Windows NT 4.0 turns 30 today

Exactly 30 years ago on July 31, 1996 Microsoft released to manufacturing ("RTM") their latest Windows NT based operating system, Windows NT 4.0. This was a major new version having a Windows 95 style user interface, but Windows NT's robustness and fully 32-bit protected mode, pre-emptive kernel.

I have fond memories of this operating system, and it taught me a lot. I was very happy to read about it's internals back in the day, and with its web features like Internet Explorer 2 and IIS web server features, web application development became possible. But it took about six years before .NET became even available.

I still of course have a copy of Windows NT 4.0 running as a virtual machine on my Windows 11 box. What a nice OS it was:

Just to remember: 800x600 screen resolution, 16 colors (not 16-bit, mind you!) and a CRT monitor. If you were lucky, 128 MB of RAM.

Long live Windows NT!