Windows NT
Windows NT
(operating system)Unlike Windows 3.1, which was a graphical environment thatran on top of MS-DOS, Windows NT is a complete operatingsystem. To the user it looks like Windows 3.1, but it hastrue multi-threading, built in networking, security, andmemory protection.
It is based on a microkernel, with 32-bit addressing for upto 4Gb of RAM, virtualised hardware access to fully protectapplications, installable file systems, such as FAT, HPFSand NTFS, built-in networking, multi-processor support,and C2 security.
NT is also designed to be hardware independent. Once themachine specific part - the Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL)- has been ported to a particular machine, the rest of theoperating system should theorertically compile withoutalteration. A version of NT for DEC's Alpha machines wasplanned (September 1993).
NT needs a fast 386 or equivalent, at least 12MB of RAM(preferably 16MB) and at least 75MB of free disk space.
NT 4.0 was followed by Windows 2000.
Usenet newsgroups: news:comp.os.ms-windows.nt.setup,news:comp.os.ms-windows.nt.misc.
Windows NT
(Windows New Technology) An earlier 32-bit operating system from Microsoft for Intel x86 CPUs. Available in client and server versions, Windows NT included built-in networking and preemptive multitasking. NT was introduced in 1993 as Version 3.1 with the same user interface as Windows 3.1. In 1996, Version 4.0 switched to the Windows 95 desktop (see below).A New Lineage
Unlike the previous Windows 95/98, NT supported multiprocessing (see SMP), added security and administrative features and dual boot. Designed for enterprise use, each application could access 2GB of virtual memory. NT did not support Plug and Play, which was later added in Windows 2000 and XP (also based on the NT core technology). Clustering and failover was added to Windows NT 4 Server, Enterprise Edition.
For x86 Machines Only
NT ran 16-bit DOS and Windows applications in its own emulation mode (see NTVDM) and also provided a command processor that executed DOS commands. NT for PowerPC and MIPS were planned but dropped, while support for Alpha servers actually reached the beta stage. See Windows and Alpha.
Year NT (19xx) Official Name of Version GUI Client/Server Version NT 4.0 96 95 NT Workstation/ NT Server NT 3.51 95 3.1 NT/NT Advanced Server NT 3.5 94 3.1 NT/NT Advanced Server NT 3.1 93 3.1 NT/NT Advanced Server 3.1 = Windows 3.1 Program Manager 95 = Windows 95 Start menu