Windows
2000 Release Candidate 2 (RC2, build 2128) is the final major release before the product is released
to manufacturing, a feature-complete look at the most ambitious
operating system project ever undertaken by Microsoft. As such, this
release is marked most obviously by the extremely subtle changes between it
and RC1: There just aren't a lot of obvious differences (Figure
2), though that's a good
thing when you're trying to ship a product. But even with the
similarities, I was able to uncover the following differences in
RC2:
Changes to multiprocessing
Between the release of RC1 and RC2, Microsoft announced that all of
the Server family products would be updated to support better
symmetrical multiprocessing (SMP). So Server Edition now supports
four processors (up from two) and Advanced Server supports eight (up
from four). This was done largely to calm fears about the dropping
of the Alpha platform, which had previously been Microsoft's
high-end solution.
Network disconnect cue
Networking simplification has always been a goal in Windows 2000
and with RC2 a new visual cue has been added to alert the user when
the machine is disconnected from the network. Even when you choose
to not display a tray icon when connected, an icon will appear to
alert you should the network cable or Ethernet card become unplugged
(Figure 3). When the network connection is physically reconnected,
the icon disappears.
My Network Places updates
Long-time Windows 2000 users are used to the "nag
screens" you see when you navigate to the Program Files,
Winnt, and System32 folders. In RC2, a new nag screen
has been added to the Entire Network folder (Figure
4, found within My
Network Places). This was done to reduce network traffic since
the view from this folder could cause hundreds or even thousands of
machines to be polled on a large network.
If you're running Windows 2000 on a domain, the "Computers Near Me" icon has been removed, though it remains on workgroup systems.
Microsoft's rationale for this change is that there are far too many machines in a typical domain and displaying them all when the user clicked this
icon was time and resource intensive. After all, this was the reason these computer icons were removed from the root of My Network Places to begin
with.
Add/Remove Programs tweaks
When you choose Add/Remove Windows Components in Add/Remove
Programs, a "Please wait" alert lets you know that the
system is at least doing something while you wait for the dialog to
appear (Figure 5). In earlier builds, there was just an awkward pause, making
one wonder whether they had actually clicked the option properly.
Internet Explorer 5.01
Windows 2000 RC2 contains the latest version of Internet
Explorer, version 5.01 (build 5.00.2919.3800), which includes
numerous bug fixes as well as a few new features (Figure
6). IE 5.01 will
continue to be updated over the next few months and then will be
finalized just before Windows 2000 goes gold.
APM power management removed from Server family
For reasons that completely escape me, and despite repeated
attempts by me and others to have this feature reinstated, Microsoft
stripped APM power management from Server and Advanced Server (it
still exists in Professional, and the Server products still support
the new and more powerful ACPI power management). This means that
any servers built before January 1, 1999 will have no power
management at all, leaving many developers in the lurch.
I understand that most servers don't actually need power management,
but the vast majority of Windows 2000 systems out there today were
built before 1/1/99. I think this was a mistake, though not a
critical one.
MDAC 2.5
Windows 2000 RC2 includes the final release of Microsoft's Data
Access Components (MDAC) version 2.5, which includes new features
and numerous bug fixes. One of the coolest new features is the
ability to open an ADO recordset from a standard Web URL, a feature
that will be extended by the next version of SQL Server, code-named
"Shiloh." Also, Windows 2000 includes the basic SQL Server
client software, allowing Windows 2000-based ADO, OLE-DB, and ODBC
clients to easily access SQL Server data on other servers.
Event Viewer UI update
The use interface of the Event Viewer has been updated to make it
easier to navigate between events and their properties (Figure
7). And a new hyperlink feature, linking an error event to the
appropriate description on Microsoft's Web site is a nice touch.
Conclusions
As you can see by this short list, there isn't much new to
Windows 2000 RC2, but then that's a good thing: Sure, bugs have been
fixed and new drivers have been implemented, but to the end user,
Windows 2000 has remained a virtual constant since the Beta 3
release back in April. That makes sense, since the product has been
feature frozen for some time. So, as an end user, RC2 is a little
boring because it looks and feels the same as the other releases
we've been using for some time now. But it doesn't take much
perspective to realize that this build is something special, an
early look at the final OS to come.
And that day isn't far off: Windows 2000 is ready to go final.
