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Resurrecting NT4 in 2016


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Wireless on Nt4: what about an Ethernet router that offers Wifi too? The excellent DG834G Adsl 2+ modem does all this, its v5 offers Wpa2 encryption, and Ethernet is compatible with everything, so I hope (without having tested!) that the router connected by Ethernet to the Nt4 machine would connect it to the other machines over Wifi. But it's not necessarily what is desired here.

Updates for ie6: I'd go straight to Microsoft's monthly patches list and pick the ones for the ie6 that is not part of a windows - that is, ie6 for W2k. Just try (by dichotomy) up to what date they accept to install on Nt4, or if investing more time, up to what date the installed executables make calls only to dll entries available on Nt4. The ie6 patches were applicable to W2k well after MS dropped support for W2k, just like Dotnet patches apply to W2k well after 2010.

Hotfixes one by one: this is the only way foreseen by MS, to my understanding. Neither the SP nor the HF can be officially slipstreamed into the Nt4 installation disk. Though, at least two persons developed inofficial slipstream tools for Nt4 - I didn't try them but could search in my archives. Without investing months in that topic, the best bet may be a bat file to apply the patches from their folder - but if reboot is mandatory it won't be easy.

Or would it be any possible to apply the hotfixes on an installed Nt4 from an other OS? I mean, plug your disk containing the Nt4 on an other machine, or boot an other OS on that machine, and run a home-made program that extracts the updated files from the patches and puts them in the Nt4 installation?

That would be a nice project, not only for Nt4, if it's possible. I mean, something like a live CD or Usb stick (Linux or other) that can get a folder full of Windows patches, find what to do with each and apply them to the temporarily inactive Windows without asking 200 times "Are you sure", "agree with the licence" and "reboot". Win7 users would be happy with that too.

Usefully, this updater could be told once what to do if a patch isn't signed, or applies officially to an other OS version or an other language. It might also prevent the overload of the "add-suppres programs" list, or (drawbacks?) have a separate patch list and rollback file store, and document neatly which patch modifies which file to what version.

Edited by pointertovoid
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  • 1 month later...

On 10/24/2016 at 9:04 AM, pointertovoid said:

Or would it be any possible to apply the hotfixes on an installed Nt4 from an other OS? I mean, plug your disk containing the Nt4 on an other machine, or boot an other OS on that machine, and run a home-made program that extracts the updated files from the patches and puts them in the Nt4 installation?

That would be a nice project, not only for Nt4, if it's possible. I mean, something like a live CD or Usb stick (Linux or other) that can get a folder full of Windows patches, find what to do with each and apply them to the temporarily inactive Windows without asking 200 times "Are you sure", "agree with the licence" and "reboot". Win7 users would be happy with that too.

Usefully, this updater could be told once what to do if a patch isn't signed, or applies officially to an other OS version or an other language. It might also prevent the overload of the "add-suppres programs" list, or (drawbacks?) have a separate patch list and rollback file store, and document neatly which patch modifies which file to what version.

Patching a wim file with DISM is something that you can do with modern versions of Windows but I'm not sure the equivalent could easily be done with NT4. 
I sortof figure if it was easy to take the updates and apply them to the NT4 source someone would have already done it really well. I remember the previous process was described by someone as a slopstream and it did appear to dump a whole of of extra server files that weren't included in the workstation installation.

I have entertained the idea of building something to install NT4, desired updates, apply any tweaks I want (eg scroll wheel fix) then possibly sysprep and build an image.
I basically imagine something equivalent to using WDS and MDT where you can PXE boot and deploy your machine and come back a bit later and everything is done.
The only thing is I'm a bit hesitant to build something like that because I'm not sure if I would use it enough and that I might be better served using my time to build or contribute to something more modern.

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Wow, is it a Tualatin in your profile's image? My mom still uses the computer I built around a 1400MHz/133MHz/512kB.

After a short reading, it looks like DISM applies patches to an image of Windows, so do you suggest it would apply them to an shut down installation? Interesting! I just wonder, since DISM must run on Windows, whether the protections would hamper it. Running on a Linux live CD would circumvent that difficulty.

Apply the updates to the NT4 source: at least two enthusiasts have written the necessary batch updater. A sort of equivalent to Hfslip, but more difficult because Microsoft had not foreseen the Nt4 patches to accept a /integrate option, so the batch updater must do everything autonomously.

A batch updater that runs on non-Windows, applies the patches on a shutdown installed Windows would be interesting for Nt4, which little people use these days, but also for all other Win. Imagine Seven: a convenience rollup exists now, but people who reject telemetry must still apply the patches one by one. Among other future solutions, a life Cd that applies a folder full of patches to the shutdown installed Seven would be comfortable, and could do more tweaks easily when the protections are aslept.

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Yep that is a Tualatin, I did think about changing it but decided to leave it as is because I couldn't think of anything to replace it with.

Yes my understanding is DISM can work either on a running Windows installation or an offline wim file so it must be designed to work with whatever protections in Windows. 
Of course if we were doing something similar with NT4 it would be more likely something like nLite where it applies to the NT sources instead of a running installation.

