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