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Windows NT Workstation and Server
(Study Guide: Written By Baalendu Dadhich)
Part 1

Windows NT is a GUI based, 32 bit, almost platform independent, backward compatible network operating system that supports multi-processing. This is perhaps the shortest possible appropriate definition for Windows NT that has hundreds of distinct features and utilities.

In an era of fascinating computer desktops such as those in Linux, Apple Macintosh and Windows 98, who will believe that till a few years ago, computer users were cursed to write commands for every little thing they wanted to do. Those were the days of Unix and Dos operating systems that did not have the screens or desktops that are now an inseparable part of computers. This transformation has been possible due to a new feature included with the modern day operating systems called Graphical User Interface (GUI). Introduction of GUI based systems with the help of an additional input device, the mouse, has made computing so easy, convenient and interesting. All the beautiful graphics on the screen of your computer, themes, backgrounds, buttons, check boxes, text boxes, fonts, mouse operated games, painting programs, image editing programs, page designing applications… they all have been possible only because of GUI.

Microsoft Corporation has been the pioneer in the development of GUI based operating systems and applications. They introduced first GUI based PC operating system for IBM PC users in the form of Windows.

Windows NT too, is a GUI based operating system from the Microsoft family with a difference of being a Network Operating System. As we know, many computers linked together either with cables or by some other means (such as infrared waves, microwave waves, satellite link etc.) to exchange information are called to be forming a network. Windows NT can also be used on a stand-alone machine, as it is a truly hybrid operating system that incorporates most of the low-end desktop features along with high-end server functions.

Isn't it just another operating system?

No. Windows NT is special in so many ways. It can work on many different hardware platforms including Intel x86, DEC Alpha, MIPS R4x00, IBM PowerPC, Intergraph Clipper and Sun SPARCstation. If you remember, Windows series desktop operating systems can only be installed on Intel based systems. Then what gave Windows NT the ability to mount upon so many hardware platforms developed by different vendors?

The answer is simple. Windows NT was written almost entirely in C that is a high-level platform independent programming language. On the other hand, Windows 3.1 and Windows 95 were written in Intel-specific assembly code.

Windows NT has amazing level of scalability. If it can be loaded on the most modern Pentium 500 MMX computers, it can also be run on an old a machine such as Intel 386. (With Windows NT 4, Microsoft has increased the minimum system requirement to 486). This has been possible by a unique utility invented by the writers of NT called HAL (Hardware Access Layer). You will read about it later. For now, it is enough for you to know that this is a single file that effectively blocks the system from distinguishing between signals (interrupts and exceptions to be precise) emanating from different generations of computers.

Ability of Windows NT to work with old hardware is called backward compatibility. But this feature is not limited to hardware only. In fact so many old software programs can also run on this operating system even if they had not originally been designed to run on a Win 32 operating system that Windows NT is. Programs originally written to run on MS-Dos 5.0, Windows 3.1x and OS/2 1.x operating systems can all run on Windows NT. The same thing can be said about its file system. Though Windows NT has its own, unique file system called NTFS (a 64 bit file system), it is backward compliant with MS-Dos' FAT16 (16 bit) file system. You will learn about these files systems later.

For every network operating system, security issues are the foremost. Security of valuable data stored in these systems has always been vulnerable to outsiders. After the arrival of Internet, this problem has increased manifold as hackers keep on roaming around the web. Microsoft claims, Windows NT is one of the most secure operating systems. The claim is not baseless. Windows NT 3.51 was the first major operating system ever granted C2 certification by the US Department of Defense in 1995. We all know that spies and hackers all over the world are constantly on the look out for some leakage of information from the US Defense Department databases. If Windows NT certifies their standards, it must surely be a reliable network operating system.

There is another aspect of its reliability. Many operating systems including the Windows series have a serious problem of intermittent crashes. Generally these system hangs are not generated by errors inside the operating system but by the different application programs that run over them. But every time a system goes off, the user stands to lose a lot of valuable data. Windows NT is almost free of this problem due to its unique memory management system. Applications running on Windows NT don’t generally share memory with each other. Each application is allocated with a separate memory block, which doesn't get affected by any sort of chaos going on in the other memory blocks. If any application develops a snag, it does not affect other running programs or the operating system.

