Developers' take on Windows 9x
eWeek | at | by Mike
The DOS-based Windows 9x architecture underlying Windows 95, Windows 98 and Windows ME is clearly incapable of meeting the data- and task-intensive demands of the modern corporate user. Multiple browser windows, for example, can quickly consume the dangerously limited capacity of crucial Windows 9x data structures, which have fixed maximum sizes independent of the amount of memory in the system.
Any process on a Windows 9x machine can have its way with any file available to the user. A higher level of file system security actually entered the picture long before the arrival of Windows 9x, with the introduction of the NT File System in July 1993. But Windows 9x systems did not-and still do not-support this file system, nor do they otherwise provide its ability to assign specific privileges to different users and groups of users.