Hi all I have got an assignment on Windows NT vs. Windows 2000 Architecture. I would be glad If any one point me out some reference or some kind of article on that. thanks in advance

Best place would probably be www.microsoft.com. They should have lots of boring techie white papers. Most other sites are dealing with W2K and WinXP at this time...

Guess I should point out, in case you didn't know... W2K is basically NT 5.0 so it's an advancement on the WinNT 4.0 kernel...

thanks for the info Lucid..but actually I have got an assignment on these comparison. and I know that its an upgraded version of WinNT. thanks for reminding.

Hi, I have few points hope this will help you. Windows NT * NT can work with two types of file systems: FAT16 file system: used by Windows 9x and its predecessors NT file system (NTFS): does not work with Windows 9x or DOS. * NT does not support - FAT32. - High Performance File System (HPFS) used by OS/2. * If a hard drive is using HPFS, - use the NT Convert.exe utility - to convert an HPFS partition to an NTFS partition. * This program can also convert - a FAT16 partition to NTFS. NTFS4 (New Technologies File System - version 4): * Does not use a File Allocation Table * Uses the MFT (Master File table), - which tracks contents of a drive - by using one or more rows in a table for each file and directory. * MFT contains - a transaction log of disk activities - so 2000/NT can recover files if disk problems occur. * You can set - security, - permissions, - compress & - encrypt files & folders. * NTFS volumes - require a certain amount of "wasted" space - for security features. * This space grows - as the volume grows, - but it isn't proportional to volume size. * This makes small volumes in NTFS - very inefficient compared to FAT for 2 reasons: 1. FAT doesn't have a serious overhead problem - until volumes exceed 511MB. 2. NTFS uses up proportionally large part of small volumes - for its security feature. * NTFS handles fragmentation better than FAT * Physical layout of directories (folders) in NTFS - enables faster file access than FAT. Security: * From Windows explorer, right-click & choose properties * From Security tab, click the advanced button * Permissions - allows anyone with the necessary security level - to set access control for selected items. * Auditing - allows adding or removing auditing - (& type of auditing) for groups. * Ownership - - allows taking, - but not giving, - of ownership of selected items. NTFS Naming Conventions * File and directory names c - an be up to 255 characters long, - including any extensions. * Names preserve case, but are not case sensitive. * NTFS makes no distinction of filenames based on case. * Names can contain any characters except for the following: ? " / \ & ; & * | : * Currently, from the command line, - you can only create file names of up to 253 characters. * Underlying hardware limitations - may impose additional partition size limitations in any file system. * a boot partition - can be only 7.8 GB in size, - there is a 2-terabyte limitation in the partition table. Reliability * To ensure reliability of NTFS, three major areas were addressed: - recoverability, - removal of fatal single sector failures, and - hot fixing. * Is a recoverable file system - because it keeps track of transactions against the file system. * When a CHKDSK - is performed on FAT or HPFS, - the consistency of pointers within the - directory, - allocation, - & file tables is being checked. * Under NTFS, - a log of transactions against these components - is maintained so that CHKDSK - need only roll back transactions to the last commit point - in order to recover consistency within the file system. * Under FAT or HPFS, - if a sector that is the location of one of the file system's special objects fails, - then a single sector failure will occur. * NTFS avoids this in two ways: 1. by not using special objects on the disk 2. tracking and protecting all objects that are on the disk. * Under NTFS, - multiple copies (the number depends on the volume size) - of the Master File Table are kept. * Similar to OS/2 versions of HPFS, NTFS supports hot fixing. Disadvantages of NTFS * It is not recommended to use NTFS - on a volume that is smaller than approximately 400 MB, - because of the amount of space overhead involved in NTFS. * This space overhead - is in the form of NTFS system files - that typically use at least 4 MB of drive space on a 100 MB partition. * Currently, there is no file encryption built into NTFS. * Someone can boot under MS-DOS, - or another OS, - and use a low-level disk editing utility - to view data stored on an NTFS volume. * It is not possible to format a floppy disk with the NTFS file system. * Windows NT formats all floppy disks - with the FAT file system - because the overhead involved in NTFS will not fit onto a floppy disk. Advantages of NTFS * NTFS is best for use on volumes of about 400 MB or more. * This is because performance does not degrade under NTFS, - as it does under FAT, with larger volume sizes. * The recoverability designed into NTFS - is such that a user - should never have to run any sort of disk repair utility - on an NTFS partition. Win2000 Features. NTFS5 (New Technologies File System - version 5): * Microsoft added several new features to 2000, such as - Active Directory (AD); - advanced storage management features - such as disk quotas, - the Encrypting File System (EFS), - Hierarchical Storage Management (HSM); - application deployment capabilities - that Group Policy Objects (GPOs) - & IntelliMirror provide. * These features are part of 2000's appeal, - but Microsoft needed to update NTFS to NTFS5 to support them. * 2000 supports - only NTFS5 - automatically converts disk volumes with previous versions of NTFS - to the new format during 2000 setup - as 2000 mounts the volumes. * This automatic-conversion behavior - has implications for multiboot systems - running more than one version of NT. * NTFS5's new features and capabilities support 2000's - disk quotas - file encryption - reparse