Microsoft Windows NT Workstation 4.0 - 28 Years Later!
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 1 ต.ค. 2024
- In this video we will unbox, install and go over one of the more robust Operating Systems from Microsoft - Windows NT Workstation 4.0. Windows NT forged the path forward for future Operating Systems to be developed such as Windows 2000 Professional, Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7 and beyond! Let's give this forgotten OS the love it deserves!
#nostalgia #windows #retro #retrocomputing #retropc #vintage #networking #ntpc #microsoft #pentium #pc
I think Windows NT 4 Workstation and Windows 2000 Professional (and Windows XP Professional to a lesser extent) were amazing operation systems in older non-multi-core CPU situations. Solid operating systems for so many years. Thanks for this retrospective on NT 4 WS. :)
I agree and you are welcome!!! Glad to have done this.
NT 4.0 was my standard OS from 1996 to 2000, in parallel with Linux. I came from NT 3.51 and never considered Windows 95/98/ME as a serious option.
I was actually quite happy with NT4. At first I used it on a 133MHz Pentium with 32 MB, later on a 200 MHz Pentium Pro with 96 MB and even on a DEC
Alpha 166 MHz. At the end I little bit missed USB support, but USB was not a real thing before 2000.
I even used a dedicated NT4 computer until around 2010 because NT4 supported a very special and expensive GPIB card to control measurement hardware, but Windows 2000/XP did not.
Thanks for sharing this, much appreciated!!
USB works with NT 4.0. Google for Intea01i.exe.
Back in college (Circa 2000) I dual booted NT4 Workstation and 98SE on my old AMD K6-2 266 OCed to 333MHz w/64MB RAM.
These days im getting VERY close to switching permently to Linux, Windows has slowly became bloatware crap.
I think this is a common view today.
Another comment: my understanding is that corporate users did not rush to embrace Windows 2000/Exchange 2000 and the mandatory Active Directory, and many stuck to NT4 and Exchange 5.5 until Windows Server 2003 and Exchange 2003 had better migration options. So I think that explains why they were supporting it actively quite a while after the release of Win2000.
Also, the lack of device manager is because NT 4 has no plug and play. Last Microsoft OS without PnP…
All of the above : yes.
Yes that was the main downside of NT4. If you didn't have drivers you were stuffed.
@@paulwarner5395 Or if you couldn't afford the RAM!
Look at the task manager numbers - 28 megs of RAM used with almost nothing running. So even with 32 megs you'd be swapping to hard drive really quickly...
It would take until the early 2000s for adequate amounts of RAM for NT-based operating systems to be reasonably affordable. And you could still buy 128 meg of RAM low-end desktops in 2003 or 2004 running XP Home that were unusably RAM-starved.
from what i was told or read, that microsoft had to practically tell hardware manufactures to stop supporting NT4, so that people would move over to windows 2000 and 2003. I think NT4 did hang on well into 2006, and i recon windows 2008 servers may have been the replacement for NT4 servers, instead of windows 2003 server.
Very possible.
Imagine like, many school, internet cafe Japan country include kids using dual boot Windows NT 4.0 Workstation & Windows 98 on these modern day.
Neat.
"Built on NT Technology." NT = New Technology. It is like saying ATM Machine. :D
Haha
ODBC (Open Database Connectivity) is not for networking it is for interfacing different databases ..i.e use MS Access and connect to a dBase database using ODBC..
Thanks.
Back in the day that Windows NT 4.0 came out, I had already been using NT 3.51. I viewed NT 4.0 as the beginning of the fall of NT. NT 3.51 was true to the vision of David Cutler, the architect that Microsoft poached from Digital (Cutler was the architect of Digital's VMS - a true industrial grade minicomputer OS). NT 4.0 saw the beginning of the end when it comprised the NT kernel with the inclusion of the GDI (graphics user interface) into kernel memory space and all of a sudden graphics drivers could corrupt the kernel memory space. NT 3.51 was a more robust design, but everybody loved the Windows 95 interface, so most people ignored the fact the NT 4.0 represented a step backward when it comes to kernel isolation and memory protection.
