Daniel's Windows Systems Page
Understanding the Windows ecosystem:
Why Windows?
I first got involved with Computers in about 1977. My brother bought a Timex Sinclair and an Apple ][. I managed to scrounge a TRS-80 shortly thereafter. I soon replaced the TRS 80 with a commodore. By the mid 80s I was running a bulleting board on an Amiga 500 then 2000. I supported PS1 and PS2, Apple and Macintosh. I also had at least one system for each format supported. I used a Boca board and supported the integration via US Robotics 9600 baud V,32bis modems and 8 phone lines.
This of course was a personal endeavor and realized no economic gain. I was working to try and develop a business doing broadcast titling on the Amiga 2000. I blew tons of money on the genlocks and time syncs only to realize I could not compete with the big labs. I moved to focusing on networking and started connecting some mortgage companies together using Windows 3.11 as it became available.
This was of course background for what eventually became a career. I moved to Novell and worked as a Network Administrator for a bio-tech company by 1993. They allowed me the latitude to take the old iron they were not using and build out test labs for future versions of the server backbone. We were producing huge amounts of data for 1993 and we had few things that could handle the Terabytes of data we were generating.
Along came my introduction to Windows New Technology (NT) 3.5. I built out a lab and used the NT to Novell Gateway software to peer into the Novell network. The lab was great fun and I learned a lot about NT. Then one fateful day the Novell Network crashed and could not be restored. I had been playing with the gateway and had a copy of the Novell structures on my NT servers. I stood up a server and restored the Novell network from NT via the gateway.
I mentioned this to a friend who turned out to work for Microsoft IT. He invited me into the main server farm for a visit. Instead of 15 servers there were over 3500. I was blown away. I was even further dumbfounded when he offered me a job tending those servers on the Operations Triage team. I accepted on the spot. Thus began a love affair with Windows that has lasted until this day.
Am I a Windows bigot, yes, by avocation and not by philosophy. My philosophical bent is that all major operating systems have some merit and the right tool should be used for the right job.
Client versus server
Experientially I have had extensive work on both client and server operating system. My preference by far is server based operating systems. They provide the infrastructure that allows our businesses to compete and advance in the information age. Listed in the table below are some of the operating systems I have had experience with. I will not deal with non-Microsoft or pre 1995 operating systems.
| Client Operating System | Server Operating Systems |
|---|---|
| Microsoft Windows 95 | Microsoft Windows NT 3.51 |
| Microsoft Windows 98 (I skipped ME) |
Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 |
| Microsoft Windows XP (all versions) |
Microsoft Windows 2000 (all versions) |
| Microsoft Vista Basic, Enterprise and Ultimate | Microsoft Windows 2003 (all versions including Home Server) |
| Microsoft Windows 2008 (Standard, Web, Enterprise and Itanium) |