Windows NT 3.1 - Public Reception

Public Reception

Windows NT 3.1 was sold about 300,000 times in the first year. The hardware requirements were deemed to be very high at that time, the recommended system requirements of a 486 processor with 16 megabytes of memory were well above the average computer's configuration at that time, and the operating system turned out to be too slow to use. 32-bit applications which could have used the capabilities of Windows NT 3.1 were scarce, so users had to resort to the old 16-bit applications; these however ran slower compared to Windows 3.1. Estimates in November 1993 counted only 150 Windows NT applications, common software, like an office suite, was not available at all for Windows NT 3.1. During the development of the operating system, the API calls were changed so 32-bit applications built on the pre-release version of Windows NT 3.1 could not be run on the final version. This affected even commercial software like Microsoft Visual C++.

RISC systems with Windows NT 3.1 had an even bigger disadvantage: even though they were more powerful than x86 systems, almost no 32-bit applications or drivers were ported to these platforms. 16-bit applications ran much slower under RISC systems because of the 80286 emulation compared to x86 systems which could run 16-bit applications natively, and DOS and 16-bit applications which depended on 386 calls could not be run at all on RISC systems.

However, not all reception was negative; the multitasking capabilities of the operating system were rated positively, especially compared to Windows 3.1. Compared to the size of the operating system, the installation turned out to be very easy, even though installing from floppies was a very time-consuming task. The Advanced Server, intended to be the successor to the unsuccessful LAN Manager product, was technically much superior to its precedesor, and only failed to gain success because it shared the same problems with its workstation pendant, like the low performance running 16-bit applications. The Advanced Server provided a financial advantage for large networks because its price was not dependent on the amount of clients, unlike its competitor Novell NetWare.

With Windows NT, Microsoft entered a market it could never set afoot in and which was mostly dominated by Unix, Novell NetWare and OS/2. A test performed by the InfoWorld magazine in November 1993, where the networking capabilities of several operating systems were tested, showed that Windows NT 3.1 was seriously lacking in inter-client communication: it could only connect to its own server via NetBEUI; attempts to connect to Unix, NetWare and OS/2 all failed because no client software was available. For the Advanced Server, only the own client, the Macintosh and, if only limited, OS/2 were able to connect to the server.

Even though the operating system's actual success was only moderate, it caused a huge resonance wave. Developers of Unix derivations for the first time strived to standardize their operating systems, and Novell was so concerned about its market share that it bought a Unix vendor. Manufacturers of microprocessors hoped to use the portability of the new operating system to increase their own sales, and thus ports of Windows NT were announced for various platforms, like the Sun SPARC architecture and the Clipper architecture. It was recognized that Windows NT would dominate the desktop market as soon as the hardware became powerful enough to run the operating system in an acceptable speed.