I just recently did a video about os2 1.3 which  had a UI that shared remarkable resemblance  to Windows 3.x being both a child of IBM and  Microsoft the latter was in the best position  to bring their Windows software over to os2 and  so they did with Microsoft Word Excel and even  the windows 3.0 applets today we're gonna look  at an early version of Windows NT but did you  know that Windows NT actually merged from os2  and was rumored to become anti os2 version 3.  it's obsolete technology no one uses today  but I'll bring it back to life I'm the Vintage  collector and these are my stories [Music] when  digging around when willpc.com I stumbled across  this interesting bit here the presentation manager  add-on for Windows NT in case you're not familiar  with the presentation manager that was the name  of the graphical UI of os2 release 1.1 through 1.3  now why would Microsoft support the os2  presentation manager on Windows NT as the  PM package is only offered from Windows and T 3.51  and NT 4.0 I'm giving it a shot with NT 3.51 first  my guinea pig is the expert 286 machine that  was previously featured on this video here  I don't want to fiddle around with 22 floppy  disks so I took a CD-ROM version and copied the  i386 folder onto the hard drive to perform a local  disk to disk install you'll find given nt.exe in  the i386 directory it offers various options even  to create a floppy disk set but we're not gonna  do that instead I'll run with nt.exe with the  slash B parameter for a direct install during  this era Windows NT was still installable directly  from dos so here we see the initial preparation  routine which will eventually perform a reboot  before it comes up in the actual NT driven setup  this one again will perform some file copying  actions so we get to see yet another progress  bar before we finally hit the graphical UI not  without going through yet another reboot of course  and this is where the madness began as I forgot  to connect the mouse so I did reset reconnected  the mouse only to find this message on the next  reboot oh well I should have known better Windows  NT 3.x did obviously not yet feature resuming  capabilities for the OS setup so I went back to  Dawson rerun with nt.exe which in fact claimed  to clean up some temporary installation files  hence I ran through the same procedure once  again eventually even getting to see some of  the GUI setup but wait a second it didn't ask me  anything not even to set a new password I don't  know what exactly setup is doing here but I have  a bad feeling about it and I stand confirmed once  the system rebooted I do get a login prompt but as  I have no credentials I'm essentially stuck here  so all good things are three I went to wipe  Drive C completely and start over again but  eventually I end up on the graphical UI as  I had expected in the first place if only I  didn't bail out from it before but at least you  get to see the third file copying progress bar  as if the two before weren't enough already and  finally we end up on the login screen again which  this time admits me into this system if you knew  windows 3.x then Windows NT 3.51 will look very  familiar except that it comes with another  accessory group for the administrative tools  from here you can manage your system uses the hard  drives have a look at the system performance and  even diagnose your system now if you're wondering  why NT started only with release 3.1 and why there  was no releases 1.0 or 2.0 here's the answer  Microsoft intentionally released Windows nt7  workstation has released 3.1 to put it on par  with the then current dos based Windows 3.1  that was not the only reason if anything they  claimed that there was no previous release of  Windows NT is not fully correct at least in a  broader sense it is correct that windows and T  is for the most new operating system development  mostly driven by David N Cutler of deck Fame  whom developed the VMS operating system as a  consequence Windows NT Builds on many fundamental  Design Concepts found in VMS but that's only half  the story Windows NT included various subsystems  or operating system personalities four at the  very beginning to run classic 16-bit Windows  applications Through the Windows on Windows  subsystem dos applications yrd dos vdm posix text  mode applications so basically a unique subset  and finally 16-bit os2 text mode applications  it would be wrong to say that Windows NT is built  on those two technology but in the broader of all  senses one may think of os2 releases one point x  still as being a precursor to NT to add to this  claim many resources State and when Microsoft  and IBM parted ways from their previous joint  development on os2 rbn went on to developers to  release 2.x whereas Microsoft took what once was  called ntos2 that's also the reason why do is  to subsystem in Windows NT is limited to the  release 1.x as Microsoft had the source code only  for that and not the later os2 release 2 branch  and to come back to the reason why NT launched  as release 3.1 os2 released 2.x was already out  at the time when NT 3.1 came along so it was only  natural to put the version 3 in here to say hey  we're one ahead and while NT eventually ended up  being something entirely different he took some  Heritage alone not only the os2 sub-system but  also support for os2's hbfs the high performance  file system but on a timeline perspective this  all happened in the period of around 1988 to 1993.  