you're communicating, the system needs to be more intelligent about dealing with the changes in the network. Today, configuration can be time consuming and complex and certainly errors are not, in my opinion on any system, handled as seamlessly as they should be.
BYTE:
What are some other areas where you could make things more simple?
Allchin:
We're going to look at areas like the networking control panel and try to make it dramatically easier for remote access, which today takes like 26 steps to set up. Other areas to improve are in Plug 'N Play and autosensing whether a DHCP server is in existence or not, and get rid of all this binding gunk that noone understands. My dream would be that the system can figure out a lot more about what's going on, not just in communications, but in terms of the entire control panel configuration. The control panel is confusing, we need to simplify that. With
Memphis [aka Windows 98], we're not too interested in adding anything else now to the system, we are focusing on quality improvements now. There are enough features now; we want to improve quality.
BYTE:
You've said you hope to increase the diversity of systems and footprints that NT will run on. Are we going to see with NT a similar model to Office, that is, a Small Business Edition, Professional version, Enterprise version? Will there be different packaging for it besides server and workstation?
Allchin:
Yes. NT's small business server is a classic example of how the server family line will be extended. I'm sure you've heard about the enterprise version of NT, that's another example. So, the server family will get broadened, with one common kernel across them, but tailored for appropriate use. For example, in the small business case, we know there's only going to be one domain, so we don't have to ask the end user a lot of questions. This way we can provide a muc
h simpler end user experience. On the client side, you can expect to see the same thing. This scenario is slightly different from the one for Windows 95 and NT today, in that these [NT] versions will be exactly the same system technology-wise. But they will be tailored to usage. There is a difference between whether you are running a system in an entertainment environment that you are running in your den and running a system at work. The key thing is that there will not be multiple versions of Windows, there'll just be Windows. But it will be tailored to the different environments.
BYTE will print a more in-depth article, based in part on discussions with Allchin, in a future issue.
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