points - directory junctions - volume mount points - sparse files - change journal. Disk quotas. * The NTFS specification - has contained meta data structures - to support user disk quotas for some time * 2000 with NTFS5 - is the first NT version - that can natively use these disk-quota structures. * Disk-quota management - is available in 2000 - on a per-user, per-volume basis - you can set different quotas for several users on every volume * User SIDs - identify file ownership - and thus disk-quota usage on volumes. * You store disk-quota information - on the actual volumes - rather than as a separate database. * This feature - makes NTFS more efficient and flexible - when you're using applications - such as clustering products & Storage Area Networks (SANs). * Administrators - use disk quotas to control - how much disk space users can consume - on local and network-based storage volumes. * 2000 shows the user - the remaining disk quota - on a volume as the total free space left on that volume, - rather than as the volume's actual capacity. * Users don't see the actual volume capacity - don't question why their disk-quota limit is set so low - when free space is available on the server's hard disk. * Applications running on the user's system - don't detect the free-space information - won't create temporary or cache files - whose sizes are a function of the amount of available disk space. * This feature is significant because - when an application creates a temporary or cache file, - the application might allocate more space to the file - if the application believes it has rights to more disk space - than the system will let the user access. * Besides the quota support NTFS5 provides at the file-system level, - Microsoft added an open-quota management API, - which vendors can access. * 2000's disk-quota API - lets ISVs extend 2000's quota-management capabilities. - benefits organizations - that might find 2000's built-in quota management insufficient. * To enable and manage disk quotas in 2000, - you select the Quota tab - from the Properties dialog box - of any NTFS disk volume File encryption. * 2000 - adds an important storage-management and security feature - EFS (Encrypting File System) * New NTFS5 and 2000 features - let you use a public-key security scheme - to encrypt files, folders, or volumes to support EFS. * When a user requests encryption, - EFS uses the file encryption key (FEK) - to encrypt each target file. - The user's key encrypts the FEK, - which creates the Data Decryption Field (DDF). * You can also use a specially designated security agent's key, - known as the Recovery Agent, - to separately encrypt the FEK to create the Data Recovery Field (DRF). * The Recovery Agent, - which an IT or corporate manager typically holds, - can decrypt and retrieve encrypted data just as a user can. - This key lets organizations prevent users from encrypting data - to the point at which the company can't retrieve the data. * As with quota management, - you can access 2000's file-encryption feature, - through the Properties dialog box of any NTFS-based file, folder, or volume. Reparse points. * NTFS5 - supports an important new 2000 feature - reparse points. * 2000 and 2000 programs - use reparse points - to trap operations on objects within an NTFS structure - run program code before returning file data - to the user or calling application. * Microsoft introduced this open method in 2000 - to extend file-system features and support. Directory junctions. * Directory junctions - are NTFS directories that 2000 associates - with a special type of reparse point. * These reparse points - let you configure a particular NTFS directory - to point to another NTFS directory - even one on a different volume, - as long as that volume is on the same system. * For example, - you might want to map a common shared folder - on the same server - into several users' home directories - so that users can access this directory - without changing to a different drive letter. * You can use a directory junction to link the common folder (e.g., \common), - which might exist in a different file-system namespace area, - to a subdirectory under each user's home directory. * Users then have a \common subdirectory - under their individual home directory (e.g., D:\users\jim\common, D:\users\bobby\common) - that lets them access a common shared folder. * Directory junctions - let you link logical file-system namespaces to volume roots (root directories) - or subdirectories on a local system's volumes. * This ability to create a unified file-system namespace - that contains resources from disparate locations - is similar to how Dfs works with network server file-share resources. * Directory junctions also - let you build hybrid storage volumes that use a mix of storage classes (e.g., RAID 1, RAID 5, non-fault-tolerant). Volume mount points. * Volume mount points - are file-system objects - that use reparse points to let you map an NTFS5 folder to an entire volume (i.e., only to an entire volume, unlike directory junctions). * Volume mount points - let users and administrators extend a volume's capacity - without migrating data or repartitioning. - provide additional file-system namespace flexibility - let you build hybrid volumes containing several storage classes. Sparse files. * NTFS5 supports sparse files, - which are files that typically contain large consecutive 0-bit areas. * You can mark particular files as sparse files - to ensure that the NTFS file system allocates space - for only meaningful data within these files. * NTFS stores only range information - that describes where the file system will locate sparse data - and doesn't waste space storing this data bit by bit. * Sparse files therefore - improve storage efficiency for files on NTFS5 volumes - that contain sparse data - and for applications that use the files. Change journal. * One problem with large file volumes is that - operations that need to analyze changes to files such as - a backup program that analyzes file date stamps - timestamps to determine which files you need to back up - put an enormous load on the server's disk subsystem. * 2000 provides - a new feature called the change journal - that alleviates this problem. * The change journal - is a volume-specific log - that details all file changes on that volume. * To keep the change journal's size in check, - Microsoft designed the log file to be circular, - which means that the change journal - eventually overwrites old log data with new data (each log entry is approximately 80 bytes). - The change journal - logs operational changes - such as modifications and deletions. - Log entries - reference only general operations to the files, - not the data in those files. * The major benefit that the change journal provides is - reducing the work that applications, - such as the Indexing Service and File Replication System, - that reference this type of information need to do. * The change journal paves the way for ISVs - to write more efficient 2000 applications and utilities, - which can significantly reduce server disk I/O - thus improve overall system performance. * 2000 turns the change journal off - by default - on an NTFS5 volume. * As a result, - the application or user - must enable the feature to use it. EFS (Encrypted file system) * Encrypted File System (EFS). - A security feature new to 2000 - can only be used with the 2000 version of the NTFS file system. - protects encrypted data - even when someone who is not authorized to view those files or folders - has full access to a computer’s data storage. * When an unauthorized user - attempts to access a file encrypted using EFS, - they receives the error "Access Denied." * Encryption - is the process of putting readable data into code - has to be translated before it can be accessed, - usually through the use of a key - used to encrypt the data - provides a way to "unlock" the code - translate it back into readable data. * To ensure that a file can be accessed - if a user is not available or - has forgotten the password to log on to the system, - an administrator for the OS can decrypt a file. * In this case, - the administrator - is called a Data Recovery Agent (DRA). * It was possible to bypass - an existing operating system’s security measures by: - installing a new operating system - booting from a startup disk. * In Windows 98 - a password could be put on a file using a FAT file system, - but you could boot from a startup disk, - get to the file at command prompt, - copy it to a floppy disk - access the file without using the password. how to use encryption * A user does not have to go through - a complex process of encryption to use EFS; - from a user’s perspective, - it’s just a matter of changing a file attribute. * Encryption can be implemented - at either the folder or file level. * At the folder level, - if the folder is marked for encryption, - every file created in the folder or copied to the folder will be encrypted. * At the file level, - each file must be encrypted individually. * Encrypting with EFS at the folder level - is encouraged & considered a "best practice strategy" - because it provides greater security, - since any file placed in an encrypted folder is automatically encrypted - without the user having to remember to encrypt it. * An encrypted file remains encrypted - if you move it from an encrypted folder to an unencrypted folder on the same logical drive. Steps to Encrypt: 1. In Windows Explorer, - locate the My Documents folder for User2. In this example, the correct path is - C:\Documents & Settings\User2\My Documents. 2. Right-click the My Documents folder - choose Properties from the short-cut menu. - The My Documents Properties window appears 3. Click the Advanced button. The Advanced Attributes window appears. 4. Check the box labeled Encrypt contents to secure data - click OK 5. Click Apply. - This causes the Confirm Attribute Changes window to open - if any files or folders exist in the selected folder 6. In this example, the subfolder My Pictures exists within the My documents folder. - Click the radio button next to the option - Apply changes to the folder, subfolder, & files - to encrypt any existing objects in this folder & subfolders. - If you did not want to apply the changes to all subfolders & files, - you would select Apply changes to this folder only 7. Open Microsoft Word - type some text into a file, - save the file to User2’s My Documents folder. - This file is automatically encrypted, - because the My Documents folder is encrypted. - If an unauthorized users - attempt to access the document - while it is encrypted, - they will receive an error message. - To allow others on the network to view this file, - move or copy it to folder that is not encrypted. - Encryption is removed automatically - when a file is sent over the network - moved off the logical drive on a basic disk or volume - on a dynamic disk where the folder is encrypted. - If you are moving the file to another folder - on the same logical drive or volume, - you will have to decrypt it manually. - To decrypt a file, from the file’s Properties window, - click the Advanced button. - On the Advanced Attributes window, - uncheck Encrypt contents to secure data. Cipher command * If you are encrypting - a large number of files or folders - from a command prompt or using a batch file, - you can use the Cipher command: CIPHER [/E,/D ][/S:dir ][pathname […]] /E encrypts the specified files or folders /D decrypts the specified files or folders. /S: dir applies the action to the specified folder & all its subfolders. * Pathname - is the name of the file or folder - & its path that is to be encrypted or decrypted. * For example, - at the command prompt, - to decrypt all the files in the C:\Public folder, use this command: Cipher /D C:\Public \*.*

thanks Srinivas. It really helping me out and really appreciated. Thanks once again

Hi, You are most welcome. I had already done this assignement. If you have more points plz do let me know. Even i will keep myself updated. Regards, Srinivas