That's an interesting insight, and much appreciated. I think from my view I would never had thought that way. Thanks for the input and perspective!!
Interesting info. Server edition too? I imagine so. I also did not know that. I don't recall having any issues w/ drivers, ect ... the configuration we used was solid as a rock. As long as we didn't need to do maintenance install/uninstall change configuration we never needed to reboot. But these were dev machines used for Perl/CGI development and not for gaming!!!
Maybe, not that many people actually cared.
NT4 was the first and last OS I saw that had not just x86, but also MIPS, Alpha , and PPC versions on the same disc - 2000 Pro only was x86
I did not know that, thanks for this insight!
my wife found me a big box ibm dos 3.30 os sealed 2 days ago.
That's awesome!!!! (send it to me Hahaha)
When I going to technical school in 2000, to learn how to build computers and troubleshoot problems We was taught how to install and use windows NT 4
Nice!
Where Win98SE still sucked, Win NT 4 WS was the first MS OS client OS which did it's job and TCP/IP networking. MS Windows Domain concept was usable. Even the lack or limited driver support was not really professional. Usability ended with Win Svr 2008 R2.
Yes, most people are still limited to gaming and porn. I never cared.
Tell us how you really feel 😂
@@TheRetroRecall btw. I still have all my socket 7, PII, PIII Win NT 4 Client/Server computers in working consition. As well the 486er and the later Intel based Clint/Server stuff, including Sun SPARC Solaris an PA RISC HP-UX. I pretty much love the OEM workstation hardware boxes since about year 2000.
That's amazing. Feel free to send some this way... 😂
A computer graphics company I worked for in the late 90s had NT4 running on two Deskstation Raptor Reflex towers with DEC Alpha CPUs. Those things were so fast, they emulated an x86 in order to run software like Photoshop and they could still beat Intel systems from that time. And while NT4 was simple, it was solid as a rock; I don't remember it ever crashing or getting in the way. Sure, it wasn't plug and play, but these system weren't for home use, so that didn't matter.
100%. I mean there's a reason business went with this OS VS their 9x counterpart.
Windows NT...Windows Night Time...explains the box...
Haha!
Not long after starting my first job in TV production back in 1997 the company upgraded all their Avid editing systems to Window NT4. Some systems were later upgraded to Windows 2000, and one Windows 2000 system was still in use around 2010/2011 for one of the last shows still being produced in SD (as this system was too old for HD).
I love hearing these stories, thank you for sharing! Yes - Windows 2000 was arguably one of the best and could have continued to be used if kept updated to a point. Thanks again!
I loved using NT 4.0. I had a PC dual booting NT and 98 (so my son could play his games and not screw up my OS haha.)
The computers in my apartment were all connected with Cat5, and I learned how to manually set up a network on NT. That came in handy later when I had trouble getting the original release of XP to find all my PCs.
NT was absolutely solid and stable, 98 not so much.
I have two legal copies of NT that I bought used in a store that sold old parts.
That's awesome, thanks for sharing. So many memories unlocked!
Fun fact, SP6 added DirectX 3. I played *a lot* of Diablo on it. And maybe Starcraft, at this point my memory is blurred on the matter. Definitely fun times.
I did not know that! Of course I couldn't find SP6 or 6a for that matter. I'll have to dig a bit deeper on the interwebs. Thanks again!
@@TheRetroRecall also service pack 5 gave it NTFS 5 too, so it could talk to windows 2000 and XP systems etc
Nice!
@@TheRetroRecall They have the SP6a update on the Internet Archive.
Windows NT.4 is still in use where I work, It controls an automatic PA system as well as display boards.
Haha that's awesome!
I know of a few automotive places that run windows 98 software and serial connections to some of their electronics tools. It's pretty cool to see all of these years later.
Where i used to work, still ran NT4 server with XP clients right up till 2020.
So let me explain a little bit of pc history windows server 2003 contains the same watchdog services as nt 4.0 resulting in hacks that converted the trial version into a full version by just running 1 hack.
Explain further please?
