4 ms·

I supported a lot of large enterprise and government clients around that time. Almost all of them ran Windows 98 on their desktops. I didn't see much penetratio

by tssva 5y ago

I supported a lot of large enterprise and government clients around that time. Almost all of them ran Windows 98 on their desktops. I didn't see much penetration of the NT platform on the desktop until Windows 2000 and even then it was by far the minority. The NT platform didn't really take over the desktop in the enterprises I supported until Windows XP.

lproven 5y ago
Remarkable. That's pretty much the opposite of my experience. In 1993 I worked in the City of London, where NT 3.1 was used in production, because it was so much better than Windows 3.1 -- even for Windows 3.1 apps. By 1995, I tried to get people to use NT 3.51 in magazine production, but the GUI put them off. NT 4 fixed that, and it took off very well for everyone except cheapskates with rubbish PCs.
- fuzzfactor 5y ago
  Deeply misguided commenter here. That doesn't hurt my feelings, I resemble that remark. I've confused people even worse, at more inopportune times, too. This time of course it was about Linux more so than Windows and my suggestion that orgs that have always used Windows can make a significant step toward everyday Linux by first using Linux only for the internet and continue to use Windows for everything else. Similar to the way small offices which had no early need for networking first got one dedicated PC for web use when they decided to start seeing what the internet was about. It didn't matter what OS the isolated PC was running, it was handled not much differently than a fax machine, it might as well have been Linux but Linux was not made for Windows people at all. Today desktop Linux is excellent for the internet at least, so might as well make that one step toward weaning away from Windows. Back in the 1990's around here offices which were big enough for networking to be worthwhile had already connected their DOS machines so when they got Windows they used that to continue doing what protocol they were doing. It was all over the place, you've shown some incredible details, I know some went from DOS to 3.1, others waited until 95, then some on 3.1 skipped 95 and waited until 98. In the mean time the internet began to get popular. Which is when plug & play LAN really came true for the mainstream small office whether they thought they needed networking or not. They may have a word processor on every desk but networking them for the first time was not going to happen if it required the services of some kind of professional they didn't already have on the staff. After a while everybody wanted internet on every desk always on all the time which big companies were already enjoying. So they bought a lot of LAN cards, routers and cable and plugged & played. Sometimes needing professional help to get it sorted out afterward. But we can be fairly old-fashioned and lots of our offices around the world still had a communication room where a DOS PC was in email service before any internet, and it was upgraded to Windows later. This was in there with the even more vintage facsimile unit and of course the traditional Telex machine for which the room was originally built. For some, the only suitable PC was a rubbish PC too, to add to the mix :\ But there's just something about communicating with the world that's a special condititon fundamentally. I don't claim to be that accurate on networking details, I didn't deploy it much in my office until I could plug & play myself. But for a while there I did have an old W3.1 box downloading MP3s even though it was not powerful enough to play them. And experimented with W95's just not TCP/IP, didn't deploy that just wanted to see what people were encountering at the time. I do remember it was the arrival of the 98 version combined with the dominance of TCP/IP, which first brought us to where it's like nobody's ever dreamed of a concept where all Windows PC's aren't on the internet at all times. I know a little more but I just didn't want to go there since I'm no expert. My message was too long already, and I didn't even think very many people would actually try using only Linux when accessing the web from an otherwise Windows PC. But it works for me not much differently than having a separate communication room, only more convenient. I hope my apology can be accepted for leading to such misinterpretation. I recognized you were reading my message quite literally, but it was good to have a more detailed account of these vintage conditions from an experienced early adopter. Quite a contrast to the vast number of small offices which only jumped on the bandwagon when it really took off, without any professional help at all. It's worth it, it makes everyone less misguided.
