Windows NT 3.51 is a major release of the

Windows NT Windows NT is a proprietary graphical operating system produced by Microsoft, the first version of which was released on July 27, 1993. It is a processor-independent, multiprocessing and multi-user operating system. The first version of Win ...

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also in ...

developed by

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...

and oriented towards businesses. It is the third version of Windows NT and was released on May 30, 1995, eight months following the release of

Windows NT 3.5 Windows NT 3.5 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft and oriented towards businesses. It was released on September 21, 1994, as the successor to Windows NT 3.1 and the predecessor to Windows NT 3.51. One ...

. The most significant enhancement offered in this release was that it provides client/server support for inter-operating with

Windows 95 Windows 95 is a consumer-oriented operating system developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows 9x family of operating systems. The first operating system in the 9x family, it is the successor to Windows 3.1x, and was released to manufacturin ...

, which was released almost three months after NT 3.51.

Windows NT 4.0 Windows NT 4.0 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft and oriented towards businesses. It is the direct successor to Windows NT 3.51, which was released to manufacturing on July 31, 1996, and then to retail ...

became its successor a year later. Mainstream support for Windows NT 3.51 Workstation ended on December 31, 2000, and extended support ended on December 31, 2001, while Windows NT 3.51 Server mainstream support ended on September 30, 2000, followed by extended support on September 30, 2002. Both editions were succeeded by

Workstation and Windows NT 4.0 Server, respectively.

Overview

The release of Windows NT 3.51 was dubbed "the PowerPC release" at Microsoft. The original intention was to release a PowerPC edition of NT 3.5, but according to Microsoft's David Thompson, "we basically sat around for 9 months fixing bugs while we waited for IBM to finish the Power PC hardware". Editions of NT 3.51 were also released for the

x86 x86 (also known as 80x86 or the 8086 family) is a family of complex instruction set computer (CISC) instruction set architectures initially developed by Intel based on the Intel 8086 microprocessor and its 8088 variant. The 8086 was introd ...

, MIPS, and

Alpha Alpha (uppercase , lowercase ; grc, ἄλφα, ''álpha'', or ell, άλφα, álfa) is the first letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of one. Alpha is derived from the Phoenician letter aleph , whic ...

architectures. New features introduced in Windows NT 3.51 include PCMCIA support,

NTFS New Technology File System (NTFS) is a proprietary journaling file system developed by Microsoft. Starting with Windows NT 3.1, it is the default file system of the Windows NT family. It superseded File Allocation Table (FAT) as the preferred fil ...

file compression, replaceable

WinLogon In computing, Winlogon (Windows Logon) is the component of Microsoft Windows operating systems that is responsible for handling the secure attention sequence, loading the user profile on logon, and optionally locking the computer when a screensa ...

( GINA), 3D support in

OpenGL OpenGL (Open Graphics Library) is a cross-language, cross-platform application programming interface (API) for rendering 2D and 3D vector graphics. The API is typically used to interact with a graphics processing unit (GPU), to achieve hardwa ...

, persistent IP routes when using TCP/IP, automatic display of textual descriptions when the mouse pointer was placed on toolbar buttons ("tooltips") and support for Windows 95 common controls. In view of the significant difference in the kernel base, Windows NT 3.51 is readily able to run a large number of

Win32 The Windows API, informally WinAPI, is Microsoft's core set of application programming interfaces (APIs) available in the Microsoft Windows operating systems. The name Windows API collectively refers to several different platform implementations th ...

applications designed for

. More recent 32-bit applications will not work, as the developers have prevented their application from working with any Windows version earlier than Windows 98, and also because some applications do not work properly with the older Windows NT 3.51 interface. Despite this, Microsoft in their application releases muddied the issue, releasing

32-bit In computer architecture, 32-bit computing refers to computer systems with a processor, memory, and other major system components that operate on data in 32-bit units. Compared to smaller bit widths, 32-bit computers can perform large calculation ...

versions of

Microsoft Office Microsoft Office, or simply Office, is the former name of a family of client software, server software, and services developed by Microsoft. It was first announced by Bill Gates on August 1, 1988, at COMDEX in Las Vegas. Initially a marketin ...

right up to

Office 97 Microsoft Office 97 (version 8.0) is the fifth major release for Windows of Microsoft Office, released by Microsoft on November 19, 1996. It succeeded Microsoft Office 95 and was replaced by Microsoft Office 2000 in 1999. A Mac OS equivalent, Mi ...

