🚀 go-pugleaf

Tony Langdon (tlang@freeway.DIALix.oz.au) wrote:
: It's 09 Jul 98  11:54,
: We'll return to dale@mpce.mq.edu.au and All's
: discussion of Linux and Windows NT...

:  da> Isn't Windows NT as much of an operating system as VMS?
:  da> After all, didn't a transplanted DEC VMS team write
:  da> Windows NT?  I'm told that much of the low level handling
:  da> is similar to VMS.  Anybody know more?

: I've heard this ine before, but am unable to either confirm or deny
: this.

Dave Cutler, one of the original 3 VMS architects I believe, was also a 
principal designer of NT.  Ive also heared that reading an NT internals
book is quite a bit like reading a VMS internals text in terms of naming
conventions and general design. However, Cutler left VMS engineering quite
a while before the current verion.


:  da> Still, the only thing I don't like about Win NT is that
:  da> they left behind the old windows look and usage.  I mean
:  da> why would anyone want to go through pop up menus that
:  da> cover the whole screen just to load a little used program?
:  da> And click the "Start" button to stop???  I wish they had
:  da> a Windows 3.11 style compatability mode with a program
:  da> manager, similar looks, etc...

It does! Program manager lives on (think its called PROGMAN.EXE), and
there is a registry setting that you can change to make it the shell
(err, window manager?) interface.  You can even set CMD.EXE to be the
'login shell'.  I think the NT faq at www.savilletech.com contains the
registry key to do this. If not, email me and im sure I can dig it up.
Also, there are a few explorer replacement projects going on.

jeremy
jkatz at ultrix6 dot cs dot csubak dot edu