hen version 3.0 of Microsoft's regular Windows (the one based on MS-DOS) was released by Microsoft in the early 90's, it gained a large user base rather quickly. In early 1991, IBM became aware that Microsoft was planning to use Windows and not OS/2 as the user interface and API for its new OS. As IBM became less of a player and Microsoft applied its Windows environment to NT, Bill Gates and his Windows NT team, lead by David Cutler, pushed forward with the development of NT. Microsoft effectively cut all ties with IBM as far as their development of OS/2. Coding and testing of NT continued in the following months, and Windows NT version 3.1 was released on July 17, 1993. Even though this was the first version of Windows NT, Microsoft made the decision to name it version 3.1 instead of 1.0 in order to, in a way, integrate it with its current Windows OS which was already on the market. They thought that naming it version 1.0 may make people skeptical of its reliablity. Version 3.5 of Windows NT followed short time later. Even since version 3.1, the operating system has been totally 32-bit. Microsoft has continued to refine their operating system over the years with a series of service packs and hotfixes, designed to patch shortcomings and security issues. A major revision, version 4.0, was released in August 1996 with the user interface of Windows 95. It is built from a staggering sixteen million lines of C and C++ code. The next version of Windows NT, Windows 2000, is currently in beta and promises support for many new emerging ...
