WINDOWS NT

Windows NT 

Windows NT is a family of operating systems produced by Microsoft, the first version of which was released in July 1993. It is a processor-independent, multiprocessing, multi-user operating system. 

 The first version of Windows NT was Windows NT 3.1 and was produced for workstations and server computers. It was intended to complement consumer versions of Windows  that were based on MS-DOS.

 "NT" was formerly expanded to "New Technology" but no longer carries any specific meaning.NT was the first purely 32-bit version of Windows.

WINDOWS NT SYSTEM ARCHITECTURE:-

 

 

 

System requirements:

Minimum system requirements on x86 systems include a 25 MHz  processor, at least 12 megabytes(RAM) of memory, 75 megabytes of hard drive space, and a VGA graphics card.

Architecture:

The operating system was designed for multiprocessor systems; it supports preemptive multitasking and can make use of threads to run multiple processes in parallel.

The operating system is designed to combine certain elements of a monolithic kernel and a microkernel nowadays this is most often referred to as a hybrid kernel. The hardware abstraction layer represents the lowermost layer and isolates the operating system from the underlying hardware to make it easy to port the operating system to other platforms. The kernel running atop only has very basic functions like interrupt management and processor synchronization. All other functions of the operating system core are handled by modules which operate independently from one another and can be swapped without affecting the rest of the operating system.

 

FEATURES OF WINDOWS NT:

1-A main design goal of NT was hardware and software portability.

2-Partial MS-DOS compatibility was achieved via an integrated DOS VIRTUAL MACHINE although this feature is being phased out in the 32-bit and 64-bit architecture.

3-Windows NT supported per-object (file, function, and role) access control list allowing a rich set of security permissions to be applied to systems and services.

4-Windows NT supported Windows network protocols, inheriting the previous operating system LAN Manager networking, as well as TCP/IP networking.

5-Windows NT 3.1 was the first version of Windows to use 32-bit flat virtual memory addressing on 32-bit processors. Its companion product, Windows 3.1, used segmented addressing and switches from 16-bit to 32-bit addressing in pages.

6-Windows NT 3.1 featured a core kernel providing a system API, running in supervisior mode ,The full preemptive multitasking kernel could interrupt running tasks to schedule other tasks, without relying on user programs . 

7-Windows NT introduced its own driver model, the Windows NT driver model, and is incompatible with older driver frameworks. With windows 2000.