Waiting for Windows 2000

The wait just keeps getting longer. Windows 2000, as it is, will be about two years late if it gets released before the year 2000 as Microsoft has promised. If you've been following Windows 2000, then you'll know that almost every release date has been missed so far. Recently, Microsoft missed another date: Release Candidate 2 was supposed to be released on Labor Day, but the release date has been pushed back to "sometime in September." No early September, no late September, just "sometime in September." For a good read on the release of Windows 2000:

For all those who are waiting for Windows 2000 to get certified, the wait will be AT LEAST another year. Again, this is the best case scenario. I have suggested all along, based on Microsoft's past OS releases, that Windows 2000 will not see wide release until late first quarter or second quarter of next year. After its release, the study guides will follow, then the final exams. Again, judging by the past, final exams will not be released until 4-6 months after the wide release of the OS itself. As an example, look at the major exam for SQL Server 7.0. It has taken over 6 months for the release of one of SQL Server's major exam (70-019) . Now imagine Windows 2000-all 4 versions of it:

* Windows 2000 Professional (Formerly Windows NT Workstation) * Windows 2000 Advanced Server Standard Edition (Formerly Windows NT Server) * Windows 2000 Advanced Server (Formerly Windows NT Server Enterprise Edition) * Windows 2000 DataCenter Server (New and will include support for 32 processors through OEMs)

Judging by the number of new features and the new edition (Windows 2000 DataCenter Server), there will probably be 1-3 more exams added to the list. For more on the Windows 2000 family:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/server/...

Again, for those who are contemplating on waiting for Windows 2000 to get released so they can get certified on the 'newest' track, the wait will be at least one year. If the past is any indication, then the wait will probably be 1.5 years. Remember that Windows 2000 is so big, that it has over 30 million lines of code. This almost puts it in the mainframe category.

If I had to guess on the release date of Windows 2000: sometime in the second quarter. Or Microsoft might release, according to rumors, a version of Windows 2000 that will not include all the promised features, then slowly release more features through Service Packs.