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Vintage Novell NetWare
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Novell NetWare was an early and powerful file sharing / print sharing network operating system. It was first released in 1983 and supported DOS and CP/M clients and was initially unique in that it shared individual files rather than entire disk volumes. Initially NetWare servers ran on a proprietary Motorola 68000 system but quickly changed to IBM PC where it supported a very wide variety of third party hardware and NICs. It used a cooperative tasking server environment and had some advanced features usually only found in mainframe products.
During the late 80s and early 90s, NetWare was very popular with large enterprise businesses. The first releases of DOOM used NetWare's IPX protocol for networking support. Later NetWare versions added TCP/IP support in addition to its native IPX protocol.
NetWare competed against larger networking systems such as DEC Pathworks, and smaller systems such as Banyan VINES and Lantastic. In the mid 1980s Microsoft introduced their own LAN system, Microsoft LAN Manager. NetWare was largely displaced In the late 90s, as Microsoft LAN Manager was integrated in to Windows NT.
The last version, 6.5SP8 was released in May 2009.
Wanted: CD-ROM versions require a license floppy disk in order to fully install. 2.x 3.x 4.x 5.x 6.x
NetWare 2 supported native protected mode operation on the Intel 286 CPU.
2.x included advanced features such as system fault tolerance, on-the-fly bad block re-mapping, software RAID1,. and a transaction tracking system.
Early versions of NetWare 2.x were copy protected, requiring an ISA card with a hardware key.
Information Product type OS Vendor Novell Release date 1989 Minimum CPU 286 User interface Text Platform Other Download count 36 (5 for release) Downloads Download name Version Language Architecture File size Downloads 3½ Floppy Novell NetWare 2.2 (1991) (3.5-1.44mb) 2.2 English x86 3.52MB 4 5¼ Floppy Novell NetWare 286 2.0a ELS I (1987) (5.25-360k) 286 2.0a ELS I English x86 56.93MB 0 3½ Floppy Novell NetWare 286 2.0a ELS I (IBM PS2) (1987) (3.5-720k) 286 2.0a ELS I (IBM PS2) English x86 6.66MB 1 5¼ Floppy Novell NetWare 286 2.15c Advanced (1989) (5.25-360k) 286 2.15c Advanced English x86 2.95MB 0 3½ Floppy Novell NetWare 286 2.15c ELS Level 2 (1987) (3.5-720k) 286 2.15c ELS Level 2 English x86 3.22MB 0
https://winworldpc.com/product/netware/2x
NetWare 3.x
3.x adds 32-bit 386 protected mode support.
It included new features such as NetWare Loadable Modules, a new file system, and NetWare Link Services Protocol.
https://winworldpc.com/product/netware/3x
Download name Version Language Architecture File size Downloads 3½ Floppy Novell NetWare 3.11 (1991) (3.5-1.44mb) 3.11 English x86-32 9.28MB 0 3½ Floppy Novell NetWare 3.12 (3.5) 3.12 English x86-32 68.89MB 1 3½ Floppy Novell NetWare 3.12 License Diskettes (3.5-1.44mb) 3.12 English x86-32 2.07MB 1 CD Novell NetWare 3.12F (ISO) 3.12F English x86-32 48.54MB 1 CD Novell NetWare 3.2 Enhancement Pack (ISO) 3.2 Enhancement Pack English x86-32 89.62MB 0
NetWare 4.x
Version 4 introduced NetWare Directory Services (NDS) and added encryption.
Download name Version Language Architecture File size Downloads CD Novell Netware 4.11 (ISO) 4.11 English x86-32 89.96MB 5 CD Novell Netware 4.2 4.2 English x86-32 48.35MB 3
NetWare 5.x
NetWare 5 makes TCP/IP the primary protocol. It also adds a GUI and Java support.
