News

NT 5.0 Beta 2 Ships to 250,000 Testers

• By Scott Bekker
• 08/25/1998

Version 5.0 offers new manageability features, including the ability to centrally manage servers, desktops and networks through the policy-based administration provided by Active Directory and IntelliMirror.

One of the shortcomings of Windows NT 4.0 has traditionally been scalability, and Microsoft is touting version 5.0 as more scalable than its predecessor. To further enable scalability, beta 2 has improvements in symmetric multiprocessing optimization, support for physical memory greater than 4 GB, and up to 64 GB on some systems, clustering enhancements, and sorting for commercial data-warehouse and data-mart applications.

"Our [number] one goal for Windows NT 5.0 is quality. To date, the product has already undergone extensive testing by more than 100,000 beta testers, ISVs, OEMs, and IHVs. Beta 2 will enable an even broader level of testing across a wider range of scenarios and features in the product," says Jim Allchin, senior vice president, personal and business systems group, Microsoft.

Microsoft is holding off on promising a delivery date for the next beta version, instead opting to say that beta 3 will be available after the company has received substantial feed back from the 250,000 testers, which includes technical beta sites, channel partners and developers.
--Thomas Sullivan, Staff Reporter/Reviews Editor