Nitpicky comment - I am pretty sure Win95 also came with the cardboard sleeve. Or at least my retail upgrade copy bought on Aug. 24, 1995 did.
Nitpick away, mine (which is shown in the intro) came with a full jewel case :)
Did you know that you can use the build-in Remote access service (RAS) to creat a dial up internet access(Windows NT computer as the dial up server)?and i have tried it. It doesn't support more than 28kbps natively but if the provided driver supports, it can go upto v92 for modem to ISP and v90 for modem to modem connections.
Hahah I saw that in the control panel. Now I need to go play :)
Fun Fact: Windows NT 4.0 can support up to Internet Explorer 6 SP1 which requires SP6 to be installed.
I didn't know that. I'll have to test out the SP6 service pack.
I played around with NT back when I was still running a BBS. I had NT Server running to share files on the network. The BBS machine was running DOS. I also had an NT Workstation machine, a Win95 machine, and an IBM Warp 4.0 machine on my network, because I was obsessed with learning operating systems and seeing how difficult it would be to integrate them all into one network. I ran that setup right up until 1998, when I took the BBS down.
Haha that's so cool. I never used IBM Warp 4.0. How was it?
@@TheRetroRecall I recall being rather impressed with it, but I never really got to the point that I used it as a daily driver. Had I started using OS/2 sooner, I probably would have used it for more than just playing around with.
Sounds good. I'm going to have to check it out.
Oh I remember these days. Back in my first job, which was a retail only computer distribution company, I once borrowed the server edition of NT 4 (and yes, given today's piracy, I actually do mean proper borrowed, not "borrowed" borrowed) to experiment on my second PC at that time. Once I had it installed, I was testing permissions. I set the home directory to be accessible by the admin account only, and denied access to the directory to the SYSTEM account. The result? The OS booted and got to the log on screen as normal, but after entering the log in credentials, the log on window disappeared and ...... nothing. The system wasn't frozen, the mouse cursor moved, but as the system didn't have access to the user account's home directory, it wasn't able to load the profile so I was stuck at a window-less desktop. Yay. Go me. 😂😂
Bahahha oops! I love hearing these shared experiences.
I ran Windows NT 4 Server as my main desktop for around a couple years. When I was a Perl/CGI developer. The only setting i recall setting was to "optimize for UI or foreground apps" or something like that. It worked like a charm.
Thanks for the info! I don't recall seeing that option, was that a Server only feature?
@@TheRetroRecall Probably. But I'm not sure.
This option is still available in modern Windows. This option changes the process scheduler. One is gives each process the same amount of cpu time according to their priority. The other option boosts the priority for interactive applications. Which you know. A user is waiting for their keypress/mouseclick to be registerd.
This setting is deep down in the system properties under the advances --> performance page.
Thanks!
Thanks so much for this trip down memory lane. I have a lot of experience with Windows NT from "back in the day".
Haha no worries, it was a fun video to do!
Back in the late 90s I saw a Windows NT 4.0 class at my local community college, and I was interested in learning about the business OS and networking. I installed NT on a Compaq computer, never did get the sound card to work until I installed Windows 2000. That class led me to a eventual career in IT in the early 2000s.
That's awesome, thank you for sharing!
I believe they have a Service pack 6 I believe it was the last service pack for windows nt
They actually had SP6, SP6A and one more they were going 5p call SP7, however just names it SP6A Security update.
@@TheRetroRecall They did release one more patch for NT4 a couple of years ago. which everyone was surprised to see.
I was Windows 95 user at this time, and had no money for Windows 98 but with the install of the IE 4.0 Windows 95 becomes some kind of Windows 98.
I honestly did not know that I guess as I was using Win 98 at the time. It was neat to see in this video with NT 4.
i used both NT4 and 2000 Pro back in the day, and when i first hit NT4 i never looked back to the windows 9x series ; incidentally NT4 ran my copy of Starcraft just fine. When I moved over to 2000 Pro, that was it - 2000 Pro was my OS of choice, because improved directx support, NTFS improvement such as having volumes bigger than 8GB, and also USB support... I used 2000 Pro until EOL and then switched to Linux. Still even as a Linux user, I have nothing but praise for 2000 Pro , it was the best last version of Windows - even better than windows 7.
