Microsoft Windows NT 3.5
1994, September 21
Windows NT 3.5 is the second major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft, targeting the data server and personal workstation markets. It was released on September 21, 1994, as the successor to Windows NT 3.1. One of the primary goals during its development was to improve the operating system's performance. As a result, the project was codenamed "Daytona", after the Daytona International Speedway in Daytona Beach, Florida. Windows NT 3.5 was succeeded by Windows NT 3.51, released in 1995. Support and updates for Windows NT 3.5 was ended by Microsoft on December 31, 2001.
Features
Windows NT 3.5 comes in two editions: NT Workstation and NT Server. They respectively replace the NT and NT Advanced Server editions of Windows NT 3.1. The Workstation edition allows only 10 concurrent clients to access the file server and does not support Mac clients.
Windows NT 3.5 includes integrated Winsock and TCP/IP support. (Its predecessor, Windows NT 3.1, only includes an incomplete implementation of TCP/IP based on the AT&T UNIX System V "STREAMS" API.) TCP/IP and IPX/SPX stacks in Windows NT 3.5 are rewritten. NetBIOS over TCP/IP (NetBT) support as a compatibility layer for TCP/IP was introduced as also the Microsoft DHCP and WINS clients and DHCP and WINS servers.
Windows NT 3.5 can share files via the File Transfer Protocol, and printers through the Line Printer Daemon protocol. It can act as a Gopher, HTTP, or WAIS server, and includes Remote Access Service for remote dial-up modem access to LAN services using either SLIP or PPP protocols. Windows NT 3.5 Resource Kit includes the first implementation of Microsoft DNS.
Other new features in Windows NT 3.5 include support for the VFAT file system, Object Linking and Embedding (OLE) version 2.0 and support for input/output completion ports. Microsoft updated the graphical user interface to be consistent with that of Windows for Workgroups 3.11. NT 3.5 shows performance improvements over NT 3.1, and requires less memory.
Windows NT 3.5 added support for ATAPI CD-ROM. Windows NT 3.5 support for ISA PnP is not enabled by default.