I haven't seen a batch updater for NT4 (or looked), I once wondered about if an unofficial service pack 7 for NT4 was feasible but after looking at some of the other unofficial service packs decided it was way too much effort for little gain. Also what tends to happen is the things I want eg the Active directory client someone else might not want at all. Also you tend to get into the position of do you just do OS updates or do you update IE6 as well? Some people want the shell update and some people prefer the standard shell.

DISM can already apply an msu patch to a Windows 7 WIM file and I imagine something like NTlite can probably handle most of the tweaks people want. (While I haven't had to use NTlite I assume it provides a fairly similar feature set as nLite and vLite.) I guess I'm far more interested in making NT4 (and maybe 9x) installs automated for when I want them whereas I feel the official deployment tools work well enough for providing me unattended and patched installs.

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  • 2 months later...

I have manged DX files of Reactos work on nt 4.0

I have installed NT 4.0 Workstation on i7 first gen laptop with 128GB SSD and 4GB ram , nt 4.0 flying . QtWeb working very well .

One thing i need a generic LAN and Audio driver for NT 4.0 . WIth out those pc is quite unusable .

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1 hour ago, Dibya said:

I have manged DX files of Reactos work on nt 4.0

I have installed NT 4.0 Workstation on i7 first gen laptop with 128GB SSD and 4GB ram , nt 4.0 flying . QtWeb working very well .

One thing i need a generic LAN and Audio driver for NT 4.0 . WIth out those pc is quite unusable .

Windows nt 4.0 is fast, isn't it?  I have added several functions on kernel32,ntdll, advapi32 etc... (proxy dll method), and I managed to get some new software work. This is an example. (I'm adapting reactos source code for nt 4.0.) Now I have some issues to add functions in user32 and gdi32 because they require some calls to win32k.sys, but I hope I can do something.

Edited by junior600
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6 hours ago, Dibya said:

@junior600 You are true , nt 4 is very fast and ultra solid .

Friends , i have one terrible problem i cannot see dlls and sys files under nt 4 though they exists on the disk . how can i fix it?
 

You have to go to option folder and enable "show hidden files".

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3 hours ago, junior600 said:

You have to go to option folder and enable "show hidden files".

Thanks , It may work. next problem i need device manager and 32bit icons .

Edit: where it is located in nt 4?

Edit: GOt it! thank to my granny . Old people always rocks with old os

there is no device manager how can i install VBEMP GFX driver

Edited by Dibya
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1 hour ago, Dibya said:

Thanks , It may work. next problem i need device manager and 32bit icons .

Edit: where it is located in nt 4?

Edit: GOt it! thank to my granny . Old people always rocks with old os

there is no device manager how can i install VBEMP GFX driver

NT 4.0 is different from newer windows NT systems... It doesn't have plug and play and there is no device manager. you have to install vga driver from the display settings...

click on "change". (where is written "cambia" on my picture, it is the italian version).

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  • 1 month later...

This thread is a little over two months, but I have recently starting using virtual machines of the Win9x / NT3.x / NT4.x / 2000 OS's under my Windows 7 Ultimate.

It allows installing the legacy OS without needing drivers; the guest OS utilizes the host OS's drivers through integration.

NT 4.0 can still be a hoot to use these days if you want a semi-modern experience! However, the included Internet Explorer 1.0 is useless. You can open Google, but clicking any link in the results causes the browser to get stuck, it never redirects successfully, and has been this way for several years.

I had to mount the Win95 OSR2 ISO, then extract Internet Explorer 3.02 and install it under NT 4.0. I could then download Firefox 1.5.0.12 (Firefox 2.0.0.20 also works). To actually run Firefox you need the 50COMUPD.EXE and SPEU.EXE updates.

nt40vpc4.jpg

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I built a number of sp6a integrations into NT4, including some thing along the line of hacking registry, but some things still puzzle me.

At one point i want to do a pure microsoft thing, but elsewhere i want to include some third-party stuff.  The various fdv tapes i am using as reference are missing things i wish to include.  At the moment i'm working on the win98 disk, having nearly got msdos 6.30 in the bag.  nt 3.51 is the warmup to nt 4.0.

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  • 3 months later...
On ‎28‎/‎11‎/‎2016 at 4:47 PM, pointertovoid said:

Imagine Seven: a convenience rollup exists now, but people who reject telemetry must still apply the patches one by one.

People who insist SFC passes without errors must also :realmad:  I don't think MS issued sp2 for the simple reason they no longer have the talent to produce a service pack that actually *works*.

On ‎12‎/‎04‎/‎2017 at 9:34 PM, sdfox7 said:

I had to mount the Win95 OSR2 ISO, then extract Internet Explorer 3.02 and install it under NT 4.0. I could then download Firefox 1.5.0.12 (Firefox 2.0.0.20 also works). To actually run Firefox you need the 50COMUPD.EXE and SPEU.EXE updates.

I usually use the ie4 or ie5.5 installer the right command line options, which I don't now recall, get you the desktop update (the quick-launch bar is indispensable), way back when NT4 was current, people used to ask me how I got that. Or mistake it for 95 OSR2 / 98.  

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