DaveH Posted April 6, 2003 Share Posted April 6, 2003 WindowsNT has come under many evolutions in the last 10 years, from it's earliest developments to rival the competition at Novell systems, to it's present inception into WindowsXP and Windows Server 2003 respectively. The name NT has become synonoumous (spelt wrong) with Networking. What does 'NT' stand for? Some people suggest it's "Networking or Network Technologies" no, it stands for NewTechnologies. During a time when Microsoft was at competition directly with Novell systems, it needed something fresh, something NEW to stomp out Novell once and for all, so a team of 40 people were assigned a task; create something new, something exciting and something easy to configure deploy and administer. Not a tough task eh? Well....I'd like to just take some time to explore, what they created, where it's gone and what is in the future for this double letter prefix that has become an Office brand-name."Where it all begins" (Windows NT 3.5/3.51)This is where it ALL began, "Welcome to Windows" very crude old fashioned looking thing, obviously CTRL+ALT+DEL would allow loginWelcome to WindowsThe original desktop was nothing more than the standard Windows shell built upon DOS, again; not much different than Windows 3.1 itself.Windows NT 3.5 DesktopThis is where we see some stuff begin to differ, the Microsoft NT team decided to give us a way to administer disk-space, this was VERY handy and alot better for administrators than Windows 3.1 which didn't really tell anything at allDisk Administrator 1.0This is where the directory permissions were set in the olden-days. Notice only the appearance of the "Everyone" groupPermission LevelsThis is the old user manager window notice how event log viewer is directly above it, MMC anyone?User Manager Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaveH Posted April 6, 2003 Author Share Posted April 6, 2003 Here I'm going to cover some improvements from Windows NT 3 to WindowsNT 4.There is now a new welcome screen and desktop setup to WindowsNT 4 Workstation/Server, isn't that FUN ?New DesktopFeatures a new control panelNew Control PanelA new printer manager service/app saw introduction in NT4 as wellNew Printer Manager Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaveH Posted April 6, 2003 Author Share Posted April 6, 2003 Windows 2000 Brought dramatic changes to the NT kernel and to the Operating System itself. Here I'm going to illustrate the more important ones, because there are over 40 features I *could* mention but I won't deviate, just going to write the important aspects.New logon abilities, which include connecting to RRAS servers, multiple domain logons, the ability to logon to a domain AT ALL and most importantly, the ability to shut-down the machine from logon.[New Logon PanelHere, we see the new "fade-in" system for Menus, this was added in early betas of NT5, and were moved over to Windows 2000. I'll discuss WindowsNT 5 a little later.Fade EffectsNew device manager and system properties dialougs replace the old crud ones.New Device ManagerWindows 2000 featured "Computer Management" this tool allows administration on-the-fly for just about everything except "Intellimirror" or "Active Directory" as it's called now.Computer ManagementWindows2000 also featured some key additions to customization, in Windows2000 unused folders in the programs sub-menu of the start-button so that everything isn't cluttered.Where are my programs? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
speedz Posted April 6, 2003 Share Posted April 6, 2003 Why don't directx 6 and up support NT? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crispy Posted April 6, 2003 Share Posted April 6, 2003 Hehe ... when I look at those pictures one thing comes to mind; Thank god for the Windows Xp skining engine! Nice post(s) Dave ... one almost becomes nostalgic! ... Good old Windows 3.1, that was the days Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaveH Posted April 6, 2003 Author Share Posted April 6, 2003 DirectX 6+ do not support NT because of the newer OpenGL engine and the fact that the type of hardware/software rendering required just cannot be performed under WindowsNT4. WindowsXP does not contain a "skinning engine" it's just a set of ways to enhance a lame OS with colors and whistles and funny sounding bells. =) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YeuEmMaiMai Posted August 10, 2003 Share Posted August 10, 2003 Why don't directx 6 and up support NT?Windows NT could very easily support DX 6 or above but MS knew at the time they quit developing DX for NT 4 that they were going to phase out support for it. There are some people that DO run a hacked DX version on NT4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
darkkavenger Posted August 11, 2003 Share Posted August 11, 2003 Ah folks, nothing better than a good'ole NT4. What a pity it doesn't supports recent technologies, i remember how fast it was running on my PIII-500 with 128 Ram. We still use it at work, a very heavily modified version for french official institutions. Though it's **** slow. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YeuEmMaiMai Posted August 31, 2003 Share Posted August 31, 2003 daveh,1. Video was moved from the user level to the system level in NT 4.0 that is why it is so much faster in NT 42. NT 4 could very easily support any version of DX all the way up to 9. Matter of fact you can play UT 2K3 on NT 4 using OGL if you wanted to ( I played with a hacked exe that does not do any CD check) Most if not all of your OGL games would run under NT 4 without issuesQuake IIQuake IIIUnreal (OGL)Unreal Tournament (OGL)A lot of older DX games would run under NT 4 as wellJazz JackrabbitAtomic BombermanAsteroids3. When MS made NT 3.0 they had a basic idea of what they wanted NTFS to be and did indeed build some future support into the file system like Quotas, Encryption, advanced permissions, etc except they just were not used. There are several people that have done a detailed analysis of the file system....NT 4 is a very powerful operating system but unfortunately for it, it's PNP support was very crude and MS was switching to a 3 year product cycle. NT for was introduced in 1996 and I am suprised that it did last as long as it did (up to 2003 when support officially ended) Those of us with Windows 2000 Pro Workstations and servers are about to killed off at the end of next year (support at this time is projected to end in late 2004) Having a version of an OS that lasted as long as NT 4.0 did was simply amazing considering the hardware changes that took place during that time. NT 4 basic requirements where 486, 16MB ram and 400MB hdd486PentiumPentium IIPenttium IIIWindows NT 4 was available for purchase up until 2000 when MS stopped supplying it to retail channelsMS eventually hopes to move to an OS rental policy where you have to pay a yearly fee to keep getting support. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
amdphr3@kXP Posted September 1, 2003 Share Posted September 1, 2003 Ugh NT 3.5, reminds me of wfwg 3.11! Thank god for windows XP indeed Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RobHague Posted September 6, 2003 Share Posted September 6, 2003 Why don't directx 6 and up support NT?Windows NT could very easily support DX 6 or above but MS knew at the time they quit developing DX for NT 4 that they were going to phase out support for it. There are some people that DO run a hacked DX version on NT4 OK you purked my interest with that....<has a copy if NT4 i bought and never used sat here>Care to elaborate furthur? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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