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Windows NT 4

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bedouin:
Question . . .

Why did MS make Windows 95 their 'consumer' OS when NT Workstation really wasn't that bad?

Just curious.  It never made much sense to me.

toadlife:
Because NT4 couldn't run real-mode DOS games, which were dominant at the time. They had to wait until game publishers started using directX before they could switch their consumer OS to an NT kernel.

Kintaro:
I remember in the early days when Windows 98 was still commonplace a lot of users regarded Windows 2000 and the like to be a "whole new lot of shit", even when people switched to XP they found this was how things were. Adapting to a new system is not easy when you are not a enthusiast.

The market is always chosen by the people with the buying power, if the majority of people wanted Windows NT and were ready for it, it would have had more of the marketshare and become popular with OEMS. However most people were not ready for it, the business/professional sector needed its reliability and other features so it was used. However home users would have had a lot of new things to learn. Microsoft is not really responsible for what users use.

Refalm:

--- Quote from: toadlife ---Because NT4 couldn't run real-mode DOS games, which were dominant at the time. They had to wait until game publishers started using directX before they could switch their consumer OS to an NT kernel.
--- End quote ---

Not only that, think about the huge number of companies using DOS programs to do their database, accounting, farming, etc.

These companies wouldn't have switched to Windows 95/98/ME if it didn't support DOS fully.

mobrien_12:
NT4 came after Windows 95.  It wasn't as easy to operate.  It had no Plug-and-Play support.  It had no APM.  

It required a LOT more RAM and CPU power.  Unless you were on a Pentium II this was very noticable and frustratingly slow.    

As far as games:  it had only DirectX 3. It could support Glide and OpenGL if you bought a good video card from a company that bothered to write such drivers for the OS (like 3DfX).  Games tended to run poorly compared to Win9x (if at all) anyway.  

NT4 was more stable than Win9x.  It ran office and business applications very well (better than 9x I think).  NT4 was built for offices and buisinesses.  Not the regular MS customers.

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