Windows NT 5.0 Survey

What do you think of NT 5.0? Our sister publication, InformationWeek, along with Network Computing and other CMP Media publications, conducted a survey of 300 IT managers who were evaluating the new release of the operating system. This group showed strong interest in NT 5.0, but wasn't expecting much from the early releases. Most respondents said that while they plan to deploy the operating system, they won't worry much if it's delayed, even if it's as much as a year late.

The study, summarized in charts throughout this article, was conducted by World Research and consisted of 300 telephone interviews in late September. Ninety-two percent of those contacted were evaluating both NT 5.0 Workstation and Server, leaving only a few who were looking at just one or the other.

NT 5.0 Goes Easy on the Reboots

According to Microsoft, NT 5.0 will reduce the number of instances in which a system change necessitates a reboot. In our testing we found this to be true: Several actions that would have meant rebooting with NT 4.0 (such as changing protocol settings on the network cards) did not precipitate a reboot in NT 5.0 Beta 2.

Microsoft claims that by the time NT 5.0 ships, only five scenarios will require a system restart. These include:

· Changing locality or system language

· Changing domain membership

· Replacing an NT kernel in a service pack

· Enabling/disabling caching of network folders

· Changing CD-ROM drivers