I loved that era of Windows. Win2k just worked, was stable and robust. As for games, I didn't have many issues however I tended to use it for business / productivity.
@@TheRetroRecall i was savvy even back then, since i was always into computers, and when I discovered Windows NT , it was my daily driver , most of my games ran in windows anyhow - and even on NT4 starcraft ran just fine. when XP came out, i was not impressed, and it didn't offer anything extra or do anything that 2k pro couldn't do., so i never went to xp.
Windows NT4 introduced me to domain networking. I learned more playing about with the server and workstation one evening 20 years ago, than i ever did, doing the IT essentials 2 course i was doing at the time, at college. The course didn't even have practical work, only some shitty online material that was knocked up in power point. I ended up studying windows XP and windows 2003 server, thanks to windows NT4 later on. I got an MCP in windows XP. Great OS windows NT4 is! Runs like stink on a dual processor Pentium 3 with 2 gig of ram. Laugh is windows 2003 on the same hardware is a little bumpy, which is more geared for it funny enough. NT 4 though just runs for fun, Server side even has a copy windows 95 upgrade too, which can be used to upgrade a windows 3.x machine, over the network. You can even create an msdos boot disk too, and roll out windows 95, NT 4 workstation might be a little bit more tricky i think, but i never tried it. Best thing to do with NT4 is install service pack 4, install the hardware drivers for it etc, then lock the installation down with service pack 6. I was told though what ever changes you do etc, you have install the service pack again. Due NT4 using the older files rather than the later stuff. But its NT4 for you.
You are so right. Practical hands on learning through experience is leaps ahead of some of the learning in a classroom. And yes, I also read that you need to install he SP again if you make any changes :)
@@TheRetroRecall yeah all about hands on, with this sort of stuff. Following it with a proper lab book at the same time is great fun. One thing my MCP instructor said about NT4 was it just worked. If anyone wants to have a play with setting up a simple Domain network, NT4 server and NT4 workstation you cannot go wrong, for learning about file share etc, Even adding windows 9x and windows 3.x machines to it, isnt hard. Just name the work group, the same name as the domain, and your away.
Man i remember how novel it was to "listen to radio over the internet" back in the day. Man, it seemed like sorcery at the time. Friggin RealPlayer tho LOL.
Hahaha yes! It was so cool though.
For my part Dos was way too big part of my daily life to use NT based operating systems as compatibility issues was the main concern for this. I used Linux when I encountered problems I could not do with 9X based systems instead. The first time I ever started using NTFS based windows systems was when Windows XP had released service pack3 but it was only for things that required it. it was only when Win7 came I finally started to like it for daily usage. And now the closer we get to win11 I more and more start to dislike using it again. But I still use Dos and 98
I followed a similar path in terms of reliability. It's funny you me tion windows 11, lately I have been looking at Linux as an option and what is compatible as I'm not loving Windows 11. Windows 10 oddly enough felt good, there's just something about 11
@@TheRetroRecall 11 just suck. It’s that simple. Layouts. Ads. Accounts. Everything.
Yessss
Oh wow! I wish I had all these OS versions complete in boxes :)
My first home OS was Win95 (used earlier versions at school or library, or friends' house etc.) and when I first got my hands on NT4, I was like "wait, it's like 95 but hates gamers and doesn't crash like crazy???" lol :)
Hahha indeed and yes, the collection has taken many years to build up.
Nice video. Your box looks a bit too complete ==> The Windows 95 booklet wasn't originally included in the box though. 🙂
Oh? Interesting. I thought they threw that in there to introduce the Windows 95 GUI to business users.
@@TheRetroRecall No it wasn't. You even didn't need the floppy disks for install, the NT 4 cd is bootable itself. The floppy disks were there in case your computer's bios didn't support cd-rom boot, then you needed the floppy disks for install. As you said in the video : W95 was intended for home use, NT for office use. The same thing with Windows 2000 (for office) and Win Me (for home) use, but that's a different story. Still , well done the video..congrats with it! 👍
WinNT, Win2k was the best. After that, it all just included bloatwares. A system with Ryzen 9 5900x + Win11 just seems super slow compared to WinNT/or Win2k + Pentium Pro 200Mhz.
