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NT 3.51 - Is It Safe??

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Alistair mackay

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Apr 27, 1995, 3:00:00 AM4/27/95
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I just received NT 3.51 beta from MSDN. Has anyone been running it for
long enough to be able to tell me if there's anything I should know
before I upgrade my NT 3.5 WS
TIA

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| Alistair Mackay EMail ed...@tag.co.uk |
| Technology Applications Group |
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Joe Pruitt

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Apr 28, 1995, 3:00:00 AM4/28/95
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In article <48748...@t-a-g.demon.co.uk>, ed...@t-a-g.demon.co.uk says...

>
>I just received NT 3.51 beta from MSDN. Has anyone been running it for
>long enough to be able to tell me if there's anything I should know
>before I upgrade my NT 3.5 WS
>TIA

I have been using NT 3.51 for about 2 weeks now as a development machine and
haven't run into any problems. By the way, the new help engine is
pretty cool!

-Joe
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Jeff Thomson

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Apr 28, 1995, 3:00:00 AM4/28/95
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ed...@t-a-g.demon.co.uk (Alistair mackay) wrote:

>I just received NT 3.51 beta from MSDN. Has anyone been running it for
>long enough to be able to tell me if there's anything I should know
>before I upgrade my NT 3.5 WS
>TIA

>--

>---------------------------------------------------------------------------
>| Alistair Mackay EMail ed...@tag.co.uk |
>| Technology Applications Group |
>---------------------------------------------------------------------------

It's been rock solid in my experience. I've run VC++, ProComm+/Win,
Netscape, FreeAgent, Excel, Winword, Corel4 etc., w/ no problems. Go
for it!


-- Jeff Thomson
tho...@wgcgps.com


Magnus Sigurdsson

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Apr 28, 1995, 3:00:00 AM4/28/95
to

>I just received NT 3.51 beta from MSDN. Has anyone been running it for
>long enough to be able to tell me if there's anything I should know
>before I upgrade my NT 3.5 WS
>TIA

Well, I've been running it for a couple of weeks now (build 944) and
it hasn't given me any trouble, no blue screens or anything.
I'm using the client services for netware and network access seems
to be much faster under 3.51.

I'd go with it, the compression on NTFS drives is also very handy.

--
Magnus

Nik Simpson

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Apr 29, 1995, 3:00:00 AM4/29/95
to
>I just received NT 3.51 beta from MSDN. Has anyone been running it for
>long enough to be able to tell me if there's anything I should know
>before I upgrade my NT 3.5 WS
>TIA

I've been running 3.51 since February, I've build 1002 for about three
weeks, as far as I can tell it is rock solid. Just remember that it will
siliently replace modem.inf and switch.inf, it does rename them to
modem.bak and switch.bak so all is not lost.

--
Nik Simpson


Ron Forrester

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Apr 30, 1995, 3:00:00 AM4/30/95
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In article <48748...@t-a-g.demon.co.uk>, ed...@t-a-g.demon.co.uk says...
>
>I just received NT 3.51 beta from MSDN. Has anyone been running it for
>long enough to be able to tell me if there's anything I should know
>before I upgrade my NT 3.5 WS

Overall, its pretty solid. However, the new help engine needs work
(has crashed on me, and behave oddly -- for instance, it refuses to
index my win32.hlp file).

Also, I can't prove it (yet), but there may be a bug in the disk
compression. Nothing that causes data loss. One night I was working
late, and VC++ started complaining about some random characters in
its own header files. So, I went and looked at the header files, and
there were no problems with them that I could see (even using a hex
editor).

I went back and compiled again, this time it did not complain about
the header file it had just complained about, but rather a different
one. I typed make again, and once again, the same thing, a new header
file.

I ran chkdsk, no problems reported. I uncompressed my MSVC20 directory
and have not had problems since.

I have other directories compressed, and have had no problems. So, I
don't know what was going on.

