Windows 2000, formerly known as Windows NT 5.0 in its development phase, is the fifth version of Microsoft Windows NT that was released on February 17, 2000 with a name change for its NT system. Thus, Windows NT 5.0 was renamed Windows 2000. It was succeeded by Windows XP for desktop computers on October 25, 2003. Its creation represented an effort to unify two different operating systems, Windows 9x and Windows NT. Two years before its release, it was known that Windows NT 5.0 was in the pipeline, but Windows 2000 resolved the doubts once and for all. Windows 2000 was an operating system mainly for advanced users, businesses and companies that was used to run high-performance programs, network servers or file servers, although it was already focused on the consumer user. The tasks it can perform include: create user accounts, assign resources and privileges, act as a web server, FTP, print server, DNS or domain name resolution, DHCP server, among other basic services. Another function that it has is, like in any Windows system, the option of using it as another workstation on the network. This operating system is very efficient and its main strength is Active Directory, a tool from which the entire infrastructure of an organization can be managed. Windows 2000 introduced some notable technological advances and improvements over its predecessors such as the NTFS 3.0 file system, with the ability to encrypt and compress files and support large hard drives. It also introduced enhancements to the COM+ component system, which unified Windows NT 4.0 COM and MTS technology and attached services into a single package, with new business benefits.
