| Developers: | Microsoft |
| Date of the premiere of the system: | 1996/08/24 |
| Branches: | Information technologies |
| Technology: | OS |
Content |
Windows NT 4.0 is the 32-bit operating system of the Windows NT family which appeared on August 24, 1996.
It was originally supposed that this next version of Windows NT will get number 3.52, however assigned number 4.0 which was mentioned in the computer press earlier in connection with was it other expected version of Windows NT having the code name Cairo. The innovations entered to Windows NT 4.0 are generally connected with improvement of a user interface, expansion of support of the Internet, emergence new both upgrade of the existing instruments of administration and performance improvement of a system.
In 30 days after release the number of the sold licenses for Windows NT 4.0 Server exceeded 150,000 pieces.
Based on the research conducted by IDC corporation in 1998 during 1998 more than 1.56 million licenses for Windows NT 4.0 Server was sold. It approximately for 50% exceeds a similar indicator for operating systems of Novell company and twice more total result on all suppliers of UNIX-SYSTEMS.
Innovations
When developing Windows NT 4.0 Microsofts decided to offer stability for the sake of performance. Changes were for this purpose made to architecture: libraries of a window manager and the graphical interface and also drivers of graphics adapters were transferred from a user mode to a kernel mode. This change meant some deviation from Windows NT 3.x of the concept of a microkernel accepted in the previous versions.
Transfer of graphic library and drivers to the area of a core increases the speed of accomplishment of graphic input-output. These changes especially affected the speed of accomplishment of Win32 applications while Win16 applications and graphic applications of DOS work approximately also, as well as in version 3.5.
At the same time the described changes do the operating system in principle to less reliable. Really, as the software of graphics adapters is, as a rule, developed by producer companies of this equipment and this software often changes (together with the equipment), it is difficult to expect that reliability which is required for modules of the operating system from it.
Except architectural in Windows NT 4.0 there are also other not less cardinal changes:
- Handshaking with NetWare is modified
- Internet Information Server and the DNS server are added.
- New admin tools which can work far off at clients of Windows 95 are added. Besides, Windows NT Server provides service of remote loading for clients of Windows 95.
- There was an interface in Windows 95 style.
- The subsystem of message handling of Microsoft Windows Messaging Subsystem allows to receive and send mail from applications.
- There was an emulator of Intel processors for RISC platforms.
Microsoft added many technical means to Windows NT 4.0 to make this operating system suitable for use as the platform for the Web server.
In Windows NT Server 4.0 the expandability in comparison with Windows NT Server 3.51 is considerably improved that allows to reach much higher performance on computers with 4 processors and also provides linear increase in productivity by machines with eight and large number of processors.
At the end of 1997 the Microsoft corporation released Windows NT 4.0 Server Enterprise Edition — the version which is specially intended for creation of the large-scale corporate distributed applications. The new version of Windows NT 4.0 had all necessary characteristics for creation of the failsafe corporate solutions servicing thousands of users. The release of this version gave to large enterprises opportunities of creation of large-scale information systems with a performance which could be received only using the special systems earlier (in particular, UNIX-SYSTEMS). Now it became possible also when using standard, most widespread and inexpensive servers on the basis of Intel processors.
Minimum system requirements
Work of Windows NT Workstation 4.0 requires the computer with the processor not below i486 (in this version of a system the Microsoft corporation refused any support of i386 processors), OZU with a capacity not less than 12 MB and 108 MB of free disk space.
For Windows NT Server 4.0 Microsofts define the following hardware requirements: the processor is not lower than i486, OZU with a capacity of 16 MB and not less than 148 MB of free disk space.
The recommended system requirements are much higher.
See Also
Links
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