The Windows 2000 beta still has its share of bugs and problems related to compatibility with older applications, although the latter is a problem Microsoft officials virtually acknowledged in the release of its Application and Developer Readiness Program, which offers tools to help developers address those problems. But based on a week of testing, one customer was bullish on the improvements. On the workstation side, it seems to work almost seamlessly. On the server side, it appears fairly stable. It's ready to go.
Memory leaks appear to be fixed.
Microsoft has also added tools for improved cluster management. But another beta 3 tester, an IT director at a Fortune 500 company that has a large installed base of Windows NT servers, and who spoke on condition of anonymity, said while it is improved, it is not yet ready for prime time. Peter Houston, Microsoft's lead product manager for Windows NT marketing, said it is possible the user didn't properly configure the directory, or perhaps there were other issues. We are running the RC0 at Microsoft without any kind of performance or crashing problems. Microsoft this week cited a benchmark performed at Compaq Computer's European Benchmark Center in France where 16 million user objects were loaded into Active Directory on a four-CPU AlphaServer 3100 machine with 2 gigabytes of memory.