4 ms·

One thing I don't see mentioned in this article, and I consider to be the #1 difference between NT and Unix, is the approach to drivers. It seems like NT was d

One thing I don't see mentioned in this article, and I consider to be the #1 difference between NT and Unix, is the approach to drivers. It seems like NT was designed to fix a lot of the problems with drivers in Windows 3.x/95/98. Drivers in those OSs came from 3rd party vendors and couldn't be trusted to not crash the system. So ample facilities were created to help the user out, such as "Safe Mode" , fallback drivers, and a graphics driver interface that disables itself if it crashes too many times (yes really). Compare that to any Unix. Historic, AT&T Unix, Solaris, Linux, BSD 4.x, Net/Free/OpenBSD, any research Unix being taught at universities, or any of the new crop of Unix-likes such as Redox. Universally, the philosophy there is that drivers are high-reliability components vetted and likely written by the kernel devs. (Windows also has a stable driver API and I have yet to see a Unix with that, but that's another tangent)

jonathanyc 2y ago
> and a graphics driver interface that disables itself if it crashes too many times (yes really) I actually ran into this while upgrading an AMD driver and was very impressed! On Linux and macOS I was used to just getting kernel panics. It’s too bad whatever system Crowdstrike hooked into was not similarly isolated.
- baq 2y ago
  APIs used by crowdstrike et al are also what made WSL1 unworkable performance-wise. Can’t have security without slowness nowadays it seems.
  - szundi 2y ago
    Cost is all kind of inconvenience
Dalewyn 2y ago
>So ample facilities were created to help the user out, such as "Safe Mode" , fallback drivers, and a graphics driver interface that disables itself if it crashes too many times (yes really). Pretty sure most of this was already in place with Windows 95; I know Safe Mode definitely was along with a very basic VGA driver that could drive any video card in the world.
- deaddodo 2y ago
  Safe Mode existed in Win9x. User space drivers that could restart without kernel panicking didn't exist until Windows Vista (well, on the home user side of Windows). Fallback drivers were never a thing on Win9x, you would have to go into safe mode to uninstall broken drivers that wouldn't allow a boot (typically graphics drivers); or manually uninstall/replace them otherwise.
  - Dalewyn 2y ago
    Fallback drivers existed, because how else would Safe Mode drive the video card so you can see something to operate the borked computer? Also used when Windows doesn't have a specific driver yet, like immediately after a clean install.
    - deaddodo 2y ago
      > Fallback drivers existed, because how else would Safe Mode drive the video card so you can see something to operate the borked computer? If you use "fallback" in a colloquial sense, yes the VESA/VGA driver that Windows "fell-back" on was a fallback driver. Fallback Drivers (proper noun) is a distinct concept of last functional or alternative drivers that Windows would use instead, if the primary one failed. They fell in-between Windows' generic drivers and your current installed one. The latter is what is being referred to in this conversation.
      - Dalewyn 2y ago
        I'm not aware of "primary" drivers if that's a thing. I know that Safe Mode always falls back to the drivers Windows has by default because that's the whole point of Safe Mode.
        deaddodo 2y ago
        Then you shouldn't be discussing, with authority, a topic you have no understanding/knowledge of. Pretty simple.
hernandipietro 2y ago
Windows NT 3.x had graphics and printer drivers in user-mode for stability reasons. Windows NT 4 moved them to Ring 0 to speed-up graphics applications.
- IntelMiner 2y ago
  Then almost immediately took them back out after realizing this was a bad idea
  - chrisfinazzo 2y ago
    I presume this reversal happened during NT's main support window?
    - deaddodo 2y ago
      Well, by "immediate" they mean: "was user space through Win2k, went to kernel space in XP to match 9x performance, reversed in Vista". So...one generation, and about 7 years later.
      - Narishma 2y ago
        They were moved into kernel space in NT 4.
  - hernandipietro 2y ago
    Right. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5468462 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5468462
sedatk 2y ago
> and a graphics driver interface that disables itself if it crashes too many times That feature is one of the great ones that came with Windows Vista.
- ruthmarx 2y ago
  It really was nice to be able to at least still use the system if the display driver is crashing. 800x600 at 16 bit or whatever it was is still better than nothing.
  - kevincox 2y ago
    And most importantly it is enough to debug and fix the system.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
brontitall 2y ago
> (Windows also has a stable driver API and I have yet to see a Unix with that, but that's another tangent) Solaris has (or at least had) DDI (Device Driver Interface) and DLPI (Data Link Provider Interface)
hulitu 2y ago
> It seems like NT was designed to fix a lot of the problems with drivers in Windows 3.x/95/98 NT was running in parallel with Windows 3.x/9x. The NT had better drivers because it was multiuser with some memory protection. Just look at the recent Crowdstrike incident to see what they really fixed. /s

