Windows File Protection also arrived with 2000 which protected critical system files by not allowing anything other than Microsoft's Windows Installer or Windows Update package installer modify system files. One noticeable fact right off the bat is that features from Windows 98 have made it into the Windows NT line, like the Active Desktop update, Internet Explorer 5, Windows Driver Model, Internet Connection Sharing, Windows Media Player and WebDAV support. Plug-and-play support was improved compared to Windows NT 4.0. Dynamic disks were introduced as well which allowed Windows to join disks together in a software RAID array. The final RTM build of Windows 2000 is which arrived with new NTFS 3.0 support, an on-the-fly Encrypting File System, new Accessibility tools and the Active Desktop, additional language and locale settings. Windows 2000 was first planned to replace both Windows 98 and Windows NT 4.0 although using the NT kernel for consumer and professional editions would not happen until Windows 2000's successor, Windows XP.

Improvements over NT 4.0 include new Accessibility Options, increased language and locale support, NTFS 3.0, the Encrypting File System and Active Directory. Four editions of Windows 2000 were released, Professional, Server, Advanced Server, Datacenter Server. Windows 2000 was a modernization of Windows NT 4.0 which brought many of the desktop changes, including Active Desktop, to Microsoft's Windows NT line.

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