  - lproven 5y ago
    Hi there. Yes, and sorry, that was tactless of me. I like the opening of your response very much; it was a lot more dignified than mine. Then it goes weird (IMHO) though... > my suggestion that orgs that have always used Windows can make a significant step toward everyday Linux by first using Linux only for the internet and continue to use Windows for everything else. < Do you mean now or in ~1998? Either way it's a bit odd. Now -- who uses computers without using the Internet? Then -- well, it was possible -- I built an Internet café around Caldera OpenLinux in about 1999 -- but it was quite hard. > Linux was not made for Windows people at all. < I think it was. The influence of Win9x on Linux is very large. Linux desktops after Win9x barely resemble those from before it. > Which is when plug & play LAN < The PnP LAN? PnP wasn't really anything to do with LANs. As far as networking not needing configuration, this was a lot *easier* _before_ TCP/IP than after. Network protocols on the LAN made networking much, MUCH harder. > They may have a word processor on every desk but networking them for the first time was not going to happen if it required the services of some kind of professional they didn't already have on the staff. < It totally did, you know. This was my main income source in the late 1990s. > So they bought a lot of LAN cards, routers and cable and plugged & played. < You persist with the misguided idea that was the reason I commented to you and then wrote the blog post. Internet use did not noticeably drive LAN adoption. Internet adoption lagged LAN adoption by a decade or so; several entire billion-dollar companies, such as 3Com and Novell, were entirely built on pre-Internet LANs and the Internet largely destroyed them. > But we can be fairly old-fashioned and lots of our offices around the world still had a communication room where a DOS PC was in email service before any internet, < Lots? I have literally never ever seen that. > I do remember it was the arrival of the 98 version combined with the dominance of TCP/IP < Maybe for you. Not in general, I guarantee you. Again: whole point of my comment. I mean, look, I appreciate your graciousness about this, but what mystifies me is that it seems to have had no impact at all on you and you are replying to me, saying "hey that was me, thanks for the info" and then repeating exactly the same misapprehensions I was trying to correct. I appreciate that you may be merely recounting your own experiences, but what I was trying to get across was that they were not general and the bigger picture actually is the reverse of what you were saying. And as other commenters here have said: Win98 had almost no significance on this at all. Windows for Workgroups: big deal. Windows 95: bigger deal. NT: huge deal. Windows 98: a minor point release and nothing more.
- justin66 5y ago
  > everyone except cheapskates with rubbish PCs Colloquially known as “the public.”
  - lproven 5y ago
    Kinda sorta ish. Win98 was intended for, and was a good fit for, home users. It was aimed at games, multimedia, portables (not new by then, but affordable mass-market ones were quite new) and causal internet use, which for most people then meant dial-up internet. It had no firewall, for example, and so would have been owned in seconds if attached to an always-on connection. NT 4 was intended for, and was a good fit for, business users, especially with relatively high-end well-specced desktops because it had next-to-no support for power management, no USB support, no hot-plug of PCMCIA cards, etc. I don't think home vs. business maps well onto public vs., um, not public... do you? I mean, business means work, for many it means offices, and most working people are members of the public, aren't they? Even if they work in state or government departments, most of them are members of the public. "Not members of the public" to me implies, I don't know, police officers, people in the military, maybe elected officials.
    - justin66 5y ago
      You sperged pretty hard on “public,” but the point is that NT’s market share was a rounding error - let’s just say approximately everywhere, in every domain - until memory was cheap enough for the cost difference not to matter. It might’ve gone differently if Windows 9x were unable to log onto NT domains, or something, but it was perfectly usable (and was widely used) in business. Your statement NT 4 fixed that, and it took off very well for everyone except cheapskates with rubbish PCs was counterfactual, but for the reason that those were the PCs businesses liked and wanted.
