (TCP large windows and time stamps RFC
1323,Selective
Acknowledgement
(SACK) RFC
2018,
TCP
Fast
Retransmit
and
Fast
Recovery). Multihoming support with TCP/IP is improved and includes RIP listener support.
The DHCP client has been enhanced to include address assignment conflict detection and longer timeout
intervals. NetBT configuration in theWINS client has been improved to continue persistently querying
multiple WINS servers if it failed to establish the initial session until all of the WINS servers specified have
been queried or a connection is established.
NDIS 5.0 support means Windows 98 can support a wide range of network media, including Ethernet, Fiber
Distributed Data Interface (FDDI),token ring, Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM), wide area
networks (WANs), ISDN, X.25, and Frame Relay. Additional features include NDIS power management,
support for QoS, WMI and support for a single INF file format across all Windows versions.
Windows 98 Dial-Up Networking supports PPTP tunneling, support for ISDN adapters, multilink support, and
connection-time scripting to automate non-standard login connections. Multilink channel aggregation
enables users to combine all available dial-up lines to achieve higher transfer speeds. PPP connection logs can
show actual packets being passed and Windows 98 allows PPP logging per connection. The Dial-Up
Networking improvements are also available in Windows 95 OSR2 and downloadable for earlier Windows 95
releases.

Performance improvements
Windows 95 introduced the 32-bit, protected-mode cache driver, VCACHE replacing SMARTDrv to cache the
most recently accessed information from the hard drive in memory, divided into chunks. However, the cache
parameters needed manual tuning as it degraded performance by consuming too much memory and not
releasing it quickly enough, forcing paging to occur far too early. The Windows 98 VCACHE cache size
management for disk and network access, CD-ROM access and paging is more dynamic compared to
Windows 95 resulting in no tuning required for cache parameters.[22] On the FAT32 file system, Windows 98
has a performance feature called MapCache that can run applications from the disk cache itself if the code
pages of executable files are aligned/mapped on 4K boundaries, instead of copying them to virtual memory.
This results in more memory being available to run applications, and lesser usage of the swap file.
Windows 98 registry handling is more robust than Windows 95 to avoid corruption and there are several
enhancements to eliminate limitations and improve registry performance. [23] The Windows 95 registry key
size limitation of 64 KB is gone. The registry uses less memory and has better caching.
WinAlign (Walign.exe and Winalign.exe) are tools designed to optimize the performance of executable code
(binaries). WinAlign aligns binary sections along 4 KB boundaries, aligning the executable sections with the
memory pages. This allows the Windows 98 MapCache feature to map directly to sections in
cache[24] Walign.exe is included in Windows 98 for automatically optimizing Microsoft Office programs.
Winalign.exe is included in the Windows 98 Resource Kit to optimize other programs.
Disk Defragmenter has been improved to rearrange program files that are frequently used to a hard disk
region optimized for program start.
Windows 98 also supports a Fast Shutdown feature that initiates shutdown without uninitializing device
drivers. Windows 98 supports write-behind caching for removable disk drives. A FAT32 converter utility for
converting FAT16 drives to FAT32 without formatting the partition is also included.

Other system tools[edit]

A number of improvements are made to various other system tools and accessories in Windows 98.
Microsoft Backup supports differential backup and SCSI tape devices in Windows 98. Disk Cleanup, a new
tool, enables users to clear their disks of unnecessary files. Cleanup locations are extensible through Disk
Cleanup handlers. Disk Cleanup can be automated for regular silent cleanups.
Scanreg (DOS) and ScanRegW are Registry Checker tools used to back up, restore or optimize the Windows
registry. ScanRegW tests the registry's integrity and saves a backup copy each time Windows successfully
boots. The maximum amount of copies could be customized by the user through "scanreg.ini" file. The
restoration of a registry that causes Windows to fail to boot can only be done from DOS mode using ScanReg.
System Configuration Utility (also known as Msconfig) is a new system utility used to disable programs and
services that are not required to run the computer. A Maintenance Wizard is included that schedules and
automates ScanDisk,
Disk
Defragmenter
and Disk
Cleanup. Windows
Script
Host,
with VBScript and JScript engines is built-in and upgradeable to version 5.6.
System File Checker checks installed versions of system files to ensure they were the same version as the one
installed with Windows 98 or newer. Corrupt or older versions are replaced by the correct versions. This tool
was introduced to resolve the DLL hell issue and was replaced inWindows ME by System File Protection.
The Windows 98 Startup Disk contains generic, real-mode ATAPI and SCSI CD-ROM drivers and has been
preconfigured to automatically start MS-DOS mode with CD-ROM support enabled. For computers without
an operating system and that do not support booting from optical drives, the Startup disk can be used to
boot into MS-DOS and automatically start Windows 98 setup from the CD.

