NT4 security; sitting duck?

[wild weasel]

I mainly use XP at work.

For a giggle & nostalgia, I would like to run NT4 SP6a (fully-patched) on an old PIII PC.

I know NT4 is now end-of-lifed. I am sure you guys will tell me if an NT4 PC goes onto the big, bad world of the internet, it will be a sitting duck. But I wonder to what degree 2006 spyware, malware, viruses etc. have been written for XP, win2K etc. rather than NT4, a 1996 OS. Are these programs tailored to XP, win2k specifically, or windows NT generally (NT4, NT5, NT5.1)?

I will use firefox 1.5.0.6 behind my broadband firewall/router & a software firewall (Kerio or Sygate). I understand the main anti-spyware programs e.g. Ad-Aware, Spybot S&D, Spyware blaster are compatible with NT4. I will harden the system with "secure-it" (available from Majorgeeks.com) - which I have used to harden XP. I may well use bblean as my main shell, avoiding IE altogether.

How unsafe would such a PC be on the Net?

Any suggestions on how to make NT4 safer, would be welcome.

Wild Weasel

[fizban2]

make it safer by never plugging in a internet network cable then it is safe

[allen2]

If you're behind a firewall, your NT4 will be safe. You don't risk more than using an unpatched XP behind a firewall.

[Zartach]

A lot of spyware will not work on windows NT4, and win9x even. One customer i work for stubbornly uses both OSses still and reguarly i have to do some cleaning (public internet pc's) to clean spyware.

I have seen some annoying ones work on them but a lot less than on XP, It is true that if there is a critical vulnerability you might not have the proper defence as XP would recieve a patch but a good virusscanner can help there.

I would not place any buissness critical / secret info on those systems though.

[darylzero]

with win2k or xp and NT for that matter just logon as a user with user privilages that way nothing can be installed.