42:15 damn, remote access back then was a game changer
who am I kidding, it still is : )
Lol!!
And the web-based interface in control panel (along with other web things in other folders, the quick start toolbar, etc) is called the Windows Desktop Update according to Wikipedia (I always called it Active Desktop but apparently that is just one of its features). It was bundled with IE 4 on both NT4 and Win95, and was optional. You were prompted about it when you installed IE4. It was standard in 98.
Wikipedia has some before and after screenshots too.
Thanks.
Back in the days I used NT4, whereas my buddies used Win95 instead. I've never been a gamer, but I preferred stability and the networking capabilities of NT4.
This brings back so many memories!
I was a happy mix of both so it was tough. That said later in life I had win 98 and a 2000 machine running dedicated appropriate hardware for that exact reason :)
A Open, its been a minute since i heard that company!
Haha! They were quite popular and frankly Imo made some great hardware.
Ahh, Windows NT 4.0. I remember first using this in Virtual PC 2007, back in 2013 or so. All these years later, I still have that copy!
Now that's software I haven't heard of in a while.
Agreed
@@TheRetroRecall Absolutely. Nothing like using it on original hardware.
Fantastic work. Couldn't you make the ESS 1868 driver disk available to the community? I couldn't find the correct Audio Rack versions for the drivers. The disk shown with the audio drivers really triggered me. Two years ago I did Quake (1-3) and Unreal benchmarks with Windows NT 4.0, 95, 98, me, and W2K. With Nvidia cards I always have 5 to 10 percent better performance under NT 4.0 than under the other operating systems.
Absolutely. I'll image the disk today or tomorrow and put it on archive.org.
I remember drivers was always the fun part of installing NT. It's not like later OS where the basic drivers came with the install disk.
It was definitely interesting getting the sound installed. Once you get your head around the process, the rest is easy! Other versions of Windows spoiled us.
This was a nice overview.
Did you know that if you click on "show icons using all possible colors" in the display properties, it'll change some icons from 2D to 3D.
Did you also know that you can still run Windows NT 4.0 on modern PCs (depending on the hardware)? I saw a Reddit post on the Windows subreddit from a few months ago where someone with a Ryzen 9 was able to install it perfectly fine.
I had no idea for either! Thank you!!
The Web Desktop components (the ones that let it display HTML within Explorer) were included with Internet Explorer 4.0, even with Windows 95. They came integrated in the OS starting with 98.
Ahhh makes sense. Neat how it worked even with Nt4.0 giving it a more modern look on an older OS
@@TheRetroRecall Basically, what Microsoft did was merge the codebase between Windows Explorer and Internet Explorer, which gave WE the ability to display HTML and gave IE the ability to work with local files. You could literally type a URL into the file path bar of WE and it would display a web page, or type a file path into the address bar of IE to display a list of your local files. Prior to IE 4.0, they were different programs entirely, and couldn't do those things.
Thanks. I knew about typing URLs directly in the path however it was lost on me that this went as far back as the Windows 95 UI. I always thought it was limited to Windows 98 and above. The things you learn :)
i was working at MS at the time this was "developed"... the developers hated this version it was really just NT 3.51 with the Win95 GUI slapped on ..the replacement for NT 3.51 was suppose to be NT4 code named Cairo ..there were many meetings fighting screaming developers and BillG (he wanted NT 4.0 with Win95 GUI and to hold Cairo for Win NT5) the developers wanted to just wait until Cairo was ready..Corp customers were complaining about Win 3.1 interface so ....
Inside MS:
NT351 and Windows 2000 were loved..NT 4.0 was treated like Windows Me was to the consumer market.. best forgotten..
