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It had no directory service, poor management capabilities, limited scalability and mediocre performance. If you, too, found NT 4.0 lacking for anything--anything at all--we bring good news: You'll probably find the missing pieces in NT 5.0 Server.

NT 5.0 Server aims to remedy most of its predecessors' shortcomings. The list of new features in 5.0 is the most extensive we've ever encountered in a single revision of an operating system. In fact, our first thought was that Microsoft had added to this revision every feature anyone had ever asked for, from user storage quotas to Active Directory (AD). While our initial impression was a fairly comical vision of Bill Gates tossing features out a window to expectant programmers, the fact is that NT 5.0 Server has become a feature-rich operating system with a fairly robust set of management tools.

But all that glitters is not gold. Our testing showed that despite NT 5.0's impressive list of features, it has a long way to go before these features are sufficiently stable for widespread adoption. Right down the line, most features of this latest version of NT that we tested worked, but either performed poorly or had numerous bugs, particularly when we tried to run the OS in anything resembling a production environment (see "NT 5.0 Testing: Nice Faucets, Lousy Plumbing," page 50). Maybe Gates should have thrown fewer features into Windows and allowed some additional programming muscle to get the features right the first time.

One-Two Punch We assume Microsoft eventually will work the kinks out of NT 5.0--and when the product finally ships, we'll test it again to look for improvements--but there's more to the story. In NT 5.0, Microsoft tips its hand on its enterprise plans--and NT Server is only half of the equation. The NT 5.0 Workstation is equally important. In fact, Microsoft has knitted together the server and workstation pieces of NT 5.0 so carefully that the most compelling case for adoption comes only when the two are combined. Some services available on NT 5.0 Server are accessible only from NT 5.0 Workstation. Predictably, if you start talking about TCO (total cost of ownership), Microsoft immediately tries to convince you that NT 5.0 is required not only in the back office but on the desktop, too.

The list of workstation and server services that work best together begins with security and directory integration, and continues through the management of remote and roaming users and custom applications development. This tight coupling of server and client environments, though an apparent boon on paper, has a cost. Factor in a Unix or Novell NetWare server and suddenly some applications enjoy the tight integration and some don't. Worse, your users may have different procedures for authentication or remote operation, depending on the server platform for the application.

Our discussions with Microsoft revealed its awareness of customers' desire to use more than one server platform. But even though Microsoft pays lip service to the need to exist in a multiplatform server environment, most of the real work to make that an easy coexistence is left to other vendors or to system administrators themselves. For example, though Microsoft provides a degree of basic file service through NFS (Network File System) workstation and Apple services, it has done little in terms of higher-level services and system management. The road to easy heterogeneous systems management will not wend its way through NT 5.0.