Windows 2000 Administration in a Nutshell

Chapter 2. Quick Start

Although this book is intended not as a tutorial but as a quick desktop reference, I’ve included a brief chapter here to help existing Windows NT administrators quickly orient themselves to working with Windows 2000. We’re all in a hurry these days—especially those of us who manage computer networks—and I want to provide you with some suggestions and tips to get you going quickly. More information on the concepts, tasks, tools, and utilities discussed here can be found in the chapters of Part II, of this book.

New Tools, Old Tasks

If you are familiar with the Windows NT administrative tools, you may be thrown off base initially by the Windows 2000 administrative tools, which are almost entirely new tools with very few holdovers. Table 2.1 through Table 2.3 help you bridge the gap between the old platform and the new. The correspondence between tools and utilities on the two platforms is unfortunately not one-to-one, so notes are added where necessary to indicate differences. The base Windows NT platform used here includes Service Pack 4 with Internet Explorer 4 installed and Active Desktop enabled. The reference point here for the Windows 2000 tools list is Start → Programs, Start → Settings, or Start → Programs → Administrative Tools, depending on the program.

Table 2.1 lists the Windows NT administrative tools, which you may already be familiar with, and their new Windows 2000 counterparts.

Table 2-1. Administrative Tools in Windows NT and Windows 2000 ...