Each process within Windows NT that uses NetBIOS can communicate with up to 254 different computers. The implementation of NetBIOS under Windows NT requires the application to do a few more things than have traditionally been done on other platforms, but the capacity for doing up to 254 sessions from within each process is well worth the price. Prior implementations of NetBIOS had the 254-session limit for the entire computer, including the workstation and server components.
Note that the 254-session limit does not apply to the default workstation or server components. The workstation and server services avoid the problem by writing directly to the TDI rather than calling NetBIOS directly. This is a handle-based (32-bit) interface.
NBF also has a unique method of handling resources to create a virtually infinite (memory permitting) number of connections, as described in the next section.