Windows 2000 build 1796

Windows 2000 build 1796 is an Interim Developer's Release build of Windows 2000. It is the last build of Windows 2000 to include the Show Desktop button at the right side of the taskbar. This would not be seen again until Windows 7 build 6568.

Boot-time graphics
This build introduces the VGA Boot Driver, which allows simple graphics mode operations (bit blit, solid color fill, and displaying text) at boot time as compared to earlier versions, which only supported text mode. The boot screen, safe to shutdown and hibernation screens have been updated to take advantage of it and are now graphical by default, with the resources being stored in the kernel executable.

The system crash is black in this build due to a bug presumably related to this change. If it occurs during startup, however, the text will simply be shown on top of the startup screen. Furthermore, the gradient bar in the boot screen graphic does not rotate in this build due to that functionality assumably not being implemented as of this build. Similarly, the progress bar shown when the system is hibernating doesn't reach 100% as a message saying "State saved, power off the system" appears in the top left corner when the process finishes.

It is possible to revert to the old text mode code paths by adding  to the kernel command line in , although the boot loader no longer switches to 50 lines mode anymore and the boot screen therefore displays in the 25 line mode.

Miscellaneous

 * The default desktop background color from the teal used in previous builds has been changed to the shade of blue that is used in later builds, while the boot, hibernation, and safe to shutdown screens still use teal as their background color. It would be changed to blue in the next build.
 * Network Neighborhood has been renamed to My Network Places.
 * Internet Explorer 4 has been replaced with an early build of Internet Explorer 5. The About dialog is the same as IE 4, but with "4.0" being replaced with "5.0".
 * This build still contains the Show Desktop button seen in the previous build, but the menu on the right of the button was removed.
 * The option to boot with VGA graphics has been removed from the main boot menu, which means that  now directly boots into Windows. It is still accessible via the Advanced Startup options, which can be accessed by pressing the F8 key while booting.
 * This build slightly updates the default mouse cursors, replacing the previous ones in use since Windows 1.0.
 * The original Add/Remove Programs Control Panel applet gained a major overhaul and is now based on HTML. Aside from the previously available options to install a program from a spcific location and to remove/repair/modify existing ones, there is also a new "Windows NT Setup" option, which launches the same setup wizard as when modifying "Windows NT Optional Components". Due to its earliness, it has some rendering issues and displays "Microsoft Internet Explorer" on the title bar. At launch, it opens , which can also be reached by using any web browser.
 * This is the first build after build 1515 to launch the "Welcome to Windows NT" program at first login, albeit completely redesigned.
 * This is also the first build to ask for passwords for migrated accounts after an upgrade from Windows 9x.
 * There are two new Control Panel applets called "SQL Server Client Configuration" and "Data Links".
 * When activating the option to "Show icons using all possible colors", it now notifies that "This change will take effect the next time you log in" instead of the next time the user restarts the computer.
 * In "Regional Settings" → "Input Locales", the default input language is no longer shown next to the "Set as Default" button. Instead, in the "Input language" list, it now has a checkmark next to it.

Installation

 * Installing this build in hypervisors will result in a quick crash on startup due to incompatibility with the floppy disk controller file, . Either delete or rename it, which will disable access to floppy disk drives, or replace it with a later build's   after text-mode setup by using a DOS/Windows 9x boot disk.
 * This build's ACPI implementation is extremely buggy in Virtual PC and is prone to frequent crashes. This can be avoided by pressing the F5 key at the F6 disk prompt and selecting the Standard PC or MPS Uniprocessor PC HAL driver on the first stage, which will disable ACPI. An alternative solution would be to disable ACPI from Virtual PC's BIOS.
 * Booting from the CD results in a quick crash, use a DOS/Windows 9x boot disk to run  or upgrade from a previous build by using.

Multimedia

 * The Multimedia Control Panel applet may crash when clicking on CD Music.
 * Many system sounds don't work as they are pointed to the  directory instead of the   directory. Even if the registry entry is modified to point to the Media directory, the sounds often don't work for unknown reasons.
 * Sound cards may not operate properly in this build, and can be difficult to fix the problem.