Windows 2003
| A version of the Windows NT operating system | |
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Screenshot of Windows Server 2003 Enterprise
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| Developer | Microsoft |
|---|---|
| Source model | Shared source |
| General availability |
April 24, 2003 |
| Latest release | Service Pack 2 (5.2.3790) / March 13, 2007 |
| Platforms | IA-32, x64, Itanium |
| Kernel type | Hybrid kernel |
| License | Trialware and volume licensing, with client access licenses |
| Preceded by | Windows 2000 (2000) |
| Succeeded by | Windows Server 2003 R2 (2005) |
| Support status | |
| Mainstream support ended on July 13, 2010 Extended support ended on July 14, 2015 |
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Windows Server 2003 (sometimes informally referred to as Win2K3, or just 2K3) is a server operating system produced by Microsoft and released on April 24, 2003. It was a successor of Windows 2000 Server and incorporated some of Windows XP's features. An updated version, Windows Server 2003 R2, was released to manufacturing on December 6, 2005. Its successor, Windows Server 2008, was released on February 4, 2008. Windows Server 2003's kernel was later adopted in the development of Windows Vista.
Windows Server 2003 was the follow-up to Windows 2000 Server, incorporating compatibility and other features from Windows XP. Unlike Windows 2000 Server, Windows Server 2003's default installation has none of the server components enabled, to reduce the attack surface of new machines. Windows Server 2003 includes compatibility modes to allow older applications to run with greater stability. It was made more compatible with Windows NT 4.0 domain-based networking. Incorporating and upgrading a Windows NT 4.0 domain to Windows 2000 was considered difficult and time-consuming, and generally was considered an all-or-nothing upgrade, particularly when dealing with Active Directory. Windows Server 2003 brought in enhanced Active Directory compatibility, and better deployment support, to ease the transition from Windows NT 4.0 to Windows Server 2003 and Windows XP Professional.
Changes to various services include those to the IIS web server, which was almost completely rewritten to improve performance and security, Distributed File System, which now supports hosting multiple DFS roots on a single server, Terminal Server, Active Directory, Print Server, and a number of other areas. Windows Server 2003 was also the first operating system released by Microsoft after the announcement of its Trustworthy Computing initiative, and as a result, contains a number of changes to security defaults and practices.
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