jonathanyc 2y ago

> and a graphics driver interface that disables itself if it crashes too many times (yes really) I actually ran into this while upgrading an AMD driver and was very impressed! On Linux and macOS I was used to just getting kernel panics. It’s too bad whatever system Crowdstrike hooked into was not similarly isolated.

baq 2y ago
APIs used by crowdstrike et al are also what made WSL1 unworkable performance-wise. Can’t have security without slowness nowadays it seems.
- szundi 2y ago
  Cost is all kind of inconvenience

Dalewyn 2y ago

>So ample facilities were created to help the user out, such as "Safe Mode" , fallback drivers, and a graphics driver interface that disables itself if it crashes too many times (yes really). Pretty sure most of this was already in place with Windows 95; I know Safe Mode definitely was along with a very basic VGA driver that could drive any video card in the world.

deaddodo 2y ago
Safe Mode existed in Win9x. User space drivers that could restart without kernel panicking didn't exist until Windows Vista (well, on the home user side of Windows). Fallback drivers were never a thing on Win9x, you would have to go into safe mode to uninstall broken drivers that wouldn't allow a boot (typically graphics drivers); or manually uninstall/replace them otherwise.
- Dalewyn 2y ago
  Fallback drivers existed, because how else would Safe Mode drive the video card so you can see something to operate the borked computer? Also used when Windows doesn't have a specific driver yet, like immediately after a clean install.
  - deaddodo 2y ago
    > Fallback drivers existed, because how else would Safe Mode drive the video card so you can see something to operate the borked computer? If you use "fallback" in a colloquial sense, yes the VESA/VGA driver that Windows "fell-back" on was a fallback driver. Fallback Drivers (proper noun) is a distinct concept of last functional or alternative drivers that Windows would use instead, if the primary one failed. They fell in-between Windows' generic drivers and your current installed one. The latter is what is being referred to in this conversation.
    - Dalewyn 2y ago
      I'm not aware of "primary" drivers if that's a thing. I know that Safe Mode always falls back to the drivers Windows has by default because that's the whole point of Safe Mode.
      - deaddodo 2y ago
        Then you shouldn't be discussing, with authority, a topic you have no understanding/knowledge of. Pretty simple.

hernandipietro 2y ago

Windows NT 3.x had graphics and printer drivers in user-mode for stability reasons. Windows NT 4 moved them to Ring 0 to speed-up graphics applications.

IntelMiner 2y ago
Then almost immediately took them back out after realizing this was a bad idea
- chrisfinazzo 2y ago
  I presume this reversal happened during NT's main support window?
  - deaddodo 2y ago
    Well, by "immediate" they mean: "was user space through Win2k, went to kernel space in XP to match 9x performance, reversed in Vista". So...one generation, and about 7 years later.
    - Narishma 2y ago
      They were moved into kernel space in NT 4.
- hernandipietro 2y ago
  Right. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5468462 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5468462

sedatk 2y ago

> and a graphics driver interface that disables itself if it crashes too many times That feature is one of the great ones that came with Windows Vista.

ruthmarx 2y ago
It really was nice to be able to at least still use the system if the display driver is crashing. 800x600 at 16 bit or whatever it was is still better than nothing.
- kevincox 2y ago
  And most importantly it is enough to debug and fix the system.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

brontitall 2y ago

> (Windows also has a stable driver API and I have yet to see a Unix with that, but that's another tangent) Solaris has (or at least had) DDI (Device Driver Interface) and DLPI (Data Link Provider Interface)

hulitu 2y ago

> It seems like NT was designed to fix a lot of the problems with drivers in Windows 3.x/95/98 NT was running in parallel with Windows 3.x/9x. The NT had better drivers because it was multiuser with some memory protection. Just look at the recent Crowdstrike incident to see what they really fixed. /s