The system could be updated using Windows Update. A utility to automatically notify of critical updates was
later released.
Windows 98 includes an improved version of the Dr. Watson utility that collects and lists comprehensive
information such as running tasks, startup programs with their command line switches, system patches,
kernel driver, user drivers, DOS drivers and 16-bit modules. With Dr. Watson loaded in the system tray,
whenever a software fault occurs (general protection fault, hang, etc.), Dr. Watson will intercept it and
indicate what software crashed and its cause. All of the collected information is logged to the
\Windows\DrWatson folder.
Windows Report Tool takes a snapshot of system configuration and lets users submit a manual problem
report along with system information to technicians. It has e-mail confirmation for submitted reports.

Accessories
Windows 98 includes Microsoft Magnifier, Accessibility Wizard and Microsoft Active Accessibility 1.1 API
upgradeable to MSAA 2.0. A new HTML Help system with 15 Troubleshooting Wizards was introduced to
replace WinHelp. A utility to convert FAT16 file systems to FAT32 is provided.
Users can configure the font in Notepad. Microsoft Paint supports GIF transparency. HyperTerminal supports
a TCP/IP connection method allowing it to be used as a Telnet client. Imaging for Windows is
updated. System Monitor supports output to a log file.

Miscellaneous improvements

Telephony API (TAPI) 2.1

DCOM version 1.2
Ability to list fonts by similarity determined using PANOSE information.
Tools to automate setup such as Batch 98 and INFInst.exe support error-checking, gathering information
automatically to create an INF filedirectly from the registry of the machine, customizing IE4, shell and
desktop settings and adding custom drivers.
Several other Resource Kit tools are included on the Windows 98 CD. [27]
Windows 98 has new system event sounds for low battery alarm and critical battery alarm. The
Windows 98 startup sound was composed by Ken Kato.
Windows 98 shipped with Flash Player and Shockwave Player preinstalled. [28]

Windows 98
Microsoft announced with this new system software Version 4.10 the revised version of Windows 95. The operating system
Windows 98 contains as innovation mainly detail improvements and bug fixes. The hardware component is enhanced with USB
support improved and the operation of several monitors is possible now. Windows 98 is prepared for DVD movies, for the view
of DVD Movies a separate software must be installed.
The update to the newest Windows Release is supported if Windows 3. x or Windows 95 is already installed.
As a file system for the installation of Windows 98 FAT32 is recommended. If the access to other file systems is needed are

tools of third party manufacturers required which usually offer a free software with read access. Such tools are available for
NTFS and the Linux file system ext2. For the professional file system NTFS exists a driver of Sysinternals which is integrated after
the installation in the operating system. For the successful installation system files are needed by Windows NT.
Windows 98 can be updated to DirectX 9.0 and the Internet Explorer 6.
Features
- extended support for the connection to networks
- integrated Internet Explorer 4.0
- web optimized, networking through VPN
- Internet Connection Sharing (ICS)
Area of application
- home user
- PC Games
- Office use
- network client
Structure informations
- 32-bit operating system, with 16 Bit Code
- up to 512 mbyte RAM adressable
- File size up to 4 gbyte
System environment
- Minimum Hardware Requierements: 16 mbyte RAM, 300 mbyte harddisk storage
- Active Desktop for the Web integration in Windows
- New driver model WDM (Win32 Driver Model), developed for the same driver base for Windows NT and 98 in 1996
- Task planer, time controlled start from programs
- Mayntenance assistant, harddisk maintains
- game interface DirectX 5.0
- multi monitoring Support (up to 4)
- File system FAT16, better use FAT32, access to NTFS and Linux ext2 file system with 3rd party tools
- preemptive multitasking for 32-bit applications
- cooperative multitasking for 16-bit programs
- ACPI Power save mode partly supported (except of Suspend to Disk)
- x86 CPUs and compatible
Features
- integrated ICM (Image Color Management)
- Plug and play, support for modern hardware like USB, Firewire IEEE 1394
- high compatibility to DOS, Windows 3.x and limited NT
- very high number of software and device drivers

