From: rmk@rmkhome.UUCP (Rick Kelly)
Organization: The Man With Ten Cats
Date: Wed, 23 Dec 1992 21:28:49 GMT
Reply-To: rmk@rmkhome.UUCP (Rick Kelly)

In article <1992Dec23.160416.2512@nsisrv.gsfc.nasa.gov> williams@nssdcs.gsfc.nasa.gov (Jim Williams) writes:
>In article <9212221409.36@rmkhome.UUCP> rmk@rmkhome.UUCP (Rick Kelly) writes:
>>NT will only support the "top 100" DOS applications.  Porting UNIX
>>software will be difficult as there aren't any UNIX compatible libraries.
>
>This is incorrect and misleading.  I don't have the exact quote handy,
>and Lord knows that public statements by Microsoft are notoriously
>inaccurate, but as I recall, Microsoft has promised that *at least*
>the top 100 Windows and top 100 DOS applications will be supported.
>My take on this is that Microsoft will only go out of its way (i.e.,
>put in special hacks) to support these apps.  Many, many other
>DOS/Windows apps will run unchanged under NT.  I haven't checked out
>too many things on my NT Beta yet, but so far everything has worked.

Then Microsoft has just changed their mind again.

A friend of mine has seen all kinds of DOS and Windows apps fail on the
NT beta.

>>> [ I lost the attribution for the >> quotes, sorry.  - Jim ]
>
>>>3)  Ease of programability.  Windows is much easier to problem in than
>>>X.  Even though it doesn't have all the advantages of X, we can live
>>>without them for the benefits we gain.  Not only that, but there are X
>>>servers coming out for NT for those needing X.  But we finally have a
>>>choice.
>>
>>Windows sucks.  Microsoft will not support X-11 on NT.
>
>How do you mean this?  Will they actively try to stop 3rd parties from
>porting X to NT?  I don't think so...

Tr to find a commercial UNIX that doesn't have supported X-11.

>>NT will have incomplete TCP/IP support, no telnet, no rlogin, and no ftp.
>
>Are you referring to clients or servers?  NT already has a telnet and
>an ftp client.  NT will be very popular as a PC Lan server and I
>expect market pressure (Government Sales alone!) will force Microsoft
>to support telnet/ftp servers as well, if only via third parites.

That wasn't apparent from a report on NT that was posted in the comp.unix.*
groups, nor in comments from Microsoft employees posting to the OS/2
advocacy group.

>>NT does not have serial port logins.
>
>Part of the NT philosophy, and yes it's stupid.

This alone makes it useless to compare it to UNIX.

>>NT mainly supports acting as a server for Windows 3.x boxes.
>
>So?

Since this is comp.unix.misc, I would suspect there aren't many people
here who are interested in Windows 3.x apps.

>>The Windows 3.x support on NT is such that a hacker could easily write a
>>Windows app that would walk right through NT's security.
>
>Really?  If true, that's a serious flaw.  How is this done?  I'm not
>(yet) a Windows programmer.

Microsoft employees posting in the advocacy group refuse to comment about
this.

>>NT is not UNIX.  The NT beta doesn't even have a decent cli.  NT needs
>>16 megs of memory.  SVR3.2 can do real work with 4 megs of memory.
>
>I'm running NT on 8 meg, but I'll agree it could use more.

Acording to a friend of mine, NT is slower than Windows 3.x on a 16 meg
machine.

>>NT cannot take the place of a UNIX server in a network, not even a DOS
>>network.
>>
>>Microsoft will say anything to get people to buy NT, because they are
>>scared of OS/2.

>Now they can also be scared of Novell, which just bought USL!  With
>Novell in charge of Real Unix (tm), I think the probablility that I'll
>some day find Unix applications at Egghead just jumped several orders
>of magnitude.  Alas, I personally won't buy the Novell/USL product, no 
>matter how much I love Unix, unless Novell drops the horrid USL vs
>BSDI lawsuit.

Plus Microsoft will probably lose their license to use Novell code in
their products.

It would be great if Novell dropped the BSDI suit, but it would probably
take a while to happen.

-- 

Rick Kelly	rmk@rmkhome.UUCP	merk!rmkhome!rmk	rmk@frog.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.unix.misc