Windows NT has several different network protocols for interacting with different types of networks. It can easily inter-operate with other Microsoft networks, Novell networks and Unix networks.

Unlike Windows 95, this operating system supports multiple processors for true multi-tasking operations. Multi-tasking is the ability of an operating system to allow more than one tasks to run simultaneously. You must have noted that even in Windows 95 you can run two applications side by side. On one hand you can work on a Word document and on the other hand you can listen to an audio CD. Windows NT not only supports multi-tasking but also multi-processing, not supported by Windows 95. Multi-processing is the ability of an operating system to work with more than one processors and divide work between them to carry out true multi-tasking. Windows NT also provides for Asymmetric Multi-Processing, which allows a particular processor to deal with a particular process. In Symmetric Multi-Processing, all the processes are equally divided among all the processors without any discrimination.

While Windows NT Workstation can support up to 2 processors; NT Server can work with 4 processors. The OEM version of NT can support 32 processors simultaneously. There are a few more notable things about Windows NT. It does not support applications that directly access hardware (which would, otherwise, go against the concept of its high level security). It is a slower operating system compared to Windows 95. It has sacrificed some speed to provide for more robust security system and inter-operability with other networks.

 Minimum hardware needs for installation of major Microsoft family operating systems are:

Windows 95: Processor 386 DX/20, RAM 4 MB and Free disk space 40 MB

Windows NT Workstation: Processor 486 DX/33, RAM 12 MB and Disk space 120 MB

Windows NT Server: Processor 486 DX/33, RAM 16 MB and free disk space 130 MB

 Windows NT Workstation or Server is installed on Intel platform from a setup directory called %SystemRoot%\Winnt\I386. The file required for installation is Winnt.exe (for fresh installation) and Winnt32.exe (for upgrade from an old version).

 The setup directory and its contents may reside either on the Setup CD or come from a network share.

 Installation can be done by first booting the system from the three startup floppies that ship along with the setup CD. Floppy-less installation is also possible, but in such cases, the computer needs to have an operating system already running. For floppy-less installation, /b switch is used at the command line (D:\Winnt\I386\Winnt /b).

 Windows 95 cannot be upgraded to Windows NT because of clashes between incompatible Registry entries, drivers etc. If you have '95 installed in our system, and want to continue using all other pre-loaded applications, you MUST install Windows NT in a separate directory and REINSTALL all applications. This way you can keep both the operating systems working on your computer. If you are only interested in NT, remove Windows 95 files once NT is installed.

 There are some other command line switches available for installation. They are: /ox (for creating 3 boot floppies), /s (to specify alternate source file location), /o (for creating only boot floppies without installation), /u (for unattended installation), /udf (unattended installation on multiple computers), /l (for creating a log file to show errors occurred during installation) etc.

 Unattended installation could be done in two ways. By an application called Setup Manager or by commands given at the command line. Setup Manager file is available on the Setup CD. It is a complete wizard with provisions to provide all the information that the setup will ask for during installation (Computer name, company name, adapters, network role etc). The information so provided is written to an answer file that the Setup Manager creates for use during installation. The answer file provides answers to some or all of the prompts that the setup program fires during installation.

 For carrying out unattended installation without the help of Setup Manager, you need to create an Answer File yourself. If you are installing NT on more than one computer you need to create a Uniqueness Database File (UDF) as well.

 You can create different answer files for different setup configurations used in your company. These will provide the setup program with information specific to these configurations (information regarding department, company, location etc). You can use UDF files to specify details specific to a particular computer (user name, computer name etc).

 You create a separate answer file for each unique configuration (for each department, for each location etc). On the other hand, you create just one UDF for providing information regarding all the computers on which Windows NT is to be installed. The reason is, just one UDF can keep records pertaining to all computers.