Download name Version Language Architecture File size Downloads CD Novell Netware 5.1 5.1 English x86-32 370.03MB 16
NetWare 6.x
6.0 includes a simplified licensing scheme. 6.5 many more features such as bundled open source products, iSCSI, NX Bit support, and USB support.
Download name Version Language Architecture File size Downloads CD Novell Netware 6 6 English x86-32 503.24MB 4
https://winworldpc.com/product/netware/6x
- Snippet from Wikipedia: NetWare
NetWare is a discontinued computer network operating system developed by Novell, Inc. It initially used cooperative multitasking to run various services on a personal computer, using the IPX network protocol.
The original NetWare product in 1983 supported clients running both CP/M and MS-DOS, ran over a proprietary star network topology and was based on a Novell-built file server using the Motorola 68000 processor. The company soon moved away from building its own hardware, and NetWare became hardware-independent, running on any suitable Intel-based IBM PC compatible system, and able to utilize a wide range of network cards. From the beginning NetWare implemented a number of features inspired by mainframe and minicomputer systems that were not available in its competitors' products.
In 1991, Novell introduced cheaper peer-to-peer networking products for DOS and Windows, unrelated to their server-centric NetWare. These are NetWare Lite 1.0 (NWL), and later Personal NetWare 1.0 (PNW) in 1993.
In 1993, the main NetWare product line took a dramatic turn when version 4 introduced NetWare Directory Services (NDS, later renamed eDirectory), a global directory service based on ISO X.500 concepts (six years later, Microsoft released Active Directory). The directory service, along with a new e-mail system (GroupWise), application configuration suite (ZENworks), and security product (BorderManager) were all targeted at the needs of large enterprises.
By 2000, however, Microsoft was taking more of Novell's customer base and Novell increasingly looked to a future based on a Linux kernel. The successor to NetWare, Open Enterprise Server (OES), released in March 2005, offers all the services previously hosted by NetWare 6.5, but on a SUSE Linux Enterprise Server; the NetWare kernel remained an option until OES 11 in late 2011.
The final update release was version 6.5SP8 of May 2009; NetWare is no longer on Novell's product list. NetWare 6.5SP8 General Support ended in 2010; Extended Support was available until the end of 2015, and Self Support until the end of 2017. The replacement is Open Enterprise Server.
- Snippet from Wikipedia: Novell
Novell, Inc. () was an American software and services company headquartered in Provo, Utah, that existed from 1980 until 2014. Its most significant product was the multi-platform network operating system known as Novell NetWare.
Under the leadership of chief executive Ray Noorda, NetWare became the dominant form of personal computer networking during the second half of the 1980s and first half of the 1990s. At its high point, NetWare had a 63 percent share of the market for network operating systems and by the early 1990s there were over half a million NetWare-based networks installed worldwide encompassing more than 50 million users. Novell technology contributed to the emergence of local area networks, which displaced the dominant mainframe computing model and changed computing worldwide. Novell was the second-largest maker of software for personal computers, trailing only Microsoft Corporation, and became instrumental in making Utah Valley a focus for technology and software development.
During the early to mid-1990s, Noorda attempted to compete directly with Microsoft by acquiring Digital Research, Unix System Laboratories, WordPerfect, and the Quattro Pro division of Borland. These moves did not work out, due to new technologies not fitting well with Novell's existing user base or being too late to compete with equivalent Microsoft products.
NetWare began losing market share once Microsoft bundled network services with the Windows NT operating system and its successors. Despite new products such as Novell Directory Services and GroupWise, Novell entered a long period of decline. Eventually Novell acquired SUSE Linux and attempted to refocus its technology base. Despite building or acquiring several new kinds of products, Novell failed to find consistent success and never regained its past dominance.
The company was an independent corporate entity until it was acquired as a wholly owned subsidiary by The Attachmate Group in 2011. Attachmate was subsequently acquired in 2014 by Micro Focus International and then by OpenText in 2023. Novell products and technologies are now integrated within various OpenText divisions.
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