Overall though, NT 3.51 is aweful solid...

rjf


Brian Dorricott

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May 1, 1995, 3:00:00 AM5/1/95
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In article <48748...@t-a-g.demon.co.uk>, ed...@t-a-g.demon.co.uk (Alistair mackay) says:
>
>I just received NT 3.51 beta from MSDN. Has anyone been running it for
>long enough to be able to tell me if there's anything I should know
>before I upgrade my NT 3.5 WS
>TIA

I have had 3.51 hang several times. No mouse or keyboard input
was accepted. Then suddenly (after about a minute), things recovered,
keyboard failed (but not mouse) so I was able to attempt to close the
system down. It didn't close though.

Also IVC crashed the Win16 subsystem - and it would not recover.

Brian

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Garth Kidd

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May 2, 1995, 3:00:00 AM5/2/95
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I just downgraded to NT 3.5. Here's the sorry tale:

1. Upgrade NT 3.5 to 3.51
2. Accidentally run NT 3.5 Service pack 2.
2b. This runs to completion without a single warning. Ta, Microsoft.
3. Realise that the OS is now well and truly hosed.
4. Attempt to re-install 3.51 over the top.

... and the the fun begins. 'Updating', installing fresh over the top,
reformatting and trying again... you name it, it didn't *quite* work, with
mouse drivers trying to initialise before the serial port drivers, the
CD-ROM driver failing to appear only half the time (not the Panasonic bug --
cold boot each time), and so on.

Now I'm back to 3.5, everything is running nice and smooth again. I think
I'll leave any further adventures with 3.51 until it's a release product; at
least that way, I can be reasonably sure that any problems I'm encountering
are my own fault and not perhaps an OS glitch triggered by being unusual.

One hint, though, to people doing seriously odd mucking around with their
systems -- never be scared to back up your data (to local FAT filesystem or
nearby mountable volume with long filename support) and re-install from
scratch.

ObInterestingThing: some friends of mine were trying to ressurect an old Mac
Plus yesterday, and managed to get it up and running with System 7.5. This,
to me, is pretty impressive. Just try and run NT on an old 80286-based PC :)

--
ga...@pisces.systems.sa.gov.au | Garth Kidd
+61-8-207-7740 (voice) | Professional Services Division
+61-8-207-7860 (fax) | Southern Systems
| Adelaide, AUSTRALIA

Al Johnson

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May 2, 1995, 3:00:00 AM5/2/95
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Garth Kidd (ga...@pisces.systems.sa.gov.au) wrote:
: I just downgraded to NT 3.5. Here's the sorry tale:

: 1. Upgrade NT 3.5 to 3.51
: 2. Accidentally run NT 3.5 Service pack 2.
: 2b. This runs to completion without a single warning. Ta, Microsoft.
: 3. Realise that the OS is now well and truly hosed.
: 4. Attempt to re-install 3.51 over the top.

: ... and the the fun begins. 'Updating', installing fresh over the top,
: reformatting and trying again... you name it, it didn't *quite* work, with
: mouse drivers trying to initialise before the serial port drivers, the
: CD-ROM driver failing to appear only half the time (not the Panasonic bug --
: cold boot each time), and so on.

: Now I'm back to 3.5, everything is running nice and smooth again. I think
: I'll leave any further adventures with 3.51 until it's a release product; at
: least that way, I can be reasonably sure that any problems I'm encountering
: are my own fault and not perhaps an OS glitch triggered by being unusual.


I have one question. If your so worried about the stability of your
NT installation why did you install a beta test product?? Isn't the
nature of the BETA program to alert Microsoft to bugs, oddities, etc.

Personnaly, I've tried more odd scenarios since I installed the BETA with
the hope of ferreting out bugs. I'll put up with some crashes during
BETA in the hope of getting a better production release.


: One hint, though, to people doing seriously odd mucking around with their

: systems -- never be scared to back up your data (to local FAT filesystem or
: nearby mountable volume with long filename support) and re-install from
: scratch.

That's why BETA testers should have superb backups. I reinstalled NT then
did a restore of the entire system just to see how well it works. Some
bugs, bet they've all been reported.


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Alan R. Johnson Minnesota Department of Transportation
Manager, Network Services 308 Transportation Building MS 285
+1 612 297 1289 Voice St. Paul Mn, 55155
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Opinions expressed are my own, noone else would claim them!