now it's interesting the Microsoft released the  presentation manager add-on for Windows NT only  for NT 3.51 which came in May 1995 so roughly  four months before the release of windows 95.  and again for Windows NT 4.0 coming in 1996 the  presentation manager addon was also made available  to my best knowledge though there was never  a version of the presentation manager for NT  3.1 or at least none that is available and  documented who makes it interesting though  is that os2 was surely not strategic anymore for  Microsoft in 1995 except maybe for one reason to  win over a deal for certain customers whom have  previously invested into os2 1.x and should be  given a transitional option that's the only  reason I can imagine why this add-on exists  it comes on five floppies and as opposed to other  markers of products it doesn't really look very  polished as it features only this very basic  text mode batch installer and while it seems a  bit weird seeing how is too fast being installed  into Windows you'll end up with a new program  group for the PM subsystem in program manager as  usual reboot is required to get it up and running  as opposed to the real os2 which had  its own application launcher this is  fully replaced with the Windows NT program  manager and the icons appear here as shown  but you have to be aware that the PM shell has to  be running as otherwise if you try running just  any random applet you'll get this error so just be  sure to run the PM Shell First and you'll be fine  running the PM shell just like this will switch  over to another desktop where you won't find much  as opposed to the real os2 where you'd have  the desktop manager kind of the similar thing  to the windows program manager to launch your  applications this is totally absent when running  an NT it's no big deal to run your applications  from Windows program manager however if you intend  to start multiple applications you'd be always  jumping forward and back between the two desktop  environments which you can do by simply clicking  the small Windows NT icon on the lower right  not exactly the way I'd Define usability it's a  pity they didn't invest into seamless windowing  mode kind of similar as to what os2 did with  Windows 3.x applications in later releases  to have them appear on the native desktop now the  install disk for the presentation manager includes  a readme file which gives also some hints on  installing the real os2 file manager which  unfortunately is not included with the package  of course Windows NT has its own file manager  but as a comparison I took the os2 file manager  and copied the files over manually I'll also  create the program icon Windows own program exe  already provides some icons though I believe none  is suitable let's see eventy's own winfolder DXE  has something more appealing okay this one looks  decent let's fire them up both and have them side  by side this is really awesome don't you thinklast time when I played around with os2 1.3 I  went into installing the os2 presentation manager  versions of Microsoft's word in Excel let's see  how good the compatibility of the os2 subsystem  on NT really is as if you can actually run these  two applications this setup process looks just  about fine the installers run through like a  charm as noted earlier on the PM desktop manager  is absent so I'm curious to see what happens  now as it's asking to create the program icons  now that's really nice Microsoft obviously  extended DPM subsystem in a way that the program  group creation is intercepted and redirected  to windows program manager so the icons are  created here although with some very generic icons  even referring to them being MS-DOS applications  that's sort of a missed opportunity as at least  they should have been including a genericos to  icon in my opinion and still I think it would  have been really nice to have the desktop manager  on the presentation manager as well don't  tell me this couldn't have been co-existing  to put it even further on trial let's also install  the windows native version of excel 3.0 as implied  by the technical limitations how presentation  manager applications are run on Windows and  T I cannot put them side by side directly  so I need to use again some video trickery  nevertheless it's totally fascinating to see  literally one empty same application compiled for  different operating systems running side by side  on the same host OS and this for 1995 technology  one may say many things about Microsoft but  these guys have really done a nice job here  to make that work also wanted to give  it a shot with the presentation manager  version of Microsoft Word and while it did  actually install whenever I try running it it  would quickly switch over to the PM shell and  immediately drop back to the Windows desktop  something is definitely wrong here but  let's leave it at that at least