      - lproven 5y ago
        I had to Google "sperged". That's not a nice thing to say about anyone. I know nothing about your experience, but I know about mine, as both a full-time sysadmin and tech support guy, and later a freelance consultant, for pretty much all of the 1990s. What you are claiming as universal truths are not. In your world, where you saw, maybe there was little to no NT. But that is not the case everywhere. I lived and worked in London, and as a freelance consultant, I mostly worked for relatively prosperous individuals and companies, because if someone's not well off financially they don't hire consultants. Serious businesses, in more or less every sector I worked in -- in real estate, in finance, in publishing, in media, in law -- used NT. NT 3.x was niche. NT 4 wasn't. It did well and it didn't only take over servers; I put in maybe hundreds of NT 4 boxes for dozens of companies. It was not bulletproof -- but it was very nearly so compared to a toy gamers' OS like Win98, and by the time W98 came out, 2 years after NT 4, NT 4 was everywhere for anyone who could afford to buy a PC specced for what they needed. The only thing NT 4 was really bad at was laptops, and some determined folk ran it there as well. USB stayed niche until after the iMac, so the fact that NT 4 didn't support it didn't matter to most people. What mattered is if you needed your PC to be reliable, and most business people do and will pay for a more reliable box. I am saying you are wrong when you say that its market share was a rounding error. Not in the UK, not in London where I was from 1991 to 2014, *no*. NT 4 owned business computing. Win98 owned homes and gamers but I had a grand total of one (1) client _ever_ who ran all Win98 on their client PCs, and their server still ran NT 4.
- tssva 5y ago
  I worked in the US. Most of my clients during this period were large government agencies, large healthcare providers and several large multi-office legal practices. With the exception of the healthcare providers all of them ran Novell Netware networks using Windows for Workgroups 3.11 on client PCs. The healthcare providers usually ran a mixture of WfW 3.11 and OS/2 on clients. Many of these clients were at nursing stations where the OS/2 machines had replaced 3270 terminals and were used strictly as terminals. When Windows 95 and Windows 98 were released they replaced WfW 3.11 and at the healthcare providers also OS/2 on clients. I had one customer that tested NT 3.1 on a couple of servers but ultimately passed on deploying in production. With NT 3.51 deployment on certain application servers started to happen and with NT4 it pretty much replaced Netware on file/print servers and was deployed for Exchange which quickly upon release started taking large market share from other mail solutions. The only deployment of NT prior to Windows 2000 on clients I saw was system administrator PCs. Windows 2000 was deployed more widely but mostly to those doing specific types of tasks. Usually replacing unix workstations. Normal client PCs only moved to NT with XP.

by tssva 5y ago

lproven 5y ago

Remarkable. That's pretty much the opposite of my experience. In 1993 I worked in the City of London, where NT 3.1 was used in production, because it was so much better than Windows 3.1 -- even for Windows 3.1 apps. By 1995, I tried to get people to use NT 3.51 in magazine production, but the GUI put them off. NT 4 fixed that, and it took off very well for everyone except cheapskates with rubbish PCs.

fuzzfactor 5y ago
Deeply misguided commenter here. That doesn't hurt my feelings, I resemble that remark. I've confused people even worse, at more inopportune times, too. This time of course it was about Linux more so than Windows and my suggestion that orgs that have always used Windows can make a significant step toward everyday Linux by first using Linux only for the internet and continue to use Windows for everything else. Similar to the way small offices which had no early need for networking first got one dedicated PC for web use when they decided to start seeing what the internet was about. It didn't matter what OS the isolated PC was running, it was handled not much differently than a fax machine, it might as well have been Linux but Linux was not made for Windows people at all. Today desktop Linux is excellent for the internet at least, so might as well make that one step toward weaning away from Windows. Back in the 1990's around here offices which were big enough for networking to be worthwhile had already connected their DOS machines so when they got Windows they used that to continue doing what protocol they were doing. It was all over the place, you've shown some incredible details, I know some went from DOS to 3.1, others waited until 95, then some on 3.1 skipped 95 and waited until 98. In the mean time the internet began to get popular. Which is when plug & play LAN really came true for the mainstream small office whether they thought they needed networking or not. They may have a word processor on every desk but networking them for the first time was not going to happen if it required the services of some kind of