Product: Windows® 2000 Professional Operating System
Company: Microsoft Corporation
Website: http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000
List Price: $319.00 
Review By: Julien Jay

System Requirements

The minimum requirements for Windows 2000 is a 133 MHz Pentium processor with at least 64MB of RAM. The more memory and faster processor will certainly add to this programs responsiveness. We would recommend a Pentium II 450 or better and at least 128 MB of SDRAM.

Supported hardware has always been a Windows NT specific problem. This problem is not totally solved with this new release but Windows 2000 does supports AGP, USB, DVD, FireWire (IEEE 1394) and all the new technologies. You will need special Windows 2000 drivers to make your hardware work correctly. Many of these new drivers, that will be digitally signed by Microsoft to ensure that they are compliant with Windows 2000, are available now.  Check Microsoft's Hardware Compatibility List frequently as many manufacturers will be releasing updates over the next few weeks.

Here are the requirements set by Microsoft for Windows 2000 Professional, Server and Advanced Server:

    Windows 2000 Professional: 

• 133 MHz or higher Pentium-compatible CPU.
• 64 megabytes (MB) of RAM recommended minimum; more memory generally improves responsiveness.
• 2 GB hard disk with a minimum of 1 GB of free space. (Additional free hard disk space is required if you are installing over a network.)
• Windows 2000 Professional supports single and dual CPU systems.

    Windows 2000 Server:

• 133 MHz or higher Pentium-compatible CPU.
• 256 megabytes (MB) of RAM recommended minimum [128 MB minimum supported; 4 gigabytes (GB) maximum].
• 2 GB hard disk with a minimum of 1.0 GB free space. (Additional free hard disk space is required if you are installing over a network.)
• Windows 2000 Server supports up to four CPUs on one machine.

    Windows 2000 Advanced Server:

• 133 MHz or higher Pentium-compatible CPU.
• 256 MB of RAM recommended minimum (128 MB minimum supported; 8 GB maximum).
• 2 GB hard disk with a minimum of 1.0 GB free space. (Additional free hard disk space is required if you are installing over a network.)
• Windows 2000 Advanced Server supports up to eight CPUs on one machine.