WINDOWS 2000

Windows 2000 is an operating system for use on both client and server computers. It was produced
by Microsoft and released to manufacturing on December 15, 1999[5] and launched to retail on February 17,
2000.[6] It is the successor to Windows NT 4.0, and is the last version of Microsoft Windows to display the
"Windows NT" designation.[7] It is succeeded by Windows XP (released in October 2001) and Windows Server
2003 (released in April 2003). During development, Windows 2000 was known as Windows NT 5.0.
Four editions of Windows 2000 were released: Professional, Server, Advanced Server, andDatacenter
Server;[8] the latter was both released to manufacturing and launched months after the other editions. [9] 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 theMicrosoft Management Console and standard system
administration applications.
Support for people with disabilities was improved over Windows NT 4.0 with a number of newassistive
technologies,[10] and Microsoft increased support for different languages[11] andlocale information.[12]
All versions of the operating system support NTFS 3.0,[13] Encrypting File System, as well as basic and dynamic
disk storage.[14] The Windows 2000 Server family has additional features,[15] including the ability to
provide Active Directory services (a hierarchical framework of resources), Distributed File System (a file
system that supports sharing of files) and fault-redundant storage volumes. Windows 2000 can be installed
through either a manual or unattended installation.[16] Unattended installations rely on the use of answer
files to fill in installation information, and can be performed through a bootable CD using MicrosoftSystems
Management Server, by the System Preparation Tool.[17]
Microsoft marketed Windows 2000 as the most secure Windows version ever at the time; [18]however, it
became the target of a number of high-profile virus attacks such as Code Red andNimda. [19] 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.[4]Although they did leave two security issues in the TCP/IP stack that were
discovered in 2009 (while Windows 2000 was still in Extended Support) unpatched, claiming that it would be
too much effort to backport the amount of code necessary to fix them. These issues were also not fixed in
Windows XP. Microsoft suggested turning on the firewall.[20]

History
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. Beta 1 of NT 5.0
was released in September 1997, followed by Beta 2 in August 1998. [21] 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.[22] Windows 2000 Beta 3 was released in January 1999.[21] NT 5.0
Beta 1 was similar to NT 4.0, including a very similar 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 1976. The Windows 2000 boot screen in the final version first appeared in Beta 3 build 1994. Windows
2000 did not have a codename because, according to Dave Thompson of Windows NT team, "Jim
Allchin didn't like codenames".
Windows 2000 Service Pack 1 was codenamed "Asteroid" and Windows 2000 64-bit was codenamed
"Janus." During development, there was a build for the Alpha which was abandoned some time after
RC1 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. 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." After Foley's article was published, she claimed that Microsoft blacklisted her for a considerable
time. 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." 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." [32] Wired News later
described the results of the February launch as "lackluster."[33] Novell criticized Microsoft's Active Directory,
the new directory service architecture, as less scalable or reliable than its own Novell Directory
Services (NDS) alternative.[34]
Windows 2000 was first planned to replace both Windows 98 and Windows NT 4.0. However, this changed
later. Instead, 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." 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" [35] for
certain versions of Microsoft Internet Explorer was reported.
Microsoft planned to release a 64-bit version of Windows 2000, which would run on 64bit Intel Itanium microprocessors, in 2000. However, the first officially-released 64-bit editions of Windows
were 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. These
editions were released in 2002, were shortly available through the OEM channel and then were superseded
by the final versions of Windows Server 2003.