NT351 (Daytona) was blazing fast on the available hardware huge improvement over NT310 and NT350..NT4 was sluggish at best..Windows 2000 brought back the speed and XP even more so..
if you do not install options pack you will notice a few of the dialog boxes still had NT 3.51 look..options pack and service packs fixed that..
Thanks for the inside insight on this, I love hearing the history especially from this point of view.
Only chance I got to use Windows NT 4.0 was in a VM. I got a fraction of my childhood games to work on it!
Edit: The games that worked were the Edmark "Learning House" game series (Bailey's Book House for example), JumpStart Pre-K through 1st Grade worked (if I'm not mistaken) and Reader Rabbit 1st Grade, Let's Start Learning, and Thinking Adventures.
I strangely had a HP Kayak XA Pentium 2 pizza-box PC that was around the house in 2004 but I don't remember it ever getting used cuz I had my 1999 Compaq Presario at the time. Maybe it was a "parent's" computer or something I dunno LOL! I mention that cuz there are some pics online that has a Windows sticker on the front that states Windows 95 and NT 4.0 although I don't remember what OS it had. May be it'll hit me soon enough! If you ever find one of them, I'd love to see a video on it! There's only one video of a HP Kayak XA pizza-box PC but it's a later Pentium 3 so that's not exactly close😉👌
I promise if I do, I will definitely do a video on it and tag you!! 💜
@@TheRetroRecall Okay sounds good, thanks!😁👍
I think it was a fairly common thing to put "Designed for" stickers that referenced both Win95/NT4 or Win98/Win2000. I had that on a Dell in 2000 with a 98/2000 combo.
My guess would be that those machines all came with Win9x and the sticker was intended to indicate that if you wanted to manually install NT/2000, drivers were available. Lots of hardware back then did not have NT drivers so I could see Microsoft offering this logo to nudge OEMs to provide NT drivers.
(If you want to know which one a machine came with, at least the machines from 1999 or later will have come with a stuck-on certificate of authenticity sticker with a product key indicating the OS. Not sure when they started mandating those)
@@vivienm7 Ah makes sense! The machine I was talking about was probably from 1997 (judging from my brief internet research). It probably may have had Windows 95 on it in that case, who knows?🤔
Please upload those clean disk images.
Will do! Do they not exist on archive?
25:40 You didn't upgrade to NT 4.0 Service Pack 6a & skip backup uninstall NT 4.0 Service Pack
I installed Nt4.0, then proceeded to install sp5. I did not have SP6 or 6a or the final security rollup available.
i believe there are moderate amounts of games that can play well on Windows 2000
More so Win2k, than NT 4.0, however there were some. The issue is that Nt4.0 has much less DirectX support than Win2k did.
agreed about the directx support
Good Explanation. I used Windows NT 4.0 at work. Now it is part of my Windows collection of Virtualbox VMs. I have Win NT 4.0 with Service Pack 6 installed with 128MB of RAM and a 2GB HDD. I've installed MS-Office 95, Internet Explorer 6.0 and Firefox 2.0, but it only supports the oldnet.
NT only uses 15% of the RAM, so I will reduce it to 48 GB.
Thanks! Nice build yourself. :)
28 years - shit that makes me feel old!
Haha I hear ya!
11:03 16000 KB is strange for 16 MB. It's usually 16384 KB.
I haven't watched the entire video yet, but I'm a bit disappointed that you went for minimum specs on the RAM instead of recommended. I'm afraid that it's going to swap a little too much and not give a true impression of the OS.
Haha, sorry to 'disappoint'. I don't think it impacted the system too much until the very end of which I call out. As for the memory, it is read different ways throughout the video depending on where you look.
How can I download Windows 2000 French language? Please provide a download link if possible?!
I think you can get it from www.archive.org.
Hi
I got your reply on that windows 95 video. Thanks for letting me know.
Regards Joseph.
No problem!
You could have easily installed a second hard drive on that computer. Then you could have used BIOS to switch which device you wanted to boot from, rather than using a boot menu. Just saying.
The system defaulted to this OS loader as part of the installation. Secondly - there are always things 'I could have done' on every video. It's important to keep the scope of the video in mind - to install and explore Windows NT 4.0. Thanks for watching!
