Features
Although the chief enhancement has been the addition of the Windows 95 shell, there are several major performance, scalability and feature improvements to the core architecture, kernel, USER32, COM and MSRPC. Windows NT 4.0 also introduced the concept of System Policies and the System Policy Editor.
Other important features included with this release were the Crypto API, Telephony API 2.0 with limited Unimodem support, which was the first release of TAPI on Windows NT, DCOM and new OLE features, and Microsoft Transaction Server for network applications, Microsoft Message Queuing (MSMQ), which improved interprocess communication, Winsock 2 and the TCP/IP stack improvements, and file system defragmentation support.
The server editions of Windows NT 4.0 include Internet Information Services 2.0, Microsoft FrontPage 1.1, NetShow Services, Remote Access Service (which includes a PPTP server for VPN functionality) and Multi-Protocol Routing service. There are new administrative wizards and a lite version of the Network Monitor utility shipped with System Management Server. The Enterprise edition introduced Microsoft Cluster Server.
One significant difference from previous versions of Windows NT is that the Graphics Device Interface (GDI) is moved into kernel mode rather than being in user mode in the CSRSS process. This eliminated a process to process context switch in calling GDI functions, resulting in a significant performance improvement over Windows NT 3.51, particularly in the graphical user interface. This however also mandated that graphics and printer drivers had to run in kernel mode as well, resulting in potential stability issues.
Windows NT 4.0 was the first release of Microsoft Windows to include DirectX as standard—version 2 shipped with the initial release of Windows NT 4.0, and version 3 was included with the release of Service Pack 3 in mid-1997. Unlike Windows 95 (which did not include DirectX until the OSR2 release in August 1996), Windows NT 4.0 does not support Direct3D and USB. Later versions of DirectX were not released for Windows NT 4.0, although an unofficial DirectX 5 package was available. However, OpenGL hardware-accelerated graphics were solidly supported since the very first moment and successfully used by many video games and 3D applications (i. e. Quake I, II and III, Unreal, Unreal Tournament, 3D Studio MAX, SoftImage, Maya...).
In early releases of 4.0, numerous stability issues did occur as graphics and printer vendors had to change their drivers to be compatible with the kernel mode interfaces exported to them by GDI. The change to move the GDI to run in the same process context as its caller was prompted by complaints from NT Workstation users about realtime graphics performance, but this change put a considerable onus on hardware manufacturers to update device drivers. Even when manufacturers, primarily graphics hardware manufacturers, wrote 4.0-specific drivers, the BSOD was much more prevalent in Windows NT 4.0 until these driver issues were resolved.
Windows NT 4.0 also included a new Windows Task Manager application. Previous versions of Windows NT included the Task List application, but it only shows applications currently on the desktop. To monitor how much CPU and memory resources are being used, users were forced to use Performance Monitor. The task manager offers a more convenient way of getting a snapshot of all the applications running on the system at any given time.
With Windows NT 4.0, users could finally run a 32-bit version of Internet Explorer on an NT-based OS. Earlier versions of Windows NT supported running only 16-bit versions of Internet Explorer. Microsoft offered up to Internet Explorer 6.0 SP1 for Windows NT 4.0 with Service Pack 6. Sysprep was introduced as a deployment tool with Windows NT 4.0.
As the Microsoft Management Console was not developed yet (it debuted in Windows 2000), Windows NT 4.0 administrative tools are standalone executables and not MMC snap-ins.
Windows NT 4.0 upgraded NTVDM's x86 emulation in the RISC versions from 286 to 486.
Read more about this topic: Windows NT 4.0
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