Windows |
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by Dwight Raulston |
As Microsoft (under continuous prodding from Apple on the consumer end and UNIX on the server end) continues to evolve its operating systems to stable, easy-to-use products, its latest offering is a significant step in the right direction.
Windows NT 4.0 Workstation functions well in three different areas: as a client attached to an NT Server, as a member of a peer-to-peer network, and as a stand-alone unit. I tested Workstation 4.0 on all three of these platforms, and after some frustrations during the installations, it performed excellently.
In fact, installation and set-up may be the largest hurdles you'll probably have to overcome with NT 4.0. I set it up in a number of different configurations on different machines, none of which was on Microsoft's Hardware Compatibility List. I ran it easily with 16 megs of RAM, but more memory will be better if you run resource-intensive programs or like to have several demanding apps running at once.
Windows NT 4.0 installs either as the sole operating system or coexisting with other systems. If you set up NT on a blank partition (or in unformatted space) on your hard drive where DOS or Windows exists on another partition, NT will present you with an opening menu that lets you choose it or the other Microsoft system when you first turn on the computer.
When you install NT you start with three floppy disks to initialize the system and prepare it with generic video, hard-disk, and CD drivers, and an early choice that arises is what file system to use: FAT (the standard DOS/Windows system) or NTFS (NT's new file system). NTFS has significant advantages in terms of security but has the drawback of incompatibility with standard DOS programs and utilities: anything you install on an NTFS partition is inaccessible to programs running under DOS or Windows.
For that reason, some people keep a small DOS partition on the drive where NT is running and store a copy of their data files only on the DOS partition so that if they get into trouble on the NTFS partition, their data can still be recovered. Of course, doing so negates the extra security that comes with storing your data as well as your programs on NTFS. There is now available on the Web a program that allows access to information on NTFS partitions. It is used primarily to recover files on an NTFS partition if the NT installation itself crashes, but it could also be used for snooping into your data, of course.
NT as a client runs quite well on small to large networks running either Netware or Windows NT Server. On the network at school (I'm Director of Technology for St. John's School, and we run several networks, both Novell and NT), I have connected it with TCP/IP as well as IPX. Running under TCP/IP, I could even get out onto the Web, running Internet Explorer through our network. Enabling security on the NT network was quite straight-forward, and as you might expect the NT Server and Workstation 4.0 interact quite well.
NT on a peer network also runs well. I tested it on my small home network (my daughter's Win95 machine, the computer running NT, and another Win95 machine) running under TCP/IP. It is easy to set up static IP addresses on each machine, and after that one simply creates a small text file assigning IP addresses to machine names, and you're up and running. I could ping other machines on the network either by name or address with equal facility.
Sharing resources on the network was a little less straight-forward than with Win95 because permissions on the same file can be set in different places, both when the resource is originally shared (made available to others) and when permissions to access the device are given (the latter can only be done on an installation in an NTFS partition). It also wasn't immediately apparent that to share the root directory of my hard drive, I had to give it a second name (not just the default C$) and assign permissions to the second name since the built-in C$ share is "for administrative purposes only" and the permissions on it cannot be changed. However, being able to control access either by specific users or by groups of users is a great feature, well worth a little extra complexity. NT 4.0 comes with several groups predefined, but I enjoyed making my own groups and assigning various combinations of Read, Change, and Full-Control privileges.
NT as a stand-alone system may be overkill for most home users, though the security features make it a good choice in office environments where you have sensitive material and wandering colleagues….. It is a very stable environment (once it's set up), and the problematic question of Win95 compatibility may be more than offset by its stability.
On my machines, NT 4.0 has no trouble running a number of Win95 programs (including Microsoft Office 95), though I have heard of folks having trouble with some Office 95 features. WordPerfect 7, however, will not even set up. It runs every Windows 3.1x program I tried on it, an admittedly eclectic sample ranging from Word Perfect 6.1 through several academic programs for physics and calculus to Civilization II!
Upgrading from NT 3.5x will not be difficult, but the Win95-like interface may take you aback at first. An initial problem may be the fact that the places from which you access various aspects of the set-up and user functions differs in NT 3.5x and 4.0. That's not a big deal, but when you've gotten used to looking for something in one place and now have to go to another, it'll take you a little while to adjust. One caveat: policies do not carry over automatically from NT 3.5x since the format and file structure is different in NT 4.0.
Moving from Win95 will not take much psychological adjustment (except that the Properties box you get from right-clicking on My Computer is not the same in NT 4.0 as it is in Win95). The real problem is that the registry entries and formats of Win95 and NT differ, so there is no automatic migration from the one to the other. You have to reinstall software and reset your desktop and file customizations after you upgrade. It's a pain, but it's a one-time pain.
An erratic problem (meaning that some people see it and some don't) is the use of Plug-and-Play (PnP) cards under NT. Because of the Hardware Abstraction Layer that insulates NT and applications from the physical hardware, NT 4.0 does not generally recognize plug-and-play cards. Theoretically, it just ignores them and you do by hand whatever configuration is necessary beyond that accomplished by the BIOS. However, in some cases PnP cards can really mess up an NT installation. The solution, when you've tried everything else, is to remove all the PnP cards, install NT, and add them back cautiously. It has been reported that some cards will prevent NT from installing but won't keep it from running once it has been set up.
However, once it was up and running, I never had it give the system lock-ups that plagued me under Windows 3.11 and Win95. That's not to say it won't some day, but it has been much more stable and better behaved for me than its predecessors.
Give it a try. When you get it up and running, I think you'll like it. And it will scale nicely from your own machine to that local home network you set up as your children get older…..
Dr. Dwight Raulston, a HAL-PC member, is Director of Technology for St. John's School and its former Upper School Head. He may be contacted at dwight@icsi.net.
When to say NO to upgrade. NT is not for everyone. Upgrade your laptop? Probably not, because NT is more resource demanding than can be provided by a typical notebook system. If you have "legacy" or specialized programs, think twice. Older 8-bit SCSI controller cards are receiving scant support and ditto for EIDE controller cards. Are your DOS apps a must? Then NT is not your system due to the direct hardware calls by DOS that are typically blocked by NT. But isn't my Windows 95 "compliant" program supposed to be developed both for 95 and NT? Yes, that's what Microsoft initially said, but backtracked in selected cases such as the Telephony APIs and support of VxDs. Look before you reap!
NT 4 Internet resources. Internet support by NT (both workstation and server versions) is superior. The IIS 2 (Internet Information Server, version 2.0) is the core support for the Internet and a solid integration into the main NT setup. A note of caution to UNIX transferees…there is no server-side Exec capability. IIS 2 has materially improved security, especially with regard to batch files. Privacy: NT's vastly improved PPTP (point-to-point tunneling protocol) which, typically, encapsulates and encrypts each message. You may even skip the TCP/IP and transmit as an IPX message. In larger systems, PPTP could save real money.
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