 Answer file and UDF are simple text files. You can created an unattended answer file by editing a copy of the Unattended.txt file that is a part of the Windows NT CD-ROM Resources kit or, as we have already discussed, by using the Setup Manager Utility. Any text editors can be used to create, modify and save the answer file.

 Uniqueness Database File (UDF) can also be created using any text editor. For this, you write the information specific to a particular computer and then leave a few lines blank. Then you write information regarding another computer and again leave a few lines blank and so on..

 UDF cannot be used in the absence of an unattended answer file.

 Assuming your computer reads CD-ROM as D:, command for unattended installation is:

 For installation of some applications along with the installation of Windows NT, you use Sysdiff utility. You first install Windows NT on a computer and run Sysdiff /snap command. Then you install the applications on this computer and run Sysdiff /diff command. In the end you use Sysdiff /apply command for installation of that application on other computers. Sysdiff /apply command can be a part of an unattended answer file to be run on other computers. This command can also be run on each computer separately.

  During setup the system prompts the user to provide information regarding type of installation, hardware, computer and user details etc. The entire setup process goes like this:

 Computers can be connected to a network in two different ways: Workgroups and Domains. In workgroups, all computers enjoy equal rights, can share information from each other, and work as autonomous entities. Each computer manages the administrative work itself. In Domain model of networking, however, a well-defined central mechanism exists that take care of all administrative tasks such as account management, resources management, security etc. In this model, a central database of accounts is maintained that allows a user to work on any computer that is a member of the network (provided he is not restricted from doing so). In Workgroups, in the absence of any central administrative system, a user account's scope is limited only to the computer where he is registered as a user. After deviating a bit from the topic, let's deal again with the issues of NT installation.

 NT does not have any organized utility for uninstalling the operating system. For removal of Windows NT from a computer containing FAT file system, you first boot the system with a Windows 95 or DOS emergency disk, transfer basic operating system from the floppy to hard disk using A:\ Sys C: command and reboot the computer to the just transferred operating system (this will skip the NT booting process). Now you need to delete all files related to Windows NT (Pagefile.sys, Boot.ini, Ntldr, Ntdetect.com, Bootsect.dos, Winnt_root folder and C:\Program files\Windows NT folder). If you are using SCSI hard drive, you need to delete C:\Ntbootdd.sys file as well.

 For uninstalling NT from a drive containing NTFS file system, you just need to run the setup program and choosing NTFS partition when prompted to choose one for deleting.

 Windows NT setup program, among other things, asks questions regarding the partition where NT is to be loaded, type of this partition (FAT or NTFS), prompts the user if he wants to create a partition now and if he wants to create emergency repair disks. It also asks for Network Interface Card (NIC) specific details, role of the computer in the domain/workgroup, which network protocols are going to be used by the network, Time zone, Date, Time, Exchange Inbox configuration details and information specific to video card driver.

 If you install Windows NT into a directory that is already holding an operating system, then you are replacing one operating system with another. If you install it into a directory that does not currently have an operating system, you are creating a dual boot mechanism. This is true in terms of previously loaded operating systems such previous versions of Windows NT Server, Workstation, Windows 95 and DOS. You can dual boot from any of these operating systems but you can upgrade only from Windows NT Server or Workstation.

 In dual boot machines, the user is presented with a dual boot menu at the start of booting process. Here the user has the liberty to boot to any of the operating systems listed on the boot menu.

 If you have more than one Network Interface Cards, you can only configure one of them during the installation process. You can however, configure the others from the Control Panel-> Network option once NT starts working.

 A disk stores hundreds and thousands of files of different kind. You can create files, modify them, save them, delete them and retrieve them again and again. There has to be a mechanism to manage all these tasks. File system is such well-defined mechanism to organize files on a mass storage device and provide different services to create, read, write, and delete them. Some instances of files systems are FAT, NTFS, HPFS, CDFS, VFAT etc.

