Windows Server 2003

Windows Server 2003 is the server counterpart of Windows XP. It comes in editions like Datacenter, Web Server, Standard, Enterprise and Small Business (the latter is technically a separate version). It replaces Windows 2000 Server and was replaced by Windows Server 2008.

Codenames
Its internal codenames were either dotNET (.NET) Server (As evidenced in the Windows buildtree, where its source is located at D:\dnsrv) and during the development of Windows XP, it was codenamed Whistler Server.

Release 2
An interim release under the name of Windows Server 2003 R2 was released on 2005-12-06.

Other versions
As well as the standard Windows Server 2003, several other editions were built on the NT 5.2 kernel, including Storage Server 2003 R2 (released 2006-03-05), Compute Cluster Server 2003 (released 2006-06-09), Small Business Server 2003 R2 (released 2006-09-01) and Unified Data Storage Server 2003 (released 2006-12-05).

Startup sound
There's a widespread misconception that this startup sound from a promotion animation (cut by TheCanadianToast) is used for a version of Windows Server 2003 for the United Kingdom. However, no UK-specific version of Windows was ever made until Windows 8 introduced the "English (International)" localization that replaces text strings from American English (which Microsoft had always used since the first versions of Windows) to British English. All versions and localizations of Windows Server 2003 use the Windows XP startup sound. No special edition of Windows for one country was ever made until Microsoft was forced to make N and KN variants for Europe and South Korea due to antitrust lawsuits.