REDMOND, Wash., Feb. 7, 2000 — Microsoft Corp. today announced it has released to manufacturing Interix 2.2, a complete environment that enables customers to easily run UNIX applications and scripts on the Microsoft® Windows NT® and Windows® 2000 operating systems without rewriting code.
Interix 2.2 is the first version available for Windows 2000 and a key component of Microsoft’s interoperability and application migration strategy for providing interoperability between Windows-based and UNIX systems. Interix 2.2 allows users to take advantage of key benefits of the Windows NT platform, including lower total cost of ownership, easier manageability and access to the vast array of Windows-based applications while leveraging existing UNIX applications.
“Today’s announcement is a strong affirmation of Microsoft’s commitment to meeting the needs of our enterprise customers with interoperability solutions between Windows and UNIX environments,”
said Keith White, director of Windows Marketing at Microsoft.
“Interix 2.2 is a perfect complement to our current UNIX interoperability solution, and in the future, we plan to combine this functionality with Microsoft Windows Services for UNIX into one comprehensive UNIX application migration and interoperability solution.”
Thomas Klinect, president of TPI Inc., a privately held consulting firm specializing in UNIX-to-Windows NT migration, recently chose Interix to help the Internal Revenue Service replace aging UNIX systems with Windows NT-based systems. Klinect chose Interix as the fastest, most cost-effective method to move a large, mission-critical, legacy UNIX application to Windows NT.
“Interix provided all of the UNIX functionality necessary to efficiently move the code to Windows NT,”
Klinect said.
“One of the key advantages was that the code ported to Interix could still be deployed on the IRS’ legacy UNIX systems during its transition to Windows NT, maintaining the required 24×7 full functionality for this mission-critical application.”
Interix 2.2 eases the migration of existing UNIX applications and scripts by providing a robust, high-performance environment for running such applications. It allows users with UNIX environments to take advantage of the benefits of the Windows environment without having to rewrite critical applications. In addition, users can immediately use the full Windows-based application development environment to develop native Win32® API-based applications. Interix 2.2 provides over 300 utilities and tools and is fully integrated with the Windows desktop, security model and file system. Interix 2.2 is a native subsystem to Windows, providing the highest performance for running UNIX applications. The Interix 2.2 Software Development Kit, which is included with Interix 2.2, supports over 1,900 UNIX APIs and helps ease migration of existing UNIX applications to the Interix environment.
Interix 2.2 provides UNIX users with a familiar environment and set of tools to leverage their existing UNIX expertise. For example, the tools and utilities behave exactly as they would on other UNIX systems while preserving the look and feel of UNIX applications, which eliminates the need to retrain users. Interix 2.2 also provides extensive scripting support and enables users to maintain the use of common scripting languages and tools.
Interix 2.2 brings Microsoft customers one step closer to its vision of a single desktop computer for all uses by providing a complete enterprise platform to run all Windows-based, UNIX and Internet applications. Interix 2.2 also helps simplify the administration of heterogeneous environments by providing UNIX system administrators with access to Windows-based systems using familiar tools and management strategies, thus reducing system administration and total cost of ownership. Interix 2.2 also provides system administrators with a familiar set of remote administration tools and batch support, enabling efficient system administration.
Availability
Microsoft Interix 2.2 supports Windows NT 4.0 Workstation and Server, Windows 2000 Professional, Server and Advanced Server and is available for an estimated retail price of $99.95. Licensed users of previous versions of Interix will be able to download a free upgrade to Microsoft Interix 2.2 from http://www.microsoft.com/windows/sfu/ beginning March 1 (connect-time charges may apply).
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