Windows 2000 System Administration Handbook

Preface Welcome to the Windows 2000 Systems Administration Training Course. As IT professionals, we have watched Windows 2000 slowly mature from a very rough NT5 beta 1 to a robust, polished Windows 2000 released product. As authors, we have attempted to bring you a collection of the topics most relevant to systems administration while adding insight from our own personal experiences implementing and administering Windows 2000 throughout the lengthy beta period, up to and including the final release. We hope that you will find this multimedia training course useful as you study and develop your Windows 2000 system administration skills. Windows 2000, which initially was to be calledWindows NT 5.0, is the newest upgrade in Microsoft's NT line of business operating systems. Windows NT was originally launched in 1993 as Windows NT 3.1. Microsoft chose to number it 3.1 rather than 1.0 to capitalize on the name recognition of its consumer Windows product line. At that time, Windows 3.1 was the current version of Windows and ran on top of DOS. Windows NT 3.1 was upgraded to 3.5 and later to 3.51, while retaining the older "Program Manager" GUI (graphical user interface). After five service packs, Windows NT 3.51 was showing its age, and, in 1996, Microsoft released Windows NT 4.0. NT4 was essentially 3.51, updated to use the Windows 95 "Explorer" style GUI. Although there were a few new features in NT4, notably Microsoft DNS Server, the basic product was largely the same. Any administrator who had worked with NT 3.51 and knew the Explorer GUI could sit down at an NT4 console and instantly administer the system. Technology has changed rapidly since 1996, when NT4 was released, and making NT keep up with newer technologies has been difficult for both Microsoft and for third-party developers. To keep up with the times and push the NT line of operating systems ahead, Microsoft has dramatically revamped NT4 into what is now Windows 2000, finally released in February 2000. The Audience The audience for this book is twofold. Topics are explained in sufficient detail to satisfy readers without prior experience in Windows NT systems administration, yet will help Windows NT administrators leverage their existing knowledge to get up to speed quickly on the new features and techniques of Windows 2000. Throughout the book, we often point out changes between Windows NT 4.0 and Windows 2000 and show the new ways to do the old familiar tasks. The Contents It is important to note that the authors of this book are all IT professionals with extensive experience in Windows NT systems administration. While brainstorming for this book, the idea came up to present the material in a way that would provide the best benefit not only to someone reading this book for educational purposes, but also for the real-world systems administrator who needs a reference while on the job. To that end, we've taken care to add tips and insight from our own real-world systems administration experiences and have arranged the topics to cover the common tasks of a Windows 2000 systems administrator. The arrangement of subjects in this book is broken down into sections as follows: Introduction to Windows 2000 Systems Administration In this section, we provide an overview of Windows 2000 basics, starting with discussing the different versions of the Windows 2000 operating system. Although the vast majority of this book relates to Windows 2000 Server, you will learn about the Windows 2000 Professional, Advanced Server, and Datacenter Server products, as well, and how they differ from each other. Chapter 1 discusses the different versions of Windows 2000 and how they relate to their Windows NT 4.0 counterparts. We also discuss new Windows 2000 terminology, such as Microsoft Management Console (MMC), Active Directory, domain trees, and forests. Windows NT 4.0 systems administrators will appreciate thWatts, David is the author of 'Windows 2000 System Administration Handbook', published 2000 under ISBN 9780130270108 and ISBN 0130270105.