 Windows NT supports FAT, NTFS and CDFS file systems. MS-DOS, Windows 95, RISC, OS2, MacOS, many variants of Unix family.. They all support FAT file system. FAT (File Allocation Tables) can be used to hard disks as well as floppy disks. NTFS (New Technology File System) can only be used to format hard disks. CDFS (Compact Disk File System) has specifically designed for storage of data on CD-ROMs.

 The FAT file system is use since 1981. It is a convenient and smoothly functioning and (to some extent) secure file system and this is why it could survive for so many years. Windows 95 uses a variation of FAT called VFAT. This version of FAT has made the file system more powerful and flexible. NTFS is relatively new and was introduced with Windows NT 3.1. It is not supported by any other operating system. It is a 64-bit file system powered with so many incomparable security features.

 Very important to remember: MS-DOS version 7, Windows 95, Windows NT 3.51 and Windows NT 4.0 support VFAT. So whenever we will talk of FAT in relation with these operating systems, you should assume that we are talking about VFAT.

 Let's make a comparison between FAT and NTFS.

• File Name Length: Both file systems can store filenames 255 characters long.
• Both are compatible with 8.3 filenames. In this filename format, the main filename consists of a maximum of 8 characters and its extension 3 characters. For example: Mysystem.txt, Ntserver.doc etc.
• FAT can support a maximum file size of 4 GB while NTFS 16 EB (more than 1 billion gigabytes).
• FAT can support a partition of maximum 4 GB while NTFS 16 EB.
• FAT has no local security on files while NTFS has. If a person sits on a computer that has FAT file system, he can open, edit and delete any files. Only security that FAT offers is that if a person accesses the files from other computer over the network, he will not be able to do so. However, in systems using NTFS, no one can play with files even when he is sitting locally on the computer.
• NTFS has provision to record every transaction pertaining to files. The system can keep track of opening a file. Even if someone has tried to open a file unsuccessfully, the system can record the event for the knowledge of System Administrator. Fat has no such feature.
• In NTFS, data is stored on contiguous memory spaces and therefore, easy to retrieve and read. This makes NTFS a lot faster than FAT that does not care about storing data on contiguous spaces. Due to this feature, fragmentation level is very low in drives formatted with NTFS. For FAT based drives, on the contrary, fragmentation is a big problem. Fragmentation: When data pertaining to a particular file is not stored on the hard disk on contiguous spaces but scattered all over it, it is called fragmentation. In such cases the system has to work hard as it has to join different pieces of data stored on different parts of the drive whenever the user wants to access the file.
• You must be aware of Scandisk utility that identifies sectors on the hard disk that are not able to store data properly. Such sectors, marked as Bad Sectors, are avoided by the system for storage of data in future. In FAT formatted hard disks we have to run Scandisk now and then in order to identify such sectors. On the contrary, NTFS is capable of taking care of this aspect on its own. If a sector has been damaged, it is marked bad by the file system itself never to be used in future. This is called Hot Fixing.
• In terms of overheads, FAT scores over NTFS. Overhead is the minimum disk space required to store the basic file system. While overhead for FAT is just 1 MB, for NTFS it is 5-10 MB. This is why we cannot format a floppy disk with NTFS.
• FAT is not case sensitive while NTFS is both case sensitive and case insensitive. It is case sensitive for POSIX based applications. For others it is not case sensitive. POSIX means Portable Operating System Interface for uniX. A very interesting fact to be noted here is that both FAT and NTFS preserve case. For example, if you name a file "HiDear.AbC" it will be preserved exactly in the same way. When, in future you will display a list or all files this filename will be displayed as it is. On the other hand though, if you want to access this file writing command line code (like using the Run utility) on a FAT file system, you need not bother about writing the name exactly the same way. Even if you write "hidear.abc", the system will open the file for you. This fact is highly noteworthy that FAT is not case sensitive but preserves cases.
• NTFS has a unique facility to save disk spaced that is compression. You can compress any directory or files individually or you can compress the entire disk. The best thing is that you will never need to uncompress it in order to access those files, directories or application programs. The system will automatically compress and uncompress them as per its needs. This is a great feature as you can almost double your disk space using it.
• NTFS tracks ownership of files. The person who creates a file is its owner and has full privileges to grant read/write or any other rights over the file to other users. The user himself has Full Control right over the file and can also give this right to any other user. Administrator, by default, has full control rights over all files. Administrator or any other person having Full Control over a file can take ownership of a file or directory. FAT does not have such mechanism.
• FAT file system can be converted to NTFS without any data loss but NTFS can never be converted to any other file system. If you ever need to convert NTFS to FAT, you will need to first un-formate the partition. This means, you will lose your data. Here it is notable that another file system HPFS can also be converted to NTFS without losing any data.
• FAT is best for partitions below 200 MB while NTFS is best for partitions over 400 MB.
• RISC based computers, MS-DOS, Windows 95, OS/2 they all can access only FAT based drives. So if you have to install any one of them, NTFS is out. But if you want to install Windows NT, then NTFS is better, though FAT is not unwelcome.

