Windows Server 2016: End of One Era, Start of Another

Re:Windows Server 2016: End of One Era, Start of Another by mountaineer22 on Thursday September 29, 2016 @10:05AM (#12605293)

Not to nitpick, but do you think points #1 and #2 had to do with the adoption of TCP/IP vs IPX/SPX?

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Re:Windows Server 2016: End of One Era, Start of Another by jasode on Thursday September 29, 2016 @10:12AM (#12605326)

I don't think so because I remember in 1994 that many companies were running Microsoft NETBIOS. Microsoft was already winning the server war before TCPIP became the default choice in the late 1990s. At one time, I remember having to install extra software (Hummingbird?) to get a usable TCPIP stack on MS Windows. However, I don't remember exactly which version of Microsoft Windows I had to do that.

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Re:Windows Server 2016: End of One Era, Start of Another by chiph on Thursday September 29, 2016 @10:28AM (#12605451)

Most people installed Trumpet Winsock on Windows 3.1 to get a TCP/IP stack (written by Peter Tattam, who never got much money out of it since few people paid the shareware fees).

I'm thinking that one reason Microsoft won was because of superior developer tools. I admin'd a small Netware 4.x machine back then and I couldn't even tell you what was needed to write an NLM.

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Re:Windows Server 2016: End of One Era, Start of Another by okket on Thursday September 29, 2016 @10:29AM (#12605469)

AFAIK Hummingbird is/was an Windows implementation for the X11 display protocol (called 'server'). The TCP/IP protocol was added in Win98 by default IIRC, until then you had to use Trumpet Winsock (Win3.x) or something like that.

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Re:Windows Server 2016: End of One Era, Start of Another by mhurron on Thursday September 29, 2016 @11:24AM (#12605979)

TCP was included by default with Windows 95 and NT 3.1.

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Re:Windows Server 2016: End of One Era, Start of Another by IntelMiner on Thursday September 29, 2016 @06:04PM (#12609158)

NT 3.1 yes, Windows 3.1 however no

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Re:Windows Server 2016: End of One Era, Start of Another by raesene6 on Thursday September 29, 2016 @10:39AM (#12605574)

I think if you're pinpointing a move from File & Print to app servers and tying it to the move from Netware to Windows it would more be a combination of Netware's difficulties in stably running multiple apps (it was a rock-solid platform for file and print but less stable as an app. server) combined with Microsoft's "aggressive" moves during that period to supplant Novell and Lotus in the office server marketplace.

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Re:Windows Server 2016: End of One Era, Start of Another by jasode on Thursday September 29, 2016 @10:50AM (#12605691)

>Netware's difficulties in stably running multiple apps (it was a rock-solid platform for file and print but less stable as an app. server)

Thank you for that reminder. The NLM platform was a fragile architecture.[1] In contrast, both IBM OS/2 and Windows NT of that time period had superior architecture (memory protection, separation of kernel-vs-user address space) for complex applications.

And to add to the other commenter about ease of dev tools -- it definitely was easier to use Visual Basic 3.0 and deploy the app on NT rather than use Netware's NLM SDK that required the C programming language. Even though VB was marketed as a tool for desktop apps, it didn't stop Microsoft shops from deploying VB apps on the server side.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NetWare_Loadable_Module#Progra...

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Re:Windows Server 2016: End of One Era, Start of Another by mjcl on Thursday September 29, 2016 @01:45PM (#12607243)

Ugh, I remember having to use esc+alt+shift+shift debugger to try and get the server back long enough to down it. And praying that VREPAIR didn't run on restart.

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