In another change of tack – there was a time when OS/2 was the whole future as far as the company was concerned, Microsoft Corp is switching its signals and is now making it clear that it expects MS-DOS users to prepare to switch to Windows NT. The company has abandoned or put back plans to bring major architectural changes and high-end Windows features to its MS-DOS environments, the same source reports. This move, observers said, will force MS-DOS users that want the most advanced Windows technology to migrate to Windows NT. The new version of Windows for MS-DOS planned for later this year will not now include the full Windows-32 application programming interface of Windows NT. Microsoft also now plans a new version of MS-DOS for early next year that will lack most of the features that had been expected in the MS-DOS 6.0 release, such as multi-tasking, and the company will now offer its object-oriented Cairo environment only for NT, and not for MS-DOS. And PC Week has been looking at the pre-release development kit for Windows NT, shipping this week, and finds that the new NT File System is not yet complete, and neither are the security features that are tied to it. The prerelease version is also missing LAN Manager for NT, but these elements are promised for the corporate beta test programme set for September.