 High Performance File System (HPFS) was developed for OS/2 systems and was used in Windows NT up to version 3.51. If you have a system that already has Windows NT 3.51 or any earlier version with HPFS partition, you should convert it to NTFS prior to upgrading to Windows NT 4.0.

 RISC based computers, even if they have NT installed on NTFS partition, should have some FAT formatted space for booting purpose.

 In FAT file system, only 512 file/directory listings are allowed in the root directory.

 For accessing long file names at command prompt, filename should be in quotes ("HelloDearHowAreThingsGoing.Exe"). Only exception to this, is the CD (Change Directory) command.

 Fdisk utility can not delete NTFS logical partitions though it can delete primary NTFS partitions.

 For converting from FAT to NTFS file system we use the following command:

 This can also be done from Disk Administrator utility of Windows NT.

 To compress files on NTFS partitions you just need to select the files you want to compress, invoke Properties menu by right clicking the mouse and in the Attributes section, enable the Compressed check box.

 Compression can also be done with a command line utility COMPACT.EXE. The command is:

 A thing or two about compressed directories and files:

• Files as well as Directories can be compressed. If you compress a directory it doesn't actually gets compressed; the Compressed attribute tells the system to compress all the files that are a part of it and all the files to be created in future.
• If you copy a file to a directory, the file will adopt the compressed/uncompressed attribute of the target directory irrespective of its own attributes.
• If you move a file to a directory on the same partition, the file will keep its own compressed/uncompressed attribute intact irrespective of the attributes of the target directory. The reason for this is, moving a file does not actually moves a file from one location to other. The file remains stored at the same place on the disk, only an entry is made in the source directory that it no longer stays in this directory. Another entry is made in the target directory that this file is now a part of this directory. So moving within the same partition actually means a couple of directory entries only. The file is untouched and therefore, does not lose its attributes.
• When you move a file on another partition or drive, then it is actually cutting from one place and pasting to the other. It is like copying a file to a new location and deleting from its original location. So, in such situations, the file will adopt attributes of the target directory.

 Pagefile.sys (file that makes hard disk space to be used as Virtual Memory) is never compressed. Virtual Memory: When the system is short of RAM, it hires some space from hard disk for using as an extension to RAM. Disk space provided during such temporary arrangement is called Virtual Memory as it virtually acts like Main Memory (RAM). Pagefile.sys is a file that tells the system as to how much space can be used as Virtual Memory. It is generally 12 MB more than actual RAM.

 Windows NT can be prevented from generating Long File Names on FAT partitions by changing the following registry value to 1:

 Registry: A database that keeps details about all the software, hardware and setting of operating system controls. A software or hardware will not run if its details are not properly entered in the registry. Software entries are done automatically when it is first installed. Hardware entries are done when the system boots and carries out a hardware check. Registry was introduced with Windows 95. It can be edited using Registry Editor (Regedt32.exe). You will read more about it later.

Did you know: RISC based computers can't boot from floppies.