Windows 95 Versus Windows NT Design Philosophies Stefan Assmann
The design philosophy of Windows 95 offers the greatest ease of use for the mainstream user who would typically want to run an enormous variety of applications, including those that require backward compatibility with 16-bit DOS and Windows...even on their old hardware.
95 makes many compromises in order to provide a seamless transition from 16 to 32 bits. Windows NT, however, was designed with intentions for it to become the most powerful desktop operating system, handling processor-intensive, number-crunching applications of a mission-critical nature in a secure multitasking environment.
To achieve this, Windows NT sacrifices much of Windows 95's backward compatibility and demands more hardware resources. NT also needs to run on a variety of platforms and be able to exploit new technology as it's developed. Frequent updates are, therefore, a feature of Windows NT. It is designed to be the uncompromising leading-edge operating system, offering a superset of Windows 95's functionality.