professional they didn't already have on the staff. After a while everybody wanted internet on every desk always on all the time which big companies were already enjoying. So they bought a lot of LAN cards, routers and cable and plugged & played. Sometimes needing professional help to get it sorted out afterward. But we can be fairly old-fashioned and lots of our offices around the world still had a communication room where a DOS PC was in email service before any internet, and it was upgraded to Windows later. This was in there with the even more vintage facsimile unit and of course the traditional Telex machine for which the room was originally built. For some, the only suitable PC was a rubbish PC too, to add to the mix :\ But there's just something about communicating with the world that's a special condititon fundamentally. I don't claim to be that accurate on networking details, I didn't deploy it much in my office until I could plug & play myself. But for a while there I did have an old W3.1 box downloading MP3s even though it was not powerful enough to play them. And experimented with W95's just not TCP/IP, didn't deploy that just wanted to see what people were encountering at the time. I do remember it was the arrival of the 98 version combined with the dominance of TCP/IP, which first brought us to where it's like nobody's ever dreamed of a concept where all Windows PC's aren't on the internet at all times. I know a little more but I just didn't want to go there since I'm no expert. My message was too long already, and I didn't even think very many people would actually try using only Linux when accessing the web from an otherwise Windows PC. But it works for me not much differently than having a separate communication room, only more convenient. I hope my apology can be accepted for leading to such misinterpretation. I recognized you were reading my message quite literally, but it was good to have a more detailed account of these vintage conditions from an experienced early adopter. Quite a contrast to the vast number of small offices which only jumped on the bandwagon when it really took off, without any professional help at all. It's worth it, it makes everyone less misguided.
- lproven 5y ago
  Hi there. Yes, and sorry, that was tactless of me. I like the opening of your response very much; it was a lot more dignified than mine. Then it goes weird (IMHO) though... > my suggestion that orgs that have always used Windows can make a significant step toward everyday Linux by first using Linux only for the internet and continue to use Windows for everything else. < Do you mean now or in ~1998? Either way it's a bit odd. Now -- who uses computers without using the Internet? Then -- well, it was possible -- I built an Internet café around Caldera OpenLinux in about 1999 -- but it was quite hard. > Linux was not made for Windows people at all. < I think it was. The influence of Win9x on Linux is very large. Linux desktops after Win9x barely resemble those from before it. > Which is when plug & play LAN < The PnP LAN? PnP wasn't really anything to do with LANs. As far as networking not needing configuration, this was a lot *easier* _before_ TCP/IP than after. Network protocols on the LAN made networking much, MUCH harder. > They may have a word processor on every desk but networking them for the first time was not going to happen if it required the services of some kind of professional they didn't already have on the staff. < It totally did, you know. This was my main income source in the late 1990s. > So they bought a lot of LAN cards, routers and cable and plugged & played. < You persist with the misguided idea that was the reason I commented to you and then wrote the blog post. Internet use did not noticeably drive LAN adoption. Internet adoption lagged LAN adoption by a decade or so; several entire billion-dollar companies, such as 3Com and Novell, were entirely built on pre-Internet LANs and the Internet largely destroyed them. > But we can be fairly old-fashioned and lots of our offices around the world still had a communication room where a DOS PC was in email service before any internet, < Lots? I have literally never ever seen that. > I do remember it was the arrival of the 98 version combined with the dominance of TCP/IP < Maybe for you. Not in general, I guarantee you. Again: whole point of my comment. I mean, look, I appreciate your graciousness about this, but what mystifies me is that it seems to have had no impact at all on you and you are replying to me, saying "hey that was me, thanks for the info" and then repeating exactly the same misapprehensions I was trying to correct. I appreciate that you may be merely recounting your own experiences, but what I was trying to get across was that they were not general and the bigger picture actually is the reverse of what you were saying. And as other commenters here have said: Win98 had almost no significance on this at all. Windows for Workgroups: big deal. Windows 95: bigger deal. NT: huge deal. Windows 98: a minor point release and nothing more.
justin66 5y ago
> everyone except cheapskates with rubbish PCs Colloquially known as “the public.”
