Windows NT

Microsoft hired a group of developers from Digital Equipment Corporation to build a new system. Many elements of NT reflect the earlier DEC experience with VMS and RSX-11

NT enjoyed more success than OS/2, due to its feature promises that were never fully realized and to Microsoft's market prowess.

The following are the major releases of Windows NT :

• Microsoft Windows NT 3.1
• Microsoft Windows NT 3.5
• Microsoft Windows NT 3.51
• Microsoft Windows NT 4.0

Microsoft Windows 2000 and Windows XP are later versions of Windows NT:

• Microsoft Windows 2000 (Version 5.0)
• Microsoft Windows XP (Version 5.1)

Windows NT is now simply called Windows:

• Microsoft Windows Server 2003 (Version 5.2)

Version 3.1, the first version based on "NT Technology" (which may have been numbered perhaps to match that of Windows 3.1, or perhaps to best OS/2 Warp 3), came in "Advanced Server" and "Workstation" editions. From Version 3.5, "Advanced Server" was renamed "Server". From Version 5.0 (Windows 2000) onwards, "Workstation" was renamed "Professional". A "Home Edition" was introduced with Version 5.1 (XP), to mark the discontinuation of the previous MS-DOS based Windows system.

While Microsoft has never officially stated that NT stands for "New Technology", the acronym WNT was acknowledged by its ex-Digital developer, Dave Cutler, to be a pun on VMS—obtained by shifting each letter one position in alphabetical order, akin to the urban legend regarding the name of IBM and the villanous computer HAL 9000, as featured in the film . Another early Windows NT engineer Mark Lucovsky states that the NT was named for Intel's ill-fated RISC processor the i860 (code named the "N Ten") which was the processor Microsoft originally started developing Windows NT for.

NT uses a highly layered design, with the hardware hidden from the NT kernel by a hardware abstraction layer, and most operating system API functionality provided by API-specific interface modules that present specific functionality such as the Win32, OS/2, DOS and POSIX system call compatibility environments.

See History of Microsoft Windows, Blue screen of death.

External links

• Windows NT and VMS: The Rest of the Story, discussion of ancestry of NT by Mark Russinovich
• A Brief History of the Windows NT Operating System a Microsoft Presspass Fact Sheet

Referenced By