So weird you make a video about NT, I was just looking on eBay at NT workstation because I'm not familiar with it, and I was thinking about buying one.
Haha it was meant to be!!
nice Windows line up : )
do you need a CIB copy of Win7? lmk, I have an extra Pro version
No way!!! That would be amazing!
Man i remember when i was student and was forced to do networks on old nt4 computers .man time fly.
Times going way too fast.
Ahhhh', . . . Microsoft, . . . Now Called By Me Microshit . . . Ouch . . .
Haha ouch indeed!
Back at school we always complaint having NT4 installed on our workstations. Being just spoiled kiddies at that time, we were not able to appreciate the stabilty and reliablity of that OS. I mean we had Win95/98/ME running on our devices at home, which gave as a few BSODs a week at least. NT4 and later Win2k were just rock solid. We learned that lesson later on though. 😁
Hahaha sooooo true!! It really did feel stable when using it, much like Win2k!
A very interisting video would be installing NT 3 51 + newshell with a monochrome video card. I guess this would be the only way to get a w95-like taskbar in such devices.
Interesting. Ill take a look into it as I'm not that familiar with these OSs
There used to be a site worth lots of Windows images archived for preservation, does anyone have the link?
www.archive.org
www.winworld.com
Back in the day when I played with NT4 it had a maximin partition size for C: was 2Gig I believe if you wanted to install it on a larger drive you had to partition it first as NT would only install as FAT 16.
I read the same thing / limitation. I also read (correct me if I am wrong) that later service packs helped to correct this?
@@TheRetroRecall Don't know about that as I moved on to Win 2000 and QNX OS.
Ah.
NT4 doesn't support FAT32. So... for partitions above 2 gigs, you'd have to pick NTFS. And if you picked NTFS, nothing other than NT could read the partitions...
NT Does support larger then 2G partitions. As @vivienm7 already mentioned you will need NTFS for those partitions.
Another place where this limitation crops up is in the Windows Setup. For some strange reason it formats C: first as FAT16(with associated limitations), copies files, reboots and it gets converted to NTFS. Now I have not played with NT4 for a long time so i think you can install directly to NTFS but it needs to be pre-formatted. Partition Magic will help with this of course :).
Back then, Windows NT was the best you could get in terms of stability and reliability. But it wasn't the simple multimedia system that private users in particular wanted. I know quite a few people who cursed because their game wouldn't run and then preferred to use 95 or 98... So it really made sense to design it for business customers only. Technically, it was quickly left behind by the 9x line due to the rapid development at the time, as there was no USB, AGP, ACPI, Plug'n'Play and only HDDs up to 8.4 GB, etc. Personally, I prefer Windows 2000, which offers more technically and also had a more classic design. But NT is good for very old systems because 2000 runs very slowly on them. I still have a Dual Pentium 90 here, and I think I'll equip it with it. But it's a great presentation, I like the great start-up sound and the great design with the stars.
Yes makes total sense. It was fun exploring for sure and I am thankful fro the eventual Win2k :)
I have had an AGP card running in windows NT4, its an Radon i think. But you have to have service pack 3 or 4, for it to use the drivers.
I like NT4's startup sound. Very futuristic, meets people's fantasy towards the future in the 90s😇
Agreed. And today we get a 'ding' for start up lol
My first computer ran Windows 95 which I used for just over a year. I then upgraded and got a copy of Windows NT4 Workstation, and also built my first server that ran Windows NT4 Server. I then upgraded to Windows 2000 for both the desktop and server, and then onto Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 RC2. Until recently I was running Windows 10 with my Linux Server, but now am running Linux on everything except for my retro systems. Windows NT4 Workstation was a great OS and I think was better than Windows 95.
Edit:
There is a SP6a for NT4, and also a USB Driver available. They are on WinWorldPC.
Thanks for sharing and thanks for letting me know where to find the SP! I was unable to locate it for this video, I will check WinWorld!
@@TheRetroRecall WinWorldPC is great for a lot of old software except for Windows XP, and has all of service packs as well for NT and 2000 workstations and servers. They limit the number of downloads to 25 per day, but it's a valuable place for retro and old software. I hope you will find it useful.
