Windows NT

(Windows New Technology) A 32-bit operating system from Microsoft for Intel x86 CPUs. NT is the core technology in Windows 2000 and Windows XP (see Windows). Available in separate client and server versions, it includes built-in networking and preemptive multitasking. Windows 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 and changed some of the dialogs (see table below).

A New Lineage
Unlike Windows 95/98, NT supports multiprocessing systems (see SMP), adds extensive security and administrative features and offers a dual boot capability. Designed for enterprise use, each application can access 2GB of virtual memory. NT does not support Plug and Play, which was later added in Windows 2000 and XP. NT 4 Server, Enterprise Edition supports clustering and failover in the event of system failure.

For x86 Machines Only
NT runs 16-bit DOS and Windows applications in its own emulation mode (see Windows on Windows) and also provides a command processor that executes DOS commands. Support for the PowerPC and MIPS platforms was initially planned, but later dropped. Support for Alpha servers reached beta testing stages, but was also dropped.

Following are the various versions of NT as well as Windows 2000, which followed. See Windows, Windows 2000 and Windows Server 2003.

      Date          Workstation   Server
      of            Version       Version
 Ver. Intro.   GUI  Name          Name

 Windows NT

 3.1  Jul '93  PM  NT             Advanced Server
 3.5  Sep '94  PM  NT             Advanced Server
 3.51 Aug '95  PM  NT             Advanced Server

 4.0  Aug '96  95  Workstation    Server

 Windows 2000

 2000 Feb '00  95  Professional   Server
 2000 Feb '00  95  Professional   Advanced Server
 2000 Feb '00  95  Professional   DataCenter Server

 PM = Program Manager; the GUI in Windows 3.x
 95 = The GUI in 95/98/NT4/2000/XP

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(operating system)

Windows NT - (Windows New Technology, NT) Microsoft's 32-bit operating system developed from what was originally intended to be OS/2 3.0 before Microsoft and IBM ceased joint development of OS/2. NT was designed for high end workstations (Windows NT 3.1), servers (Windows NT 3.1 Advanced Server), and corporate networks (NT 4.0 Enterprise Server). The first release was Windows NT 3.1. Unlike Windows 3.1, which was a graphical environment that ran on top of MS-DOS, Windows NT is a complete operating system. To the user it looks like Windows 3.1, but it has true multi-threading, built in networking, security, and memory protection. It is based on a microkernel, with 32-bit addressing for up to 4Gb of RAM, virtualised hardware access to fully protect applications, installable file systems, such as FAT, HPFS and NTFS, built-in networking, multi-processor support, and C2 security. NT is also designed to be hardware independent. Once the machine specific part - the Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL) - has been ported to a particular machine, the rest of the operating system should theorertically compile without alteration. A version of NT for DEC's Alpha machines was planned (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.