Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional - Computers - http://maxpages.com/nanotechnology/W2KPro

Title: MCSE Windows 2000 Professional Study Guide for Exam 70-210

Author: Lisa Donald with James Chellis

Pages: 862

Introduction:

This book relates to the new Windows 2000 Professional operating system by Microsoft the software people. Thus this book relates to the MCSE certificate (Microsoft Certified System Engineer) where you will be certified to run a company network. In relations to that I will revise to you the power of Windows 2000 Professional with state of the art security Local and Group Policies and the affect of the ease of use with the Operating system.

Beginning:

Before we even start about learning about Windows 2000 we must step back and see what makes up Windows 2000 overall:

·Best features of Windows 98:
PnP, ACPI, USB, Latest in Direct 6 and Browser/shell

·Broad Driver support:
Display, Hardware, Digital Cameras, Scanners, Network Integrated Card, Printers
Sound, ect.

·Enhance easy-of-use
Fewer Reboots, total architecture design

·Lowest Total Cost of Ownership
Licensing, RIS, SysPrep, Windows Installer,

·NT Traditional Power
Better Reliability, Security, Performance, Maintenance

As you see Windows 2000 is the top OS out there in the market today. It also takes with it the common features of Windows 98 thus reducing your total cost of ownership with the deployment of your company in the word of training. Your users should be able to use it just like using Windows 98.

In NT 4.0 there were a lot of problems when deploying it with a wide area network with trust relationships and just the total hazards of using it. Microsoft realized this and they have fixed the problems. With Windows 2000 all the servers are equal which means they replicate information about every 15 minutes.

Windows 2000 also comes with new technology:

·Disk quota support
·Inherited and uninherited permissions
·Internet printing support with IIS and PWS
·EFS Encrypting File system. A layer of security that boost the protection against hackers and employees that attempt to wreck the company
·Wizards
·VPN support with added Ipsec and L2tp support

In the past with your users, they would fill up entire hardrives full of E-mail and trash but with Windows 2000 you can yet limits also called quotas, which limits your users on how much they can store remotely. Also local and group policies with enhanced security, Internet printing support which adds to the Intranet technology. EFS file encryption which adds another layer of security. Enhanced Wizards for every job, and Virtual Private Network support.

Now lets look at the Windows 2000 Hardware requirement:

Processor: Intel Pentium 133MHZ Or higher
RAM: 64MB recommends 128 or higher
Disk Space: 2GB Hard disk with 650MB recommends 1GB or more of free disk space
Network: None/NIC required for Domain connection
Display: Video Adapter VGA recoomends VGA or Higher

There are specific goals on why you want to upgrade or have your company adapt
To Windows 2000:

·Simple and Reliable
·Scalability
·Performance
·Tolerate Hardware failures
·PnP (Plug and Play)
·TOC (Total Cost of Ownership)

You are probably thinking that Microsoft must of thought of everything, well let
Me tell you that they did, and that this is the way companies must have their setup because the next thing that will become of necessary is a INTRANET NOT INTERNET which means a network within a network. Windows 2000 already have kind of adapted to that but it is still not a true intranet.

Middle

For all your hardware please understand that Microsoft have adapted a new guidelines which is the HCL (or Hardware Compatibility List). If you want to have a successful deployment you better have your equipment on the HCL and compatible with it. For further list go to www.microsoft.com/hwtest/hcl

File Systems:

Microsoft Windows 2000 can run on three file systems but only one for high security:

FAT 16
Originally designed for Windows 3.1 and DOS it could only handle a hardrive of 2GB or less which made it really inconvenient for most average users plus no security at all. The advantage is that it has backward compatibility, which is good for dual booting with another OS such as Unix or Linux.

FAT 32
FAT 32 was the better version of FAT. It is a 32-bit file system that was designed for Windows 95 and 98. Good thing about FAT 32 is that it can partition hardrives as large as 2 terabytes. And also offered more fault-tolerance. But again no security. But good for duel booting with Windows 2000.

NTFS (New Technology File System)

The preferred file system to run on Windows 2000 because it gave you security, disk quota and file encryption. It also gave you the power of local, group and global policies and security. It is recommended to install Windows 2000 on NTFS file system unless you are dual booting.

Windows 2000 can handle 3 types of installation:

Upgrade: A type of installation where you want to keep your programs and information but not security. Windows 2000 can upgrade from NT 3.51 Workstation, NT 4.0 Workstation, Windows 95 and Windows 98. To upgrade from NT 3.5 you must upgrade to NT 3.51 Workstation or NT 4.0 Workstation.

Full Installation: This type of installation is recommended if you have backed up everything on your hardrive and don’t want anything. It gives you the option of what File system you want to install it on.

Over Network Installation: To do this you must have an Active DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol), DNS, RIS on your server and for your workstations you must have a compliant PXE ROM NIC to boot up to the network.

Windows 2000 is also shipped with a utility that helps you configure your system. This utility is a must and it is called MMC to run it simply go to start run and type in mmc and okay. MMC stands for Microsoft management console, which is a utility that lets you, add different things that configure your system. Its just like Control panel but customized.

Windows 2000 also offers a mechanism that warns you of unsafe drivers being installed thus reducing your chances of reinstallation. With Driver signing you are given to three choices of completion which are BLOCK, WARN and IGNORE.

BLOCK: Block means simply you can’t install a driver that is not on the HCL, so anyone that does will get an access denied screen.

WARN: Warn means that it will warn you that you are installing a driver that is not on the HCL but it will still let you stalled it if you choose.

IGNORE: Ignore will simply ignore the warning message and let you install it anyway.

Windows 2000 is also shipped with local and group policies, which are policies that restrict users for doing things. For example if you don’t want your user to see start on your screen you can do that or anything.

To keep Windows 2000 up to date Microsoft offers slipstream service packs which means that it will not override the previous SP. So that it will just install what it needs. A new technology for the future.

Conclusion:

I love Windows 2000 and I’m using it now. It is the most reliable yet performance acing OS Microsoft have ever come out with. I only recommended it if you have a local or wide area network. Like this school needs its own independent servers and Windows 2000 to keep up the reliability of this school

I recommend this book to IT Professionals and people that want to take the MCSE course. You’ll will love it. I give it a rating of 10.

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Page Updated Wed Jun 6, 2001 5:25pm EDT