6 ms·

MCNE/MCSE here from the mid-90’s, agree it was obvious that Netware would likely fade. Windows NT 3.51 (even though it wasn’t as good at the time), was more us

MCNE/MCSE here from the mid-90’s, agree it was obvious that Netware would likely fade. Windows NT 3.51 (even though it wasn’t as good at the time), was more user friendly and had the Windows interface, compatibility, etc etc However, it NT wasn’t remotely as stable as Netware at that time either. Then we got to watch as Novell slowly went insane competing and buying WordPerfect and doing all sorts of other crazy moves. I still wish that Novell had taken all of its money and bought VMware when they were just working on GSX/ESX (now vSphere). This would have changed the trajectory of both Novell and the market.

Angostura 2y ago
In addition, from what I vaguely recall, one of the big selling point of NT LAN Manager was the ability to deploy network server applications on the server. Novell responded with Netware Loadable Modules, but they weren’t as versatile and needed specialised knowledge/tools.
- linsomniac 2y ago
  The software I was working on in the late '80s made use of Btrieve, a ISAM database server running on Netware. IIRC there was also a SQL server of some sort that we used with it, mostly for reporting.
  - craz8 2y ago
    I used Btrieve a lot in several jobs in the UK in the late 80s and early 90s. It was fast and easy to work with, mostly I used the stand alone version, not the later NLM on the server
- flomo 2y ago
  Yep, Netware ran entirely in Ring 0. In linux terminology it was a kernel with no user space, and NLMs were kernel modules. Very fast for file serving, but any application could crash the system. Stability was largely a result of lots of updates. NT had userspace, protected memory, etc, and a GUI for setting up TCP/IP.
  - Sesse__ 2y ago
    In NetWare 4.x (and even more so in 5.x), you could give NLMs their own address space. But by then, it was probably lost anyway.
    - skissane 2y ago
      Around 2006/2007, I was playing around with NetWare 6.5 at work. We had heaps of it but lots of talk about replacing NetWare/eDir/GroupWise with Windows/AD/Exchange (which I think finally did happen after I left the place). My recollection was it was quite unstable - because, having come from Linux, I was playing with bash and SSH. bash would crash a lot (something that very rarely happens on Linux) but it wouldn’t bring down the whole server (which was a dev/test NetWare server anyway). I don’t remember what exactly I was trying to do: I had some work-related justification, which I forget now - something something identity management - but my real reason was just to explore the system. The instability of it convinced me to not take any ideas I had any further.
  - surfingdino 2y ago
    > NT had userspace, protected memory, etc, and a GUI for setting up TCP/IP. That's because Microsoft hired Dave Cutler who previously worked on VMS and knew what he was doing. Microsoft even had their own Unix, but didn't know what to do with it.
    - flomo 2y ago
      The issue with UNIX on PCs was the $1000 or whatever licensing cost. Just as some trivia, Novell bought UNIX System V R4 from AT&T and planned to merge it with Netware to create "SuperNOS", which would have been a direct competitor to NT. But they never got it out the door and spun-off UNIX to (old) SCO.
    - sllabres 2y ago
      Microsoft Xenix (never knew more about it than the name). For small to medium sized businesses Netware had the advantage that with IPX networking there was nearly no configuration necessary. No subnetting, assigning of IP addresses to clients or running DHCP services. The availability of software on the server was limited (i remember backup services, licensing software). But for central file service and printing it was rock solid, even in a bit larger (for the time, around 1995) environments without any issues. (IRC >200 clients on a single 486 CPU and 4 MB RAM)
mixmastamyk 2y ago
NT 3.51 was rock solid, I had it on my desk and it never crashed once during the ~year I ran it. Which was a huge deal for MS in those days. Of course they chose performance over stability in 4.x moving display drivers in to the kernel. Thankfully it didn’t affect servers much since they could be run on vga/svga drivers.
- genewitch 2y ago
  i ran NT4 from right before 98 until about a year into win2k's release cycle. I remember it never crashing, i think power outages were the only thing that ruined my uptime during those years. I had XP for a little while after win2k because of directx, but as soon as x64 released i was on that, and then 7 x64. My timeline for windows left me moderately happy with my own experience - but i did a lot of "repair" for 95-vista for friends, family, customers, and businesses. Windows Millennium Edition, everyone!
  - mixmastamyk 2y ago
    Stability was heavily dependent on your display card and driver >= 4.0 until the recent past. It could be fine or horrible depending on how well the manufacturer did their job. My memory is that 3.X could restart graphics if a crash happened there.
    - genewitch 2y ago
      could be, i never used 3.51
nradov 2y ago
Besides the technical and functional weaknesses of NetWare, Novell also shot themselves in the foot by making the product hard to buy. As an end customer you generally couldn't buy it directly. Instead you had to go through an authorized reseller who would try to upsell you on a bunch of hardware and services. That made some sense in the early days of PC LANs when you had to plug hardware jumpers into network cards to configure interrupts but by the time Windows NT launched it was just stupid. Microsoft made NT easy and hassle free for anyone with money to buy and install, which tremendously accelerated early adoption.
- kjellsbells 2y ago
  The advantage of Microsoft being second is that they could watch what VARs were installing and make very sure that NT would work seamlessly with that. It didnt take much for them to realize that, say, the 3Com 3C905 or the NE2000 NIC were far and away the best selling NIC in Netware installations, and that therefore they should make very sure that they Just Worked on NT. I worked in Token Ring at the time. It was...less fun.
bboreham 2y ago
Novell bought Unix! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UnixWare#Novell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UnixWare#Novell

