Document:Windows NT 3.1 build 196.1 README

Installation notes for ePDK (1.196) ---

This is an experimental build that can be used to see Windows NT as it exists today. The system and development tools can be used to port your existing Win 3.x applications to Win32. It is possible to edit, compile and debug Win32 apps using self-hosted tools on Windows NT itself.

New Features Compared to Previous Builds

Security is enabled. Logon as "SYSTEM", there is no password, for admin level access to your computer.

Information for setting up NT as a workstation or server is discussed later in this README file.

Program Manager is started and default groups are provided.

DOS and OS/2 dualboot installation support for NT

CTRL-ALT-DEL now supported (flushes disk cashes and notifies device drivers before reboot).

Performance has improved especially when starting larger applications such as the File Manager.

Wave form files are provided for systems equipped with a SoundBlaster card. Use the playsnd.exe applet to play wave forms on this device.

Online help is provided for the command utilities such as xcopy, attrib, mkdir, etc. There is general help and help for specific utilities

General Limitations ---

The system is beta quality. NT employs disk caching which has been used internally by the NT development group for many months. However, since this is a beta release, it is recommended that NT be installed on a test machine (not a primary work machine).

The system only supports running Win32 apps (no DOS or Win 3.x apps). Later releases will add DOS and Win 3.x support. Additional limitations listed below are temporary with full Windows NT being included in subsequent releases.

There is not a final doc set available on all of the utilities, but sample make files should be useful for getting started developing Win32 apps.

No support exists in the current system for floating point. This support will be added in the next several builds.

The debugger is NTSD and supports assembly and rudimentary C source code debugging.

A separate debugging system is REQUIRED to communicate with the NT kernel debugger to continue past exceptions, RIPs as well as to reboot the system.

Only the netbuei transport and the EtherLinkII network card is currently supported. The XNS support is present but has not been fully tested.

Unique Build Limitations

Internal support for UB network controllers exists, but is not being distributed until functionality is tested.

Logoff/Logon: Logging off and relogging on without rebooting is not currently supported. In the future, currently executing programs will be automatically closed (with appropriate user input) when logoff occurs. Logging on with another account will provide user-specific Program Manager groups, file permissions and other user-defined settings (colors, network reconnections, etc.).

System Requirements ---

NT does not currently support installation from floppy. It is necessary to pre-install MS-DOS (3.1 or later) or OS/2 1.21 or 1.3 before running the NT setup program.

The boot partition (C:) must be FAT, but other partitions may be HPFS and will be accessible from NT.

When installing on MS-DOS using SETUP.BAT, a DOS/NT dualboot system will be created. Once installed, you will be prompted at boot time which system to execute. The default time-out selects DOS.

When installing on OS/2 using SETUP.CMD, an OS2/NT dualboot system will be created. Once installed, you will be prompted at boot time which system to execute. The default time-out selects OS/2. This dualboot is not compatible with the OS/2 1.21 dualboot implementation. Multiboot of OS/2, DOS and NT will be supported later.

Do not run the setup procedures if you boot from a floppy. The setup procedures (SETUP.BAT or SETUP.CMD) are run depending on the system booted (DOS or OS/2) and always modify the boot info and loaders on C:, not the boot device.

Hardware Requirements -

Currently, Compaq hardware is primarily used to test NT. Only Compaq 386 and 486 systems are supported. 386SX should work. MCA (e.g. PS/2) are not currently supported. When MIPS systems become available, NT versions for MIPS will be provided. There is no support in the current release for MIPS.

10M RAM minimum is needed to boot and run Win32 programs. This will be reduced to 6-8M RAM in later releases.

The NT system requries 12M for system files and 10M for a paging file.

If doing Win32 development, an additional 10M is needed for development files.

Setting up Windows NT on a Network --

Windows NT's network support is currently limited to the Netbeui protocol running over a 3Com EtherLink II card. The following information is temporary and will not apply in later Windows NT releases.

If your NT machine will not be on a network, log on using username SYSTEM with no password. You can make SYSTEM the default logon username by changing the DefaultLogonUsername entry in the [Console] section of NTUSER.CFG.

For network use, you will need to edit the three configuration files in C:\NT to specify your machine name, username, domain, and optionally a server to confirm logons. Use your favorite editor's search and replace.

Edit C:\NT\MSV1_0.CFG to add your username to the local security system. Replace MYUSERNAME with your username.

Edit C:\NT\NT.CFG to specify your domain name. Replace MYDOMAIN with the name of your domain.

Edit C:\NT\NTUSER.CFG to specify your machine name, your username, and your optionally password server. Replace each occurance of MYUSERNAME with your username, and each occurance of MYMACHINENAME with the network name of your machine. If you want a network server to confirm the username and password at logon time, replace MYPASSWORDSERVER with the network name of the server that will confirm logons. Also uncomment the PasswordServer line near the end of NTUSER.CFG.

Reboot your machine and logon with your network username and password. You should be able to connect to any network resource on servers running the Netbeui protocol. NET USE and NET VIEW are both working.

Windows NT can run as a share-level server. To enable the server, set up the sharepoints in NTUSER.CFG. The default NTUSER.CFG shares C:\PUBLIC as PUBLIC. To start the server, type NET START SERVER. BEWARE: There is no security implemented for the server. Every client has full access to each share.

Currently you must be logged on as SYSTEM in order to change the system time or run file system utilities FORMAT, CHKDSK, and RECOVER. system utilities FORMAT, CHKDSK, and RECOVER.