25 years ago: Windows 2000 appears

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25 years ago today, Microsoft began delivering Windows 2000 in the form of a hologram-secured CD with a yellow license key on the back. The operating system was originally to be called Windows NT 5.0 and was to be released as early as 1998, but the project had to cope with numerous delays.

With development costs of 2 billion US dollars, Windows 2000 was the largest software project in Microsoft's history to date. Mockers joked that the name referred to the 2000 programmers involved in its creation. Windows 2000 was completed in December 1999 by 240 programmers and sent to CD production. It came onto the market in three versions, starting with Windows 2000 Professional as well as a Server and an Advanced Server version. The Windows 2000 Datacenter Server, which supported 32 processors, was added in September 2000. With an entry-level price of DM 800, Windows was clearly aimed at professional users.

Police photo of Bill Gates

Nevertheless, Microsoft was able to celebrate shortly after the launch: one million licenses were sold in the first month. Microsoft advertised its new Windows with the famous police photo of Bill Gates (because there is no speed limit for software) and with tablets from a travel pharmacy for managers (against laptop complaints). In fact, only Windows 2000 supported the Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI), with which laptops without manufacturer drivers could be put into a safe retirement.

Active Directory and other developments

For the first time, there was a wizard for barrier-free use of Windows, support for USB devices, Plug and Play, FAT32 for NT systems, Netmeeting and a new Windows Media Player. By far the biggest innovation, however, was noticeable in networks, to which Windows 2000 brought the Active Directory. With this universal database for users, domains and services, the decisive blow was struck against competitor Novell when Microsoft launched Windows Services for Netware in May 2000 for a mere DM 150 and was able to "supplement" Netware's NDS. Parallel to this coup, Cisco developed Active Directory for Solaris and HP-UX. The ideas for Active Directory came from Microsoft manager Jim Allchin, who had previously developed a similar system for Banyan Vines.

Administrators were also pleased with the further development of terminal services and the Management Console. In the run-up to the delivery of Windows 2000, a report in c't had caused a stir because Windows 2000 contained defragmentation software that Microsoft had licensed from a company with links to the Scientology sect. This caused particular problems for churches that wanted to install the new operating system.

Code Red and Nimda

The cow was only off the ice when Microsoft offered a solution for uninstalling the software at the end of 2000. Otherwise, it quickly became clear, also with the delivery of the service packs with support for USB 2.0 and Bluetooth, that Microsoft had achieved a great success with Windows 2000, which many users later regretted. It was not until 2001 that Windows 2000 was infected with the malware Code Red, which was followed by an attack with Nimda in the "year of the virus".

Microsoft itself supported Windows 2000 with several updates until 2005, which meant that Windows 2000 continued to run in many companies when its successors, Windows XP and Windows Vista, had long been available. Technical support was finally discontinued in 2010. In the company's history, Windows 2000 is presented as a success or company-wide effort, although some goals, such as the support of several processor families, were not achieved.

However, this was not solely due to Microsoft, but to the IT market. Intel had bought up the processor division of Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) and then sidelined the Alpha processor. All in all, Windows 2000 came onto the market at precisely the time when PCs were preparing to replace workstations in terms of performance.

(dmk)