Angostura 2y ago

In addition, from what I vaguely recall, one of the big selling point of NT LAN Manager was the ability to deploy network server applications on the server. Novell responded with Netware Loadable Modules, but they weren’t as versatile and needed specialised knowledge/tools.

linsomniac 2y ago
The software I was working on in the late '80s made use of Btrieve, a ISAM database server running on Netware. IIRC there was also a SQL server of some sort that we used with it, mostly for reporting.
- craz8 2y ago
  I used Btrieve a lot in several jobs in the UK in the late 80s and early 90s. It was fast and easy to work with, mostly I used the stand alone version, not the later NLM on the server
flomo 2y ago
Yep, Netware ran entirely in Ring 0. In linux terminology it was a kernel with no user space, and NLMs were kernel modules. Very fast for file serving, but any application could crash the system. Stability was largely a result of lots of updates. NT had userspace, protected memory, etc, and a GUI for setting up TCP/IP.
- Sesse__ 2y ago
  In NetWare 4.x (and even more so in 5.x), you could give NLMs their own address space. But by then, it was probably lost anyway.
  - skissane 2y ago
    Around 2006/2007, I was playing around with NetWare 6.5 at work. We had heaps of it but lots of talk about replacing NetWare/eDir/GroupWise with Windows/AD/Exchange (which I think finally did happen after I left the place). My recollection was it was quite unstable - because, having come from Linux, I was playing with bash and SSH. bash would crash a lot (something that very rarely happens on Linux) but it wouldn’t bring down the whole server (which was a dev/test NetWare server anyway). I don’t remember what exactly I was trying to do: I had some work-related justification, which I forget now - something something identity management - but my real reason was just to explore the system. The instability of it convinced me to not take any ideas I had any further.
- surfingdino 2y ago
  > NT had userspace, protected memory, etc, and a GUI for setting up TCP/IP. That's because Microsoft hired Dave Cutler who previously worked on VMS and knew what he was doing. Microsoft even had their own Unix, but didn't know what to do with it.
  - flomo 2y ago
    The issue with UNIX on PCs was the $1000 or whatever licensing cost. Just as some trivia, Novell bought UNIX System V R4 from AT&T and planned to merge it with Netware to create "SuperNOS", which would have been a direct competitor to NT. But they never got it out the door and spun-off UNIX to (old) SCO.
  - sllabres 2y ago
    Microsoft Xenix (never knew more about it than the name). For small to medium sized businesses Netware had the advantage that with IPX networking there was nearly no configuration necessary. No subnetting, assigning of IP addresses to clients or running DHCP services. The availability of software on the server was limited (i remember backup services, licensing software). But for central file service and printing it was rock solid, even in a bit larger (for the time, around 1995) environments without any issues. (IRC >200 clients on a single 486 CPU and 4 MB RAM)

mixmastamyk 2y ago

NT 3.51 was rock solid, I had it on my desk and it never crashed once during the ~year I ran it. Which was a huge deal for MS in those days. Of course they chose performance over stability in 4.x moving display drivers in to the kernel. Thankfully it didn’t affect servers much since they could be run on vga/svga drivers.

genewitch 2y ago
i ran NT4 from right before 98 until about a year into win2k's release cycle. I remember it never crashing, i think power outages were the only thing that ruined my uptime during those years. I had XP for a little while after win2k because of directx, but as soon as x64 released i was on that, and then 7 x64. My timeline for windows left me moderately happy with my own experience - but i did a lot of "repair" for 95-vista for friends, family, customers, and businesses. Windows Millennium Edition, everyone!
- mixmastamyk 2y ago
  Stability was heavily dependent on your display card and driver >= 4.0 until the recent past. It could be fine or horrible depending on how well the manufacturer did their job. My memory is that 3.X could restart graphics if a crash happened there.
  - genewitch 2y ago
    could be, i never used 3.51

nradov 2y ago

Besides the technical and functional weaknesses of NetWare, Novell also shot themselves in the foot by making the product hard to buy. As an end customer you generally couldn't buy it directly. Instead you had to go through an authorized reseller who would try to upsell you on a bunch of hardware and services. That made some sense in the early days of PC LANs when you had to plug hardware jumpers into network cards to configure interrupts but by the time Windows NT launched it was just stupid. Microsoft made NT easy and hassle free for anyone with money to buy and install, which tremendously accelerated early adoption.

kjellsbells 2y ago
The advantage of Microsoft being second is that they could watch what VARs were installing and make very sure that NT would work seamlessly with that. It didnt take much for them to realize that, say, the 3Com 3C905 or the NE2000 NIC were far and away the best selling NIC in Netware installations, and that therefore they should make very sure that they Just Worked on NT. I worked in Token Ring at the time. It was...less fun.

bboreham 2y ago

Novell bought Unix! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UnixWare#Novell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UnixWare#Novell