3 ms·

That was the “Windows 95” lineage. NT was solid from the start (which is why MS then also made it the basis for XP).

by steve1977 3y ago

noduerme 3y ago
I should have added /s. It was Windows 3, actually. But I was just riffing on the parent to point out that we've come full circle.
orbital-decay 3y ago
NT was far more resource-demanding (i.e. "sluggish") than 9x due to all the abstractions - it's just the hardware that progressed so fast in a few years that it was kind of irrelevant.
- noduerme 3y ago
  I feel like almost all software since roughly the advent of the CD-ROM, when distro size stopped being a major limit, has been in a race to outbloat Moore's Law.
  - Lazonedo 3y ago
    The difference between NT and modern bloat (like electron) is that it was very much necessary bloat, the sort that makes computing safer and more reliable (running more things in user mode rather than with kernel authority, true multitasking), as opposed to abstractions that exist solely to boost productivity and make developers happy assembling their library lego blocks. But that 'bloat' made it too expensive in hardware requirements for the home user which is why the NT line had to exist separately from the 9x series until XP. And if anything, unfortunately, Microsoft kept making more compromises with NT that I wish they never did. NT 3.5 ran the graphic stack in user mode. They put it in the kernel for NT4 and only started backtracking on that sort of monolithic design with Vista. (Vista was a controversial OS but most of the architectural decisions they've made with it were the right ones and those decisions still live on in Windows 7, 8, 10 and 11).
  - RGamma 3y ago
    Wirth's law
- hilbert42 3y ago
  That's true, NT was much more resource demanding but there were other mitigating factors too. Drivers were either inefficient and or badly written, the video driver imposed inflexible rules on software's access to the underlying hardware and its plug-and-play feature was brain-dead from the outset. Most of these problems weren't fixed until Windows 2000. Incidentally, I've always thought W2K—taken all round—as the best version of Windows, it's the version with minimal dross and useless stuff and MS hadn't got into spying on users by that stage.
worik 3y ago
> NT was solid from the start IIRC in about 1989 NT 3.1 was a very solid an reliable system. The problem was it did no do IP It was mostly downhill from there. I got my first Linux machine in about 1992 and lost touch But keeping windows NT patched, and keeping it running IP reliably were incompatible for a while Did not stop its wide introduction in my world as IP servers. It was as if software managers did not know any other systems existed. Linux was considered "a toy" because it was free, it was much more reliable than NT (as was BSD I hear) Sun were the other option but I saw no one spending the money It was buggy, unreliable, insecure NT servers all the way Still is for some. Squeezing into a Windows instance on Azure, fifteen mouse clicks, three context switches, and you have emulated rsync... Still making money selling terrible software, but now as a service....

That was the “Windows 95” lineage. NT was solid from the start (which is why MS then also made it the basis for XP).

I should have added /s. It was Windows 3, actually. But I was just riffing on the parent to point out that we've come full circle.

orbital-decay 3y ago

NT was far more resource-demanding (i.e. "sluggish") than 9x due to all the abstractions - it's just the hardware that progressed so fast in a few years that it was kind of irrelevant.

noduerme 3y ago
I feel like almost all software since roughly the advent of the CD-ROM, when distro size stopped being a major limit, has been in a race to outbloat Moore's Law.
- Lazonedo 3y ago
  The difference between NT and modern bloat (like electron) is that it was very much necessary bloat, the sort that makes computing safer and more reliable (running more things in user mode rather than with kernel authority, true multitasking), as opposed to abstractions that exist solely to boost productivity and make developers happy assembling their library lego blocks. But that 'bloat' made it too expensive in hardware requirements for the home user which is why the NT line had to exist separately from the 9x series until XP. And if anything, unfortunately, Microsoft kept making more compromises with NT that I wish they never did. NT 3.5 ran the graphic stack in user mode. They put it in the kernel for NT4 and only started backtracking on that sort of monolithic design with Vista. (Vista was a controversial OS but most of the architectural decisions they've made with it were the right ones and those decisions still live on in Windows 7, 8, 10 and 11).
- RGamma 3y ago
  Wirth's law
hilbert42 3y ago
That's true, NT was much more resource demanding but there were other mitigating factors too. Drivers were either inefficient and or badly written, the video driver imposed inflexible rules on software's access to the underlying hardware and its plug-and-play feature was brain-dead from the outset. Most of these problems weren't fixed until Windows 2000. Incidentally, I've always thought W2K—taken all round—as the best version of Windows, it's the version with minimal dross and useless stuff and MS hadn't got into spying on users by that stage.

worik 3y ago

> NT was solid from the start IIRC in about 1989 NT 3.1 was a very solid an reliable system. The problem was it did no do IP It was mostly downhill from there. I got my first Linux machine in about 1992 and lost touch But keeping windows NT patched, and keeping it running IP reliably were incompatible for a while Did not stop its wide introduction in my world as IP servers. It was as if software managers did not know any other systems existed. Linux was considered "a toy" because it was free, it was much more reliable than NT (as was BSD I hear) Sun were the other option but I saw no one spending the money It was buggy, unreliable, insecure NT servers all the way Still is for some. Squeezing into a Windows instance on Azure, fifteen mouse clicks, three context switches, and you have emulated rsync... Still making money selling terrible software, but now as a service....