>I am looking for the principal differences between NT Wks 4 (Fat 16 installation) and Win95 for my old DOS applications.
>I found some incompatibility as XCOPY32 command doesn't exist in NT and the /Y parameter. When we use these commands in DOS application, NT doesn't recongmize them.
Unlike Win95, NT's underpinnings are not those of DOS. The command processor COMMAND.COM is replaced by CMD.EXE; there are some differences in the batch language, the syntax of some basic DOS commands, and the actual commands implemented.
FWIW, XCOPY32 is Win95/Win98 specific; it does not exist either in DOS/Win3.x or in any version of WinNT. The functionality of XCOPY32 is provided in NT by the XCOPY command; unlike Win95, XCOPY under NT supports the full range of operations involving LFNs and extended file attributes, and also has some NT-specific extensions available to it.
Compatibility with some DOS applications is intentionally sacrificed under NT in return for better security and stability. DOS programs that attempt to deal directly with the hardware, especially games and communications software that directly manipulate I/O ports rather than using BIOS or API services are likely not to work because of protections built into NT's HAL, which provides a virtualized view of the system hardware to applications. There are also problems with some Win16 applications that use VxD-based access to hardware.
Overall, NT is a much more stable platform than Win95/Win98, and applications are better shielded from each other. This means that when an application does crash, it is not likely to bring NT to a halt; certain types of program failures under Win95/98 not only halt the affected program, but shut down the operating system and all other tasks as well.
There are a huge number of differences to outline; I'd suggest picking up a book on NTsuch as Que's
Using Windows NT Workstation 4 and
Using Windows NT Server 4. If there's a
For Dummys series book on NT available from IDG, that'd be an excellent place to start as well; it'll be less expensive than the two Que books that I mentioned above, and the
For Dummys books are targeted at providing immediate, practical information on their subjects without attempting to be comprehensive guide books (the Que books run in excess of 1200 pages each.)
>If someone know where I can find other basis problems as above, please send me this information.