New and updated features[edit]

Windows 2000 introduced many of the new features of Windows 98 and Windows 98 SE into the NT
line,[40] such as the Windows Desktop Update, Internet Explorer 5 (Internet Explorer 6, which came in 2001, is

also available for Windows 2000), Outlook Express, NetMeeting,FAT32 support, Windows Driver
Model,[42] Internet Connection Sharing,[40] Windows Media Player, WebDAV support etc. Certain new features
are common across all editions of Windows 2000, among them NTFS 3.0, the Microsoft Management
Console (MMC),[44] UDFsupport, the Encrypting File System (EFS), Logical Disk Manager, Image Color
Management
2.0,[47] support
for PostScript
3-based
printers,[47] OpenType (.OTF) and Type
1
[47]
PostScript (.PFB) font support (including a new fontPalatino Linotypeto showcase some OpenType
features[48]), the Data protection API (DPAPI),[49] an LDAP/Active Directory-enabled Address Book,[50] usability
enhancements and multi-language and locale support. Windows 2000 also introduced USB device class
drivers for USB printers, Mass storage class devices,[51] and improved FireWire SBP-2 support for printers and
scanners, along with a Safe removal applet for storage devices.[52] 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. [53]
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.[54] 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 or a 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.[55] 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.[55] 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.[56] Windows 2000 also introduced core
system administration and management features as the Windows Installer,[57] Windows Management
Instrumentation[58] and Event Tracing for Windows (ETW)[59] into the operating system.

Plug and Play and hardware support improvements

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 toWindows 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).[60] Generic support for 5-button
mice is also included as standard[61] and installing IntelliPoint allows reassigning the programmable buttons.
Windows 98 lacked generic support.[62] Driver Verifier was introduced to stress test and catch device driver
bugs.[63]

Shell
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. [64] 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 SHIFT key. A Re-sortbutton
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 NTrelease 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.[65] It allowed users to customize the way folders
look and behave by using HTML templates, having the file extension HTT. 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[66] and VBS.Redlof.a.[67]
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.[68] 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 theWindows Desktop Update installed through the use of folder customization
templates.[69] The default file tooltip displays file title, author, subject and comments; [70] this metadata may be
read from a special NTFS stream, if the file is on an NTFS volume, or from an OLE structured storagestream, if
the file is a structured storage document. All Microsoft Office documents since Office 4.0 [71] 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.[72]
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. [65] This degree of
customizability is new to Windows 2000; neither Windows 98 nor the Desktop Update could provide it.[73] 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. [74]

NTFS 3.0
Microsoft released the version 3.0 of NTFS[13] (sometimes incorrectly called NTFS 5 in relation to the kernel
version number) as part of Windows 2000; this introduced disk quotas (provided by QuotaAdvisor), filesystem-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.[75] Reparse points allow the object
manager to reset a file namespace lookup and let file system drivers implement changed functionality in a
transparent manner.[76] Reparse points are used to implement volume mount points, junctions, Hierarchical
Storage Management, Native Structured Storage and Single Instance Storage. [76] 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. [77]

Encrypting File System

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. [45] EFS works together with the
EFS service, Microsoft's CryptoAPI and the EFS File System RuntimeLibrary (FSRTL). [78] 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
key cipher were used.[78] 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.[79]
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

Windows 2000 introduced the Logical Disk Manager and the diskpart command line tool for dynamic
storage.[14] 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 supportmirrored 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
With Windows 2000, Microsoft introduced the Windows 9x accessibility features for people with visual and
auditory impairments and otherdisabilities into the NT-line of operating systems. [10] These included:

StickyKeys: makes modifier keys (ALT, CTRL and SHIFT) 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 keyrepeat feature.
Toggle Keys: when turned on, Windows will play a sound when the CAPS LOCK, NUM LOCK or SCROLL
LOCK 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. [80]

Additionally, Windows 2000 introduced the following new accessibility features:

On-screen keyboard: displays a virtual keyboard on the screen and allows users to press its keys using
a mouse or a joystick.[81]
Microsoft Narrator: Introduced in Windows 2000, this is a screen reader that utilizes the Speech API 5. [80]

