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In my opinion, Windows NT4 has to be one of the best operating systems ever released by Microsoft (especially server use). Once properly set up (i.e. patched and configured), NT4 will run and run. Hopefully this page will serve well for other NT4 users. Unlike most other NT4 websites, I will be looking into NT4 Terminal Services Edition as well as other versions, but only on Intel x86. I have never used NT4 on DEC Alpha, PPC and MIPS, so I really don't have any experience to share at all. All I know is that SP6 and more recent updates were released only for Alpha and Intel x86.
The Magic Command
Before I begin, I would like to alert NT4 Terminal Services Edition users of the following: To install an application correctly, you should run the following command from the command line BEFORE installing:
chgusr /install
And the following AFTER the installation has finished:
chgusr /execute
Web Browsers
For Internet Explorer fans, you can get hold of Internet Explorer 6 SP1 for NT4 from Microsoft:
As Internet Explorer 6 is pretty outdated now, and unsupported on NT4, it may be an idea to use a different browser. One I can HIGHLY recommend is
K-Meleon. It is actively maintained, so you should find it is updated from time to time. Also, it runs really well on older hardware. Page rendering is performed by the Mozilla rendering engine (the same as in Firefox), so you can be sure that pages look as they should. I think of K-Meleon as an extremely lightweight and efficient version of Firefox. K-Meleon seems to work fine on Terminal Services Edition.
Word Processing/Office Software/E-Mail
- Latest version of Microsoft Office supported on NT4 is Office XP. Terminal Services Edition users may want to visit Microsoft Office Online for information on installing on a Terminal Server.
- Older versions of OpenOffice, Abiword, etc may work, I'm not too sure
- Microsoft Outlook XP (and below), older versions of Mozilla Thunderbird, and Outlook Express 6 work on NT4
Now for the interesting stuff...
Drivers
NT4 supports 'NT Kernel Mode Drivers'. This means NT4 cannot use VXD drivers (as used in Windows 3.11, 95, etc), or WDM (Windows Driver Framework) (as used in Windows 98, 2000, XP, Vista, etc). You are generally pretty stuck with having to use drivers that have been specifically written for NT4, or previous versions (your mileage may vary, though most NT3.51 drivers should work providing they have been written for the same architecture).
NTFS (NT File System)
In short: Do not connect any hard disk that is being used by Windows NT4 to a later version of NT (e.g. 2000) unless you have a recent service pack (you should really have Service Pack 6 anyway). If you do (and haven't got that service pack installed), later versions of NT play sneaky tricks, and convert the old NTFS version to a newer version which NT4 cannot read. This can be disastrous as you may find that NT4 will no longer boot.
For more information on NT4 and large hard disks (ATA), please visit the following (excellent) website:
Windows NT 4.0 Large HDD Info
Updates/Security
For NT4 Workstation/Server, please (again) visit the following site:
Windows NT 4.0 Service Pack and Hotfixes and
ERPMan's System Updates page - There's really no point me writing what's already been written. Alternatively, you should be able to fire up
Windows Update from Internet Explorer, and get most hotfixes and security updates that way.
For NT4 Terminal Services Edition: Windows Update doesn't support this OS Edition, ouch, that means theres a lot of manual installation to do:
- Get MBSA 1.2 (Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer) and install it on a computer running Windows 2000 or above
- Run the tool (and point it to your NT4 box), and see which updates it says you must have
- Get the patches by Googling the KB or Q number, or here's a good set of results to get you started: Microsoft Downloads or see the next two points
- You can get SP6 for Windows Terminal Server i386 here: WTSI386.EXE INSTALL THIS BEFORE OTHER HOTFIXES (Q/KB)
- I have collected a bunch of post sp6 hotfixes for NT4TS i386, please read the readme inside the zip file for tips: Click to download
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