Microsoft promotes NT 4.0 using free software

Microsoft is attempting to add weight to its promise to slash PC ownership costs, with a free software package demonstrating the existing virtues of NT 4.0.

The Zero Administration kit will help IT managers 'lock down' Windows NT clients, so that users can only access prescribed applications and files.

But the package of pre-configured systems policies and user profiles will not ship until June, and it will only work for networks of NT 4.0 clients and servers.

Windows 95 clients will only be supported in the next release of NT, which is codenamed Memphis and is expected in the second half of the year.

Adam Taylor, group product manager at Microsoft, said: 'This is stuff you can do today. It's do-able, but it's hard. We're giving these tools away to make it easy.'

The range of user profiles are based on two types of user - so-called task-oriented workers and knowledge workers. Task-oriented users are given no start button or task bar.

The interface on a knowledge worker's machine only has a simple start menu.