Re: Windows NT vs. 95

[Steve Hultquist <ssh@wwsi.com>]

>>>>> "Randy" == Randy Whittle <whittle@usc.edu> writes:

 Randy> At 01:11 PM 9/5/96 -0400, Eugene Fiume wrote:
 >> Sorry for the naive and slightly off-topic question (my standard "I'm a
 >> UNIX bozo" apology).  To what extent, if any, are commercial 16 and 32 bit
 >> Windows '95 applications compliant with NT?

 Randy>         From what I understand, the very large part of 32-bit
 Randy> Made-for-Win95 apps almost all work just fine under Win NT.  The
 Randy> exceptions I note are certain thngs like Norton Utils (no under NT, but
 Randy> they now have a version for NT out), which are the kind of thing that
 Randy> mess around at disk-level, etc.  But run of the mill software--I'm
 Randy> pretty sure it should work fine under NT if it was designed to run
 Randy> under 95 (many times, the vendor designs the software specifically to
 Randy> run on both--for instance, if you install internet tools like Eudora or
 Randy> Netscape Navigator, the 95/NT install is one and the same, while
 Randy> there's a different set of stuff installed if you're running Win 3.x).

This is true.  Unfortunately, Win 95 wasn't a pure subset of the NT Win32 API
(a problem, unfortunately, that Microsoft tends to proliferate), so it is
possible that some things won't run.  Anything that talks to real devices (like
Norton) won't.  Most things (like Office, Visio, and so on) run fine.

Win 3.1 and DOS programs often work, but they were also often written with
direct device access that is not enabled in NT due to the security risk such a
design introduces.

ssh