that's  what I thought though on the next reboot I get  this error which is directly related to Windows  NT failing to load some dependency that was  introduced by the os2 version of Microsoft Word  I recovered from this situation using the last  known good recovery option on nt's boot manager my  last video now is 2 1.3 also featured the windows  3.0 applets for os2 which were made to run using  the willow compatibility layer not too different  from the wine API implementation in later years  it totally fascinated me how this made the  windows native apples run in os2 and I wanted  to really push it now and see if I can actually  install in Romney's applets on Windows NT as well  I know that this is kind of pointless as Windows  and T 3.x includes the very same applets already  but it's all about the demonstration purposes  the installation again is CLI driven under arms  through but guess my surprise when I saw the  applets running on the Windows native desktop  I would have expected them to switch over  to Ronaldo is 2 presentation manager instead  but just by seeing this it implies that the  compatibility layer introduced by Willow on  os2 just intercepts of in 16 API calls with the  applications remaining widely unaltered otherwise  I cannot reasonably explain why the applications  would remain on the Windows environment to which  they are native maybe it's worthwhile to drill  down if the actual binaries are the original  ones that came with Windows 3.0 unaltered or if  they were in fact linked against both the windows  dlls and The Willow dlls making them real hybrid  binaries actually the installer claims exactly  this that the binaries were specifically linked  correct but even without exploring this at this  point I believe that this statement is only  true for things like the included main dll  files like kernel GDI user but not necessarily  the included applets I'm pretty certain that  only the main libraries were linked against os2  specific dlls whereas the amplits themselves just  linked to the standard Windows dlls thus making  them an old third I may be wrong and probably am  and it definitely goes too far for this video as  there's one more thing I'd like to explore so far  you saw the PM subsystem must be started manual  before you can run any applications the already  mentioned Remy file on the PM setup disk also  covers some means of starting the presentation  manager as a service while the mentions were  the required files are found on floppy disk  number four it's odd that one of the two phones  is actually installed and the other one notI do as told and create a new  service named os2pm subsystem like so  the readme provides additional instructions  on what must now be configured in the system  registry I'll add the parameters key and the  two values for app directory and start PM shell  as all I want is to pre-start the presentation  manager subsystem starting this service while the  services control panel seems to have the desired  effect running it now as a persistent service  and now I can simply run any applet like the PM  control panel which will then launch into the  PM shell as usual with the presentation manager  now running as a service let's see what happens  when I log in with a different user see how the  pmshell icon appears in the lower left corner  and I can jump directly into the PM file manager  right away without needing to care if the PM shell  is already running or not same goes if I look  back into the administrator account with that  being done I do hope that it will now start the  PM shell automatically so I can use it right away  and here it is on the next startup os2.exe  is being launched automatically when I log in  but what's that this screen suddenly went dark  okay it's not an issue with the monitor but  I think I crashed my NT can it be but even the  second attempt ends up in the very same situation  So eventually I was going again for the last  known good configuration to bring the system  up again and revert those last service related  changes I guess I need to dig in further on what  was going wrong here okay okay I was pushing it  to the limits so it's no surprise it broke but  I broke it like four times through the entire  process can you believe it still I think you  got the idea but the multio's personalities  that David Cutler and his team envisioned  for Windows NT it's quite Progressive for the  time to have an operating system with no less  than four personalities windows on Windows 16  and tvdm os2 1.x and posix and Windows NT 3.51  did not only feature these 16-bit windows API  but also the rewind 32-bit API which was about  to be introduced with Windows 95 and yes this is  an original Factory sealed item nowadays we can  do literally everything using virtualization but  for the mid 90s this was really ahead of the time  so long I'm the Vintage collector and  this was my story on Windows NT 3.51  thanks for watching and see you again next time  [Music] future count this Channel's Community  tab you'll find some polls on potential  upcoming videos you're very welcome to  upload on upcoming topics or drop in new ones  you'd like me to chase down [Music] foreign