(the last version of Microsoft Office supported on NT 3.51), but relying upon

16-bit 16-bit microcomputers are microcomputers that use 16-bit microprocessors. A 16-bit register can store 216 different values. The range of integer values that can be stored in 16 bits depends on the integer representation used. With the two mos ...

versions of

Internet Explorer Internet Explorer (formerly Microsoft Internet Explorer and Windows Internet Explorer, commonly abbreviated IE or MSIE) is a series of graphical user interface, graphical web browsers developed by Microsoft which was used in the Microsoft Wind ...

technology from versions 3.0 to 5.0. Web browsers based on and including

Firefox Mozilla Firefox, or simply Firefox, is a free and open-source web browser developed by the Mozilla Foundation and its subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation. It uses the Gecko rendering engine to display web pages, which implements current ...

were operable up to version 2.0.0.22, released in April 2009; they required a few manual file updates to work without compromising browsing security. Windows NT 3.51 is the last of the series to be compatible with the

Intel 80386 The Intel 386, originally released as 80386 and later renamed i386, is a 32-bit microprocessor introduced in 1985. The first versions had 275,000 transistors Start menu The Start menu is a graphical user interface element used in Microsoft Windows since Windows 95 and in other operating systems. It provides a central launching point for computer programs and performing other tasks in the Windows shell. It is name ...

. It was designed to replace the Windows 3.x Program Manager/File Manager based shell with

Windows Explorer File Explorer, previously known as Windows Explorer, is a file manager application that is included with releases of the Microsoft Windows operating system from Windows 95 onwards. It provides a graphical user interface for accessing the file ...

-based

graphical user interface The GUI ( "UI" by itself is still usually pronounced . or ), graphical user interface, is a form of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices through graphical icons and audio indicator such as primary notation, inste ...

. The release provided capabilities quite similar to that of the Windows "Chicago" (

codename A code name, call sign or cryptonym is a Code word (figure of speech), code word or name used, sometimes clandestinely, to refer to another name, word, project, or person. Code names are often used for military purposes, or in espionage. They may ...

for Windows 95) shell during its late beta phases; however, it was intended to be nothing more than a test release. Internet Archive There was a second public release of the Shell Technology Preview, called ''Shell Technology Preview Update'' made available to

MSDN Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) was the division of Microsoft responsible for managing the firm's relationship with developers and testers, such as hardware developers interested in the operating system (OS), and software developers developing ...

and

CompuServe CompuServe (CompuServe Information Service, also known by its initialism CIS) was an American online service provider, the first major commercial one in the world – described in 1994 as "the oldest of the Big Three information services (the oth ...

users on August 8, 1995. Both releases held Windows Explorer builds of 3.51.1053.1. The preview program provided early feedback for the ''Shell Update Release'', the next major Windows NT version with the new interface built-in, which was released in July 1996 as Windows NT 4.0.

Updates

Five

Service Packs In computing, a service pack comprises a collection of updates, fixes, or enhancements to a software program delivered in the form of a single installable package. Companies often release a service pack when the number of individual patches to a ...

were released for NT 3.51, introducing both bug fixes and new features. Service Pack 5, for example, fixed issues related to the

Year 2000 problem The year 2000 problem, also known as the Y2K problem, Y2K scare, millennium bug, Y2K bug, Y2K glitch, Y2K error, or simply Y2K refers to potential computer errors related to the formatting and storage of calendar data for dates in and after ...

Hardware requirements

Supported EIDE addressing schemes include

logical block addressing Logical block addressing (LBA) is a common scheme used for specifying the location of blocks of data stored on computer storage devices, generally secondary storage systems such as hard disk drives. LBA is a particularly simple linear address ...

(LBA), ONTrack Disk Manager, EZDrive, and extended cylinder-head-sector (ECHS).

References

External links

HPC:Factor Windows NT 3.51 Patches & Updates Guide

Shell Update Release (file dates: 08/09/95)
{{Microsoft Windows family 1995 software Products and services discontinued in 2001 3.51 IA-32 operating systems MIPS operating systems PowerPC operating systems