Thank you!
Ahh I thought that accent sounded familiar, hello fellow Atlantic Canadian!
Haha yes!!!!
Is Windows NT 4.0 recommend suitable for gaming 3d ?
It is not. Use the Windows 9x line for that.
Oh, too bad. Can you use Windows NT 4.0 for school, office & home use ?
You could back in the day, however it would be focused on business and productivity VS games :)
You hit me right in the feels when you said Partition Magic.
Hahah classic software! So many great memories and terrible accidents lol
@@TheRetroRecall Joy and horrors in equal messure.
😂😂
Funny out of all the five boxes you have, the green one has the least amount of features. The Windows XP box you have has the least amount of features you have out of all the versions of Windows you have, and in my opinion, the worst version of Windows in history.
Really?? I'm surprised as Windows XP... Eventually XP Professional with Sp3 ... Was an amazing OS!
@@TheRetroRecall The box you have on your table is the worst version of Windows XP. Not being able to join a domain with an NT-based operating system is the most pathetic thing Microsoft has done, bad enough Windows NT was untested with the amount of computer software and DOS games which everyone still used in 2001.
Yes yes of course, Windows XP Pro is where I landed in the end.
@@TheRetroRecallin 2004 I ended up switching all my computers to XP Pro. Still was very slow on my Pentium 2 unlike Windows 2000!
Yeah Win2k was amazing. Clean, simple.
i need to start collecting these to go with my laptops that i recently acquired. i love big box software i find it very interesting
Agreed! I loveeee big box software, especially now!
@@TheRetroRecall i cant wait to see more like this. i love waiting for your new videos to pop up.
I love when you watch them! I'm glad you are enjoying, this is exactly why I do this channel :)
23:00 beautiful! just love that setup and logon screen!
Agreed, it was a neat OS to explore and see how it was foudational to what we experienced over the years.
Windows 10 not Windows 11
Please Elaborate / add context.
Like your content. Would love to see you put chapters into play, please.
TH-cam content creators do not have control over that. TH-cam will put them in. Stay tuned, they will be populated:)
@@TheRetroRecall Did not know that, ty. I thought you guys put them in like chapters in dvds / blu rays. 👍
Haha I wish!
Please add chapters
I have the chapters option turned on - it is added by TH-cam.
15:37 did it say "exhaustive" secondary examination and meant "exhaust-ive" lol
Haha same?
any reason you went with sp5 rather than 6?
Not any real technical reason. I wanted to have a later SP to show case / chat through the SP options... However when looking for SP6 or SP6A on archive.org, I wasn't able to quickly locate an English version, so decided (for time) to use SP 5:)
@@TheRetroRecall Annoyingly I had the disk, and ISO - but it's not in my retro CD folder (I do have NT Server and NT Workstation 4.0 though)... if I find the disc or iso I will let you know!
Please!
11:03 you have 16000KB of memory instead of 16384KB?
I think it shows how its reading it on that screen. Later in the video it is read differently.
hmmm
you should show off your entire computer collection!
I was actually thinking about doing a behind the scenes video Interestingly enough :)
Like you I've never previously installed or played around with this myself. It's like a business-oriented version of Windows 95!
100%
@@TheRetroRecall Nothing quite says business like playing Pinball near the end of the video! 😝
Bahahaha I had to lighten it up!
this is a twin of michael
Thanks?
of the mjd
Haha, I just do what I do :). Thanks for the praise, he's great.
hello
nice!
Thanks!!
Hey its the Daves Garage fan pack!
I don't get the reference :)
@@TheRetroRecallDave's Garage is a TH-cam channel run by a head programmer for microsoft who worked on windows from 3.1 on I think but definately during NT to XP and he designed and built Task Manager, got Pinball ported to XP, wrote the code for the first activation key etc.
It's an amazing insight into Microsoft and windows development It's actually a channel right up your alley with vintage operating systems anyway.
Appreciate the additional info, I'll check him out, thank you!