Technical information

Reviewer’s Guide Microsoft Windows NT Workstation 3.51 1
Microsoft Windows NT 3.51 Overview for Reviewers
About the New Windows NT Products
With this latest release of the Windows NT operating system platform, Microsoft has placed significant emphasis
on optimizing the product for its typical usage scenarios—as a workstation and as a server. This release of Windows
NT is comprised of two distinct products:––“Windows NT Workstation” and “Windows NT Server.”
Windows NT Workstation has been optimized to provide the highest level of interactive application responsiveness.
Specific workstation optimizations include overall reduction of memory usage, higher system priorities for
foreground (that is, interactive) applications, and improved efficiency of both 16-bit and 32-bit desktop application
operation. Windows NT Workstation is a fully 32-bit operating system that provides the power of a workstation with
the ease of use, productivity, and compatibility of a PC.
Windows NT Server has been optimized to provide the highest level of network responsiveness. Windows NT
Server is a network operating system that provides the connectivity, the base services, and the administrative tools to
deliver business services across a distributed network of computers. Specific optimizations for the server include :
better memory usage in order to cache large amounts of data; higher priority for spooler threads; higher priority for
remote users; no preloading of the Win16 system; and improved efficiency in running 32-bit server applications.
As stated, these new products correspond to their most common usage by customers, press, and industry analysts.
The expression “Windows NT” will continue to refer to the overall system architecture and, occasionally, will be
used as a general term when discussing features common to both products.
Background
Windows NT 3.1 and Windows NT Advanced Server 3.1 were initially released in July of 1993. Since its release,
Windows NT has established itself as the leading portable advanced operating system for Intel® x86 and RISC
CPUs. When evaluating “advanced operating systems,” it is interesting to note how industry analysts define the term.
IDC defines an advanced operating system
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as one that offers 32-bit APIs and includes support for pre-emptive
multitasking with the capability to use multiple processes and threads; integrated networking or distributed
computing; and advanced memory management features such as demand-paged virtual memory. In general, this
definition of advanced operating systems requires more than 12 MB of memory. Finally, IDC’s definition of an
advanced operating system usually includes portability as well; that is, they are capable of running on multiple CPU
architectures (such as Intel and RISC).
Customers told us that Windows NT 3.1 and Windows NT Advanced Server 3.1 were powerful, easy to use, and
remarkably reliable for a first implementation of an advanced operating system. Despite these positive remarks,
customers also gave us some feedback on areas where we could improve the products. Microsoft is committed to
building customer satisfaction, and has consequently identified and improved these areas in this new release. Indeed,
the release of Windows NT Workstation and Windows NT Server is a very significant event because of the
performance improvements we have made and the important new features that we have added.
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Source: IDC, “Worldwide Workstation and Personal Workstation Review, 1992-1997,” November, 1993.