Languages and locales

Windows 2000 introduced the Multilingual User Interface (MUI).[82] 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.[11] It also has support for many different locales.[12]

Games
Windows 2000 included version 7.0 of the DirectX API, commonly used by game developers on Windows
98.[83] The last version of DirectX that Windows 2000 supports is DirectX 9.0c (Shader Model 3.0), that 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.[84]
WNDOWS VISTA

Windows Vista (codenamed Longhorn[7]) is an operating system by Microsoft for use on personal computers,
including home and business desktops, laptops, tablet PCs and media center PCs. Development was
completed on 8 November 2006, and over the following three months, it was released in stages to computer
hardware and software manufacturers, business customers and retail channels. On 30 January 2007, it
was released worldwide[8]and was made available for purchase and download from Microsoft's website. [9] The
release of Windows Vista came more than five years after the introduction of its predecessor,Windows XP,
the longest time span between successive releases of Microsoft Windowsdesktop operating systems. It was
succeeded by Windows 7, which was released to manufacturing on 22 July 2009 and released worldwide for
retail on 22 October 2009.
New features of Windows Vista include an updated graphical user interface and visual styledubbed Aero, a
new search component called Windows Search, redesigned networking, audio, print and display sub-systems,
and new multimedia tools including Windows DVD Maker. Vista aimed to increase the level of
communication between machines on a home network, using peer-to-peer technology to simplify
sharing files and media between computers and devices. Windows Vista included version 3.0 of the .NET
Framework, allowingsoftware developers to write applications without traditional Windows APIs.
Microsoft's primary stated objective with Windows Vista was to improve the state of security in the Windows
operating system.[10] One common criticism of Windows XP and its predecessors was their commonly
exploited security vulnerabilities and overall susceptibility to malware, viruses and buffer overflows. In light
of this, Microsoft chairman Bill Gatesannounced in early 2002 a company-wide "Trustworthy
Computing initiative", which aimed to incorporate security into every aspect of software development at the
company.[11] Microsoft stated that it prioritized improving the security of Windows XP and Windows Server
2003above finishing Windows Vista, thus delaying its completion. [12][13]
While these new features and security improvements have garnered positive reviews, Vista has also been the
target of much criticism and negative press. Criticism of Windows Vista has targeted its high system

requirements, its more restrictive licensing terms, the inclusion of a number of new DRM technologies aimed
at restricting the copying of protected digital media, lack of compatibility with some pre-Vista hardware and
software, longer boot time, and the number of authorization prompts for User Account Control. As a result of
these and other issues, Windows Vista had seen initial adoption and satisfaction rates lower than Windows
XP.[14] However, with an estimated 330 million Internet users as of January 2009, it had been announced that
Vista usage had surpassed Microsoft's pre-launch two-year-out expectations of achieving 200 million
users.[15][16] At the release of Windows 7 (October 2009), Windows Vista (with approximately 400 million
Internet users) was the second most widely used operating system on the Internet with an approximately
19% market share, the most widely used being Windows XP with an approximately 63% market share. [17] In
May 2010, Windows Vista's market share had an estimated range from 15% to 26%. [18][19] On 22 October 2010,
Microsoft ceased sales of retail copies of Windows Vista, and the OEM sales for Vista ceased a year later. [20] As
of May 2016, Vista market share was 1.35%.[21]
Microsoft stopped providing "mainstream support" for Windows Vista on 10 April 2012. [22] Extended support
will end on 11 April 2017.