Diego B. Gallina

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May 3, 1995, 3:00:00 AM5/3/95
to
Garth,

Interesting point on the Mac Plus running system 7.5. On the other hand,
consider if you will the relative difference between upgrades of original mac
system --> System 7.5 and, say, Dos 1.x to WinNT in roughly the same time
period...

Which one has progressed MUCH farther and which one is still the same
basic architecture with progressive patches?? Right, the Mac hasn't changed
all that much in 11 years so it SHOULD be able to run System 7.5.

No religious arguments intended, please, these are just my opinions....

-Diego (dgal...@mindspring.com)


T.R. Colasanto

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May 3, 1995, 3:00:00 AM5/3/95
to
I've also been using it since the day I got it, and it is a big improvment, and it
even has a lot of little things in it that look like Win95, such as the help engine
(obviously) and little things like the Media Player and the CD Player.... Pretty
cool.


Unfortunately though, I tried upgrading to 3.51 build 1002 about two weeks ago, and
it crashed big time....Serious bugs with NetWare, and I couldn't run any 16-bit apps
at all, so if anyone comes across 1002 and is considering upgrading, I'd advise
against it. I did it on a server, and you can't easily 'downgrade' back to 944....I
won't even begin to describe the trouble of reinstalling a PDC with the same domain
name and trying to get all of the workstations to see it OK.....Don't ask.


-TR

Tim Aiello

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May 9, 1995, 3:00:00 AM5/9/95
to
In article <3nr2mf$f...@data.interserv.net>, jpr...@hq.walldata.com says...
>
>In article <48748...@t-a-g.demon.co.uk>, ed...@t-a-g.demon.co.uk says...

>>
>>I just received NT 3.51 beta from MSDN. Has anyone been running it for
>>long enough to be able to tell me if there's anything I should know
>>before I upgrade my NT 3.5 WS
>>TIA
>
>I have been using NT 3.51 for about 2 weeks now as a development machine and
>haven't run into any problems. By the way, the new help engine is
>pretty cool!
>

Is there a way to disable this useless new help engine. It totally SUCKS
compared to the help searching capabilities that are in the VC++ help system for
instance. Same sort of search you find in the Knowledge base and MSDN CD's.

The worst thing is that this new (SHITTY) help engine overrides the one that is
in the VC++ help system. Can't stand it ... can't find anything in help anymore.
Even #@*&$^@#*&^$#@& worse is the fact that it has to build these index files
which are already sitting there on the $#$#*&^$*&@#^$ VC++ CD. What a complete
waste.

+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
Tim Aiello Internet e-mail: tsai...@pandr.com
Proctor & Redfern Limited Company Web Page: http://www.pandr.com/
Professional Consulting Services
45 Green Belt Drive Voice: 416.445.7022 x2453
Don Mills, Ontario Fax: 416.445.5276
Canada, M3C 3K3
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Daniel R. Slater

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May 16, 1995, 3:00:00 AM5/16/95
to
In article <597cb$e513...@toronto1.pandr.com>, tsai...@pandr.com says...

I believe that if you look on the NT 3.51 CD-ROM, you will find that
the old help engine is there along with instructions on how
to use it.


>
>Is there a way to disable this useless new help engine. It totally SUCKS
>compared to the help searching capabilities that are in the VC++ help system for
>instance. Same sort of search you find in the Knowledge base and MSDN CD's.
>
>The worst thing is that this new (SHITTY) help engine overrides the one that is
>in the VC++ help system. Can't stand it ... can't find anything in help anymore.
> Even #@*&$^@#*&^$#@& worse is the fact that it has to build these index files
>which are already sitting there on the $#$#*&^$*&@#^$ VC++ CD. What a complete
>waste.
>
>+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
> Tim Aiello Internet e-mail: tsai...@pandr.com
> Proctor & Redfern Limited Company Web Page: http://www.pandr.com/
> Professional Consulting Services
> 45 Green Belt Drive Voice: 416.445.7022 x2453
> Don Mills, Ontario Fax: 416.445.5276
> Canada, M3C 3K3
>+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
>
>
>

--
dsl...@mathsoft.com

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