Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Windows NT/2000 and 95/98 provide excellent network support as they can communicate
directly with many different types of networks, protocols and computer architectures. They
can create networks to make peer-to-peer connections and also connection to servers for ac-
cess to file systems and print servers.
Windows NT/2000 Server has more security in running programs than Windows 95/98 as
programs and data are insulated from the operation of other programs. The operating system
parts of Windows NT/2000 and Windows 95/98 run at the most trusted level of privilege of
the Intel processor, which is ring zero. Application programs run at the least trusted level of
privilege, which is ring three. These programs can use either a 32-bit flat mode or any of the
memory models, such as large, medium, compact or small.
There was a great leap in performance between the 16-bit Windows 3.
x
operating system
(which was built on DOS) to Windows 95/98 and Window NT. Apart from running in a dual
16-bit and 32-bit mode, they also allow for application robustness. Figure H.1 outlines the in-
ternal architecture of Windows 95/98.
Table H.1
Windows comparisons
Facility
Windows 3.1
Windows 95/98
Windows NT
Pre-emptive multitasking
9
9
32-bit operating system
9
9
Long file names
9
9
TCP/IP
9
9
9
32-bit applications
9
9
Flat memory model
9
9
32-bit disk access
9
9
9
32-bit file access
9
9
9
Centralised configuration storage
9
9
OpenGL 3D graphics
9
9
H.2 Windows registry
On DOS-based systems, the main configuration files were AUTOEXEC.BAT,
CONFIG.SYS and INI files. INI files were a major problem in that each application program
and device driver configuration required one or more of these files to store default settings
(such as IRQ, I/O addresses, default directories, and so on). Several important INI files are:
•
WIN.INI - information about the appearance of the Windows environment.
•
SYSTEM.INI - system-specific information on the hardware and device driver configu-
ration of the system.
Windows 95/98/NT/2000 use a central database called the Registry, which stores user-
specific and configuration-specific information at a single location. This location could be on
the local computer or stored on a networked computer. It thus allows network managers to
standardise the configuration of networked PCs.