As Longhorn
Microsoft began work on Windows Vista, known at the time by its codename Longhorn, in May 2001, [23] five
months before the release of Windows XP. It was originally expected to ship sometime late in 2003 as a
minor step between Windows XP and Blackcomb, which was planned to be the company's next major
operating system release. Gradually, "Longhorn" assimilated many of the important new features and
technologies slated for Blackcomb, resulting in the release date being pushed back several times in 3 years. In
some builds of Longhorn, their license agreement said "For the Microsoft product codenamed "Whistler"".
Many of Microsoft's developers were also re-tasked to build updates toWindows XP and Windows Server
2003 to strengthen security. Faced with ongoing delays and concerns about feature creep, Microsoft
announced on 27 August 2004, that it had revised its plans. For this reason, Longhorn was reset to start work
on componentizing the Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1 codebase, and over time re-incorporating the
features that would be intended for an actual operating system release. However, some previously
announced features such as WinFS were dropped or postponed, and a new software development
methodology called the Security Development Lifecycle was incorporated in an effort to address concerns
with the security of the Windows codebase, which is programmed in C, C++ and Assembly. Longhorn became
known as Vista in 2005.[24][25]
The early development stages of Longhorn were generally characterized by incremental improvements and
updates to Windows XP. During this period, Microsoft was fairly quiet about what was being worked on, as
their marketing and public relations focus was more strongly focused onWindows XP, and Windows Server
2003, which was released in April 2003. Occasional builds of Longhorn were leaked onto popular file
sharingnetworks such as IRC, BitTorrent, eDonkey and various newsgroups, and so most of what is known
about builds prior to the first sanctioned development release of Longhorn in May 2003, is derived from
these builds.
After several months of relatively little news or activity from Microsoft with Longhorn, Microsoft released
Build 4008, which had made an appearance on the Internet around 28 February 2003. [26] It was also privately
handed out to a select group of software developers. As an evolutionary release over build 3683, it contained
a number of small improvements, including a modified blue "Plex" theme and a new, simplified Windows
Image-based installer that operates in graphical mode from the outset, and completed an install of the
operating system in approximately one third the time of Windows XP on the same hardware. An optional
"new taskbar" was introduced that was thinner than the previous build and displayed the time differently.
The most notable visual and functional difference, however, came with Windows Explorer. The incorporation
of the Plex theme made blue the dominant color of the entire application. The Windows XP-style task pane
was almost completely replaced with a large horizontal pane that appeared under the toolbars. A new search

interface allowed for filtering of results, searching of Windows help, and natural-language queries that would
be used to integrate with WinFS. The animated search characters were also removed. The "view modes"
were also replaced with a single slider that would resize the icons in real-time, in list, thumbnail, or details
mode, depending on where the slider was. File metadata was also made more visible and more easily
editable, with more active encouragement to fill out missing pieces of information. Also of note was the
conversion of Windows Explorer to being a .NET application.
Most builds of Longhorn and Vista were identified by a label that was always displayed in the bottom-right
corner of the desktop. A typical build label would look like "Longhorn Build 3663.Lab06_N.020728-1728".
Higher build numbers did not automatically mean that the latest features from every development team at
Microsoft was included. Typically, a team working on a certain feature or subsystem would generate their
own working builds which developers would test with, and when the code was deemed stable, all the
changes would be incorporated back into the main development tree at once. At Microsoft, a number of
"Build labs" exist where the compilation of the entirety of Windows can be performed by a team. The name
of the lab in which any given build originated is shown as part of the build label, and the date and time of the
build follows that. Some builds (such as Beta 1 and Beta 2) only display the build label in the version
information dialog (Winver). The icons used in these builds are from Windows XP.
At the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC) in May 2003, Microsoft gave their first public
demonstrations of the new Desktop Window Manager and Aero. The demonstrations were done on a revised
build 4015 which was never released. A number of sessions for developers and hardware engineers at the
conference focused on these new features, as well as the Next-Generation Secure Computing Base(previously
known as "Palladium"), which at the time was Microsoft's proposed solution for creating a secure computing
environment whereby any given component of the system could be deemed "trusted". Also at this
conference, Microsoft reiterated their roadmap for delivering Longhorn, pointing to an "early 2005" release
date.[27]

