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Q: I'm trying to convince my company to upgrade its desktop systems to Windows NT Workstation 4.0. Can you provide any insight into the differences between NT 4.0 and Windows 9x?
I frequently get questions about the differences between NT 4.0 and Win9x. This question is especially important and deserves careful attention when you're deciding which systems to implement. Let me give you facts that might help in your decision.
NT 4.0 lets you run 16-bit Windows programs in their own address space. This feature helps prevent any one application from corrupting or unexpectedly stopping other applications that run in the same address space. Win9x doesn't offer this functionality.
NT 4.0 supports multiprocessor systems, and Win9x doesn't. This functionality is especially significant in high-end graphic and CAD environments.
NT 4.0 offers file-by-file security, and Win9x doesn't.
NT 4.0 is truly 32-bit, and Win9x contains a significant amount of 16-bit code. As a result, Win9x systems can run more DOS and 16-bit programs than NT.
Primarily because of the 16-bit code, Win9x contains significant non-reentrant code, and many threads run in single-thread mode. As a result, Win9x isn't as robust at multitasking as NT.
Win9x contains several operating system (OS) pages that applications can write to from user mode. As a result, many of these user applications can crash the system, which makes NT more robust than Win9x.
Q: I installed Windows NT on a Digital HiNote Ultra 2000 notebook. I can't get the system to register on the network, and I get a No domain controller can be found error message. A Digital support technician told me the message was meaningless. However, I still can't access the domain. Can you help?
The error message you received can be benign, but it often indicates a general logon failure and denial of network resources. The Ultra 2000 (for a review of this system, see Brian Gallagher, "Digital HiNote Ultra 2000," page 98) has a built-in Xircom network chipset. You are receiving the error message when you try to connect to the network because the driver for the network chipset is not properly initializing the built-in network adapter. To resolve this problem, you can boot into NT and perform a software reboot to initialize the network adapter and let you access the network. Or, you can start the boot process and refrain from logging on to the network for about 5 minutes to allow time for slow services to respond (an ugly approach, but one that works).