Windows NT 3.51

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Windows NT 3.51

User interface similar to Windows 3.1
Website:	Microsoft Support Lifecycle
Company/ developer:	Microsoft
OS family:	Windows NT
Source model:	Closed source
Latest stable release:	3.51.1057 SP5 / September 19, 1996
Kernel type:	Hybrid kernel
License:	Microsoft EULA
Working state:	Unsupported as of December 31, 2001

Windows NT 3.51 is the third release of Microsoft's Windows NT line of operating systems. It was released on May 30, 1995, nine months after Windows NT 3.5. The release provided two notable feature improvements; firstly NT 3.51 was the first of a short-lived outing of Microsoft Windows on the PowerPC CPU architecture. The second most significant enhancement offered through the release was that it provided client/server support for interoperating with Windows 95, which was released three months after NT 3.51. Windows NT 4.0 became its successor a year later; Microsoft continued to support 3.51 until December 31, 2001.

[edit] Overview

The release of Windows NT 3.51 was dubbed "the PowerPC release" at Microsoft. The original intention was to release a PowerPC edition of NT 3.5, but according to Microsoft's David Thompson, "we basically sat around for 9 months fixing bugs while we waited for IBM to finish the Power PC hardware"^[1]. Editions of NT 3.51 were also released for Intel's x86, MIPS, and DEC Alpha architectures.

Despite the significant difference in the kernel base, Windows NT 3.51 was readily able to run a large number of Win32 applications designed for Windows 95, Windows NT 3.51 can even run recent 32 bit applications such as Mozilla Firefox or Opera. Most recent 32bit applications will not work as the developers have prevented their application from working with any Windows version earlier than Windows 98, also because Windows NT 3.51 uses the older Windows interface this prevents some applications from working. Despite this, Microsoft in their application releases muddied the issue, releasing 32-bit versions of Microsoft Office right up to Office 97 SR2b, but relying upon 16-bit versions of Internet Explorer technology.

Microsoft also released test versions of a shell refresh, named the Shell Technology Preview. The update was designed to replace the Windows 3.x Program Manger/File Manager based shell with a Windows Explorer-based graphical user interface. The release provided capabilities quite similar to that of the Windows "Chicago" (codename for Windows 95) shell during its late beta phases, however was intended to be nothing more than a test release^[2]. There were two public releases of the Shell Technology Preview, made available to MSDN and CompuServe users; May 26, 1995 and August 8, 1995. Both held Windows Explorer builds of 3.51.1053.1. The Shell Technology Preview program never saw a final release under NT 3.51. The entire program was moved across to the Cairo development group who finally integrated the new shell design into the NT code with the release of NT 4.0 in July 1996.

Five Service Packs were released for NT 3.51, which introduced both bug fixes and new features. Service Pack 5, for example, fixed issues related to the Year 2000 problem.

NT3.51 was the last of the series to run on a 386, and is in some ways the least resource-hungry of the NT line. This, and its ability to run at least some of the common control API, means that it still finds a place for occasional use on older machines. Private modifications (SuperPacks - see ref. below) to enable new features (for example FAT32 partitions) are available.

[edit] References

1. ^ Paul Thurrott (January 24, 2003). Windows Server 2003: The Road To Gold - Part One: The Early Years. SuperSite for Windows. Retrieved on May 22, 2005.
2. ^ John D. Ruley (September 1995). NT Gets the Look But Not the Logo. How-To Columns. WinMag. Retrieved on May 22, 2006.

[edit] External links

• HPC:Factor Windows NT 3.51 Patches & Updates Guide
• Shell Update Release (file dates: 05/26/95)
• Shell Update Release (file dates: 08/09/95)
• More Information
• 'superpack'