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Imagine that one day you come home from work to find that someone has remodeled the inside of your house. You're looking around thinking "Gee that's a nicer couch than the one I had, but where's the door to the kitchen?" Once you get Windows 2000 installed, you'll find that it's a lot like having your house remodeled. You still have the basic functionality of your trusty Windows NT administrative tools, but for the most part, they aren't located in the same place. For some utilities, you'll love the improvements Microsoft has made. For others, you might find the changes just plain annoying.
In this article, we're going to take a look at where some of your trusty Windows NT administrative tools have gone in Windows 2000. We'll examine their new locations and any changes to their functionality.
Network information
One of the first things you'll notice that's changed in Windows 2000 is where you configure your network settings. In Windows NT 4.0, you configured your network identification, services, protocols, adapters, and bindings all from one location-the Network applet in Control Panel. In Windows 2000, this functionality has been split between two utilities: the System Properties dialog box and the Properties dialog box for each individual network connection object. First, let's take a look at the information you can configure on the System Properties dialog box, as shown in Figure A.
You'll find your network identification information on your computer's System Properties dialog box. There are two ways to get to the System Properties dialog box in Windows 2000. You can either right-click on the My Computer icon on the desktop and choose Properties, or you can run the System applet in Control Panel. Both methods open the System Properties dialog box where you can select the Network
Identification tab, as we've done in Figure A.
From the Network Identification tab, you click Properties to open the Identification Changes dialog box. From here you can change the computer name and domain or workgroup membership for the computer, as shown in Figure B. You can use the More button to alter the Primary DNS suffix of the computer and to view its NetBIOS name.
In Windows 2000, each network connection (LAN and dial-up) has its...