Microsoft Corp has admitted that Cairo, its object-oriented successor to Windows NT 3.5, won’t be shipped to beta testers until next year – at least six months later than originally scheduled, PC Week reports. However, the company reckons that some elements of the operating system could go into beta test this year, and that developers kits could also appear before the end of the year. Cairo will include all the features and functionality of Windows 4.0, including the choice of a new object-oriented user interface or the Windows 3.X interface. It will offer a choice of NT’s current file systems – FAT File Allocation Table, NTFS NT File System, and HPFS High Performance File System – in addition to its forthcoming OFS Object File System. The operating system will include a built-in routine to enable users convert FAT files to OFS files. According to Microsoft, Cairo will be smaller and faster than NT 3.5, which currently runs in 12Mb of RAM. A major design goal, says Microsoft, will be to merge directory services – which Microsoft is developing itself – with the file system. That would enable, for example, documents containing addresses of predesignated colour printers to print automatically to those printers.
