A quick look back at the launch of Windows NT 3.1, 30 years today

Before 1993, Microsoft had developed its MS-DOS operating system, along with its graphical UI-based Windows OS, which was built on top of MS-DOS for backwards compatibility with older applications.

However, the company wanted to make a new OS that combined the graphical interface of Windows but could do more than what the 16-bit MS-DOS was capable of doing. The final result was Microsoft Windows NT 3.1, which 'went gold' (released to manufacturing) 30 years ago today, on July 27, 1993.

In addition to Windows NT 3.1, which was made for the enterprise and workstation market, Microsoft also launched a Windows NT 3.1 Advanced Server, which was created for server computers, as the name indicates.

Yes, that does mean that today is also the 30th birthday of Windows Server. Microsoft even celebrates that milestone today with a blog post. The post stated:

This remarkable release, equipped with 32-bit architecture and boasting processor independence, ushered in a new era of computing capabilities. Among its prominent features were preemptive multitasking, multiprocessing, and multiuser support, which collectively elevated the standard of operating systems. Windows NT Server 3.1 laid the cornerstone for a multitude of subsequent Windows and Windows Server iterations.

According to the 1998 book Microsoft Secrets by authors Michael A. Cusumano and Richard W. Shelby, the genesis of Windows NT 3.1 started a few years earlier in 1988. At the time, Microsoft ruled the PC world with MS-DOS and the first early versions of Windows.

However, there were growing concerns from the company's co-founder Bill Gates and its chief technical officer Nathan Myhrvold that the combination of CPUs with RISC architectures and Unix operating systems could be a threat to Microsoft's hold on computing.

Gates hired Dave Cutler, who previously worked at DEC (Digital Equipment Corporation) to lead the development of Windows NT 3.1. Originally, the plan was to work with IBM on a version of its OS/2 operating system. Also, the base CPU architecture for the new OS was the Intel i860, which was based on the RISC chip design.

However, Microsoft eventually decided to ditch its partnership with IBM and its OS/2 system, thanks in part to the success of Windows 3.0, which launched in 1990. A decision was also made to make the OS work with Intel chips that had its standard x86 architecture, which Intel has continued to support to this day.

The system requirements for Windows NT 3.1 for Intel x86 chips were pretty high for 1993. It needed a CPU with at least 25 MHz of clock speed, along with 12MB of RAM, 75MB of hard drive space, and a VGA graphics card.

The OS also could be used with PCs with processors that used the MIPS and DEC Alpha architectures.

Windows NT 3.1 could do a lot of things that the standard Windows operating systems of that era could not do. Today's blog post from Microsoft summarizes it best:

This remarkable release, equipped with 32-bit architecture and boasting processor independence, ushered in a new era of computing capabilities. Among its prominent features were preemptive multitasking, multiprocessing, and multiuser support, which collectively elevated the standard of operating systems. Windows NT Server 3.1 laid the cornerstone for a multitude of subsequent Windows and Windows Server iterations.

Sales of the OS were light to moderate. There was a lack of pure 32-bit applications that could run on Windows NT 3.1 at the time, and as we stated previously, the system requirements were on the high side at that time.

Despite this, the influence of this OS on future Microsoft Windows OS releases, including ones made for consumer PCs, continues to this day.

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