- lproven 5y ago
  Kinda sorta ish. Win98 was intended for, and was a good fit for, home users. It was aimed at games, multimedia, portables (not new by then, but affordable mass-market ones were quite new) and causal internet use, which for most people then meant dial-up internet. It had no firewall, for example, and so would have been owned in seconds if attached to an always-on connection. NT 4 was intended for, and was a good fit for, business users, especially with relatively high-end well-specced desktops because it had next-to-no support for power management, no USB support, no hot-plug of PCMCIA cards, etc. I don't think home vs. business maps well onto public vs., um, not public... do you? I mean, business means work, for many it means offices, and most working people are members of the public, aren't they? Even if they work in state or government departments, most of them are members of the public. "Not members of the public" to me implies, I don't know, police officers, people in the military, maybe elected officials.
  - justin66 5y ago
    You sperged pretty hard on “public,” but the point is that NT’s market share was a rounding error - let’s just say approximately everywhere, in every domain - until memory was cheap enough for the cost difference not to matter. It might’ve gone differently if Windows 9x were unable to log onto NT domains, or something, but it was perfectly usable (and was widely used) in business. Your statement NT 4 fixed that, and it took off very well for everyone except cheapskates with rubbish PCs was counterfactual, but for the reason that those were the PCs businesses liked and wanted.
    - lproven 5y ago
      I had to Google "sperged". That's not a nice thing to say about anyone. I know nothing about your experience, but I know about mine, as both a full-time sysadmin and tech support guy, and later a freelance consultant, for pretty much all of the 1990s. What you are claiming as universal truths are not. In your world, where you saw, maybe there was little to no NT. But that is not the case everywhere. I lived and worked in London, and as a freelance consultant, I mostly worked for relatively prosperous individuals and companies, because if someone's not well off financially they don't hire consultants. Serious businesses, in more or less every sector I worked in -- in real estate, in finance, in publishing, in media, in law -- used NT. NT 3.x was niche. NT 4 wasn't. It did well and it didn't only take over servers; I put in maybe hundreds of NT 4 boxes for dozens of companies. It was not bulletproof -- but it was very nearly so compared to a toy gamers' OS like Win98, and by the time W98 came out, 2 years after NT 4, NT 4 was everywhere for anyone who could afford to buy a PC specced for what they needed. The only thing NT 4 was really bad at was laptops, and some determined folk ran it there as well. USB stayed niche until after the iMac, so the fact that NT 4 didn't support it didn't matter to most people. What mattered is if you needed your PC to be reliable, and most business people do and will pay for a more reliable box. I am saying you are wrong when you say that its market share was a rounding error. Not in the UK, not in London where I was from 1991 to 2014, *no*. NT 4 owned business computing. Win98 owned homes and gamers but I had a grand total of one (1) client _ever_ who ran all Win98 on their client PCs, and their server still ran NT 4.
tssva 5y ago
I worked in the US. Most of my clients during this period were large government agencies, large healthcare providers and several large multi-office legal practices. With the exception of the healthcare providers all of them ran Novell Netware networks using Windows for Workgroups 3.11 on client PCs. The healthcare providers usually ran a mixture of WfW 3.11 and OS/2 on clients. Many of these clients were at nursing stations where the OS/2 machines had replaced 3270 terminals and were used strictly as terminals. When Windows 95 and Windows 98 were released they replaced WfW 3.11 and at the healthcare providers also OS/2 on clients. I had one customer that tested NT 3.1 on a couple of servers but ultimately passed on deploying in production. With NT 3.51 deployment on certain application servers started to happen and with NT4 it pretty much replaced Netware on file/print servers and was deployed for Exchange which quickly upon release started taking large market share from other mail solutions. The only deployment of NT prior to Windows 2000 on clients I saw was system administrator PCs. Windows 2000 was deployed more widely but mostly to those doing specific types of tasks. Usually replacing unix workstations. Normal client PCs only moved to NT with XP.