Development reset
By 2004, it had become obvious to the Windows team at Microsoft that they were losing sight of what
needed to be done to complete the next version of Windows and ship it to customers. Internally, some
Microsoft employees were describing the Longhorn project as "another Cairo" or "Cairo.NET", referring to
the Cairo development project that the company embarked on through the first half of the 1990s, which
never resulted in a shipping operating system (though nearly all the technologies developed in that time did
end up in Windows 95 and Windows NT.[28]) Microsoft was shocked in 2005 by Apple's release of Mac OS X
Tiger. It offered only a limited subset of features planned for Longhorn, in particular fast file searching and
integrated graphics and sound processing, but appeared to have impressive reliability and performance
compared to contemporary Longhorn builds.[29] Most Longhorn builds had major Explorer.exe system leaks
which prevented the OS from performing well, and added more confusion to the development teams in later
builds with more and more code being developed which failed to reach stability.
In a 23 September 2005 front-page article on The Wall Street Journal,[30] Microsoft co-president Jim Allchin,
who had overall responsibility for the development and delivery of Windows, explained how development of
Longhorn had been "crashing into the ground" due in large part to the haphazard methods by which features
were introduced and integrated into the core of the operating system, without a clear focus on an endproduct. Allchin went on to explain how in December 2003, he enlisted the help of two other senior
executives, Brian Valentine and Amitabh Srivastava, the former being experienced with shipping software at
Microsoft, most notably Windows Server 2003,[31] and the latter having spent his career at Microsoft
researching and developing methods of producing high-quality testing systems.[32] Srivastava employed a
team of core architects to visually map out the entirety of the Windows operating system, and to proactively
work towards a development process that would enforce high levels of code quality, reduce
interdependencies between components, and in general, "not make things worse with Vista". [33] Since

Microsoft decided that Longhorn needed to be further componentized, work started on the Omega-13 series
builds where they would componentize existing Windows Server 2003 source code, and over time add back
functionality as development progressed. Future Longhorn builds would start from Windows Server 2003
Service Pack 1 and continue from there.
This change, announced internally to Microsoft employees on 26 August 2004, began in earnest in
September, though it would take several more months before the new development process and build
methodology would be used by all of the development teams. A number of complaints came from individual
developers, and Bill Gates himself, that the new development process was going to be prohibitively difficult
to work within.

As Windows Vista
By approximately November 2004, the company had considered several names for the final release, ranging
from simple to fanciful and inventive. In the end, Microsoft chose Windows Vista as confirmed on 22 July
2005, believing it to be a "wonderful intersection of what the product really does, what Windows stands for,
and what resonates with customers, and their needs." Group Project Manager Greg Sullivan told Paul
Thurrott "You want the PC to adapt to you and help you cut through the clutter to focus on what's important
to you. That's what Windows Vista is all about: "bringing clarity to your world." (a reference to the three
marketing points of VistaClear, Connected, Confident), so you can focus on what matters to
you.".[34] Microsoft co-president Jim Allchin also loved the name, saying that "Vista" creates the right imagery
for the new product capabilities and inspires the imagination with all the possibilities of what can be done
with Windowsmaking people's passions come alive."[35]
After Longhorn was named Windows Vista in November 2004, an unprecedented beta-test program was
started, involving hundreds of thousands of volunteers and companies. In September of that year, Microsoft
started releasing regular Community Technology Previews (CTP) to beta testers from July 2005 to February
2006. The first of these was distributed at the 2005 Microsoft Professional Developers Conference, and was
subsequently released to beta testers and Microsoft Developer Network subscribers. The builds that followed
incorporated most of the planned features for the final product, as well as a number of changes to the user
interface, based largely on feedback from beta testers. Windows Vista was deemed feature-complete with
the release of the "February CTP," released on 22 February 2006, and much of the remainder of the work
between that build and the final release of the product focused on stability, performance, application and
driver compatibility, and documentation. Beta 2, released in late May, was the first build to be made
available to the general public through Microsoft's Customer Preview Program. It was downloaded by over
five million people. Two release candidates followed in September and October, both of which were made
available to a large number of users.[36]
At the Intel Developer Forum on 9 March 2006, Microsoft announced a change in their plans to support EFI in
Windows Vista. The UEFI 2.0 specification (which replaces EFI 1.10) was not completed until early 2006, and
at the time of Microsoft's announcement, no firmware manufacturers had completed a production
implementation which could be used for testing. As a result, the decision was made to postpone the
introduction of UEFI support to Windows; support for UEFI on 64-bit platforms was postponed until Vista
Service Pack 1 and Windows Server 2008 and 32-bit UEFI would not be supported, as Microsoft does not
expect many such systems to be built as the market moves to 64-bit processors. [37][38]
While Microsoft had originally hoped to have the consumer versions of the operating system available
worldwide in time for Christmas 2006, it announced in March 2006 that the release date would be pushed
back to January 2007 in order to give the companyand the hardware and software companies that
Microsoft depends on for providing device driversadditional time to prepare. Because a release to

manufacturing(RTM) build is the final version of code shipped to retailers and other distributors, the purpose
of a pre-RTM build is to eliminate any last "show-stopper" bugs that may prevent the code from responsibly
being shipped to customers, as well as anything else that consumers may find annoying. Thus, it is unlikely
that any major new features would be introduced; instead, work would focus on Vista's "fit-and-finish". In
just a few days, developers had managed to drop Vista's bug count from over 2470 on 22 September to just
over 1400 by the time RC2 shipped in early October. However, they still had a way to go before Vista was
ready to RTM. Microsoft's internal processes required Vista's bug count to drop to 500 or fewer before the
product could go into escrow for RTM.[39] For most of the pre-RTM builds, those 32-bit editions are only
released.
On 14 June 2006, Windows developer Philip Su posted a blog entry which decried the development process
of Windows Vista, stating that "the code is way too complicated, and that the pace of coding has been
tremendously slowed down by overbearing process."[40] The same post also described Windows Vista as
having approximately 50 million lines of code, with about 2,000 developers working on the product. During a
demonstration of the speech recognition feature new to Windows Vista at Microsoft's Financial Analyst
Meeting on 27 July 2006, the software recognized the phrase "Dear mom" as "Dear aunt". After several failed
attempts to correct the error, the sentence eventually became "Dear aunt, let's set so double the killer delete
select all".[41] A developer with Vista's speech recognition team later explained that there was a bug with the
build of Vista that was causing the microphone gain level to be set very high, resulting in the audio being
received by the speech recognition software being "incredibly distorted".[42]
Windows Vista build 5824 (17 October 2006) was supposed to be the RTM release, but a bug, which
destroyed any system that was upgraded from Windows XP, prevented this, damaging development and
lowering the chance that it would hit its January 2007 deadline.[43]
Development of Windows Vista came to an end when Microsoft announced that it had been finalized on 8
November 2006, and was concluded by co-president of Windows development, Jim Allchin. [44] The RTM's
build number had also jumped to 6000 to reflect Vista's internal version number, NT 6.0. [45] Jumping RTM
build numbers is common practice among consumer-oriented Windows versions, like Windows 98 (build
1998), Windows 98 SE (build 2222), Windows Me (build 3000) or Windows XP (build 2600), as compared to
the business-oriented versions like Windows 2000 (build 2195) or Server 2003 (build 3790). On 16 November
2006, Microsoft made the final build available to MSDN and Technet Plus subscribers. [46] A business-oriented
Enterprise edition was made available to volume license customers on 30 November. [47] Windows Vista was
launched for general customer availability on 30 January 2007.

Installation
Windows Vista is the first Microsoft operating system:

to use DVD-ROM media for installation[97]

that can be installed only on a partition formatted with the NTFS file system[98]
that provides support for loading drivers for SCSI, SATA and RAID controllers from any source other
than floppy disks prior to its installation.[99]

Removed features
Some notable Windows XP features and components have been replaced or removed in Windows Vista,
including several shell and Windows Explorer features, multimedia features, networking related
functionality, Windows
Messenger, NTBackup,
the
network Windows
Messenger
service, HyperTerminal, MSN Explorer, Active Desktop, and the replacement of NetMeeting with Windows
Meeting Space. Windows Vista also does not include the Windows XP "Luna" visual theme, or most of the
classic color schemes that have been part of Windows since the Windows 3.x era. The "Hardware profiles"

startup feature has also been removed, along with support for older motherboard technologies like
the EISA bus,APM and Game port support (though on the 32-bit version game port support can be enabled by
applying an older driver).[100] IP over FireWire(TCP/IP over IEEE 1394) has been removed as well.[101] The
IPX/SPX Protocol has also been removed, although it can be enabled by a third-party plug-in. [102]