NT 4 On Somewat Modern hardware?

[yourepicfailure]

For testing purposes, I'd like to install NT4 on actual hardware. I'd just like to know before I start getting high hopes.
Yes, I thought of using it on a VM, but it was just unethical getting the test files back and forth. (don't ask)
I'm in a bit of an advantage, as this laptop uses an IDE drive and the bios allows me to go into single core mode.
But, it's modern, and a little too modern at that. No native cdrom drive.
This possible? Some specs:

Dell Latitude XT
Ram: 3GB
CPU: Core2Duo
HDD: PATA - ZIF IDE <-- I know of the incompatibilities with 7.8GB+ partitions, but I'm not expecting much disk usage anyways.
I don't know the MOBO, I'll see if I can post it later. I may be dual-booting with Xp.
And please, don't ask why...

[The Distractor]

winnt /b

Also, regarding the incompatibilities, you can get around it. After converting to NTFS you can use a partition resizer (probably gparted would work) to make the partition take up the whole of the disk.

(This works with NT 3.x too, btw)

[junior600]

For testing purposes, I'd like to install NT4 on actual hardware. I'd just like to know before I start getting high hopes.
Yes, I thought of using it on a VM, but it was just unethical getting the test files back and forth. (don't ask)
I'm in a bit of an advantage, as this laptop uses an IDE drive and the bios allows me to go into single core mode.
But, it's modern, and a little too modern at that. No native cdrom drive.
This possible? Some specs:

Dell Latitude XT
Ram: 3GB
CPU: Core2Duo
HDD: PATA - ZIF IDE <-- I know of the incompatibilities with 7.8GB+ partitions, but I'm not expecting much disk usage anyways.
I don't know the MOBO, I'll see if I can post it later. I may be dual-booting with Xp.
And please, don't ask why...

As far as I know, NT4 supports more than 1 core I managed to install NT 4.0 on this machine
Amd fx 6300 3.5 ghz
4 gb ram
asrock 970 extreme 3
geforce 6800 gs ( I have bought it because neither windows 98 nor windows NT 4.0 support my main video card, a geforce 9800 gtx+ :/ )


Sorry for my bad English.

[os2fan2]

There's alter's atapi, which gets around the 127 GB partition problem.

Look at bearwindows, it has a lot of good stuff for older windows, like 3.51 and 4.00

[rthdribl]

I'm in a bit of an advantage, as this laptop uses an IDE drive and the bios allows me to go into single core mode.

And please, don't ask why...

http://www.thecollectionbook.info/galle ... %20003.png

[louisw3]

Last time I needed to do this (then again Pentium 4's were all the rage..) I installed MS-DOS / NT 4.0 in Virtual PC on a FAT disk, did all the updates, added in stuff like USB, and more modern ATAPI controllers, left it as VGA and then made an archive, booted up the modern machine with a 98 bootable CD, made a sub 2Gig C drive on the new machine (so it's not fat32), extracted the archive, and restored, I had to use that getsec/putsec from the old OS/2 days, and once I got the machine booting up MS-DOS, booted into NT... once I was happy convert the disk to NTFS and that was that.

With that said, the performance of NT 4.0 on modern hardware left a lot to be desire, Windows 2000 was vastly superior. I don't know why NT 4.0 felt so pokey and I didn't have time to troublshoot it as I needed to get the machine out the door for some customer as it was driving some custom hardware and it needed that checklist that said "Windows NT 4.0" ..

TL;DR NT 4 on the CD is probably too old, try transplanting a NT 4 sp6a installation + extra drivers.

[yourepicfailure]

I'm in a bit of an advantage, as this laptop uses an IDE drive and the bios allows me to go into single core mode.

And please, don't ask why...

http://www.thecollectionbook.info/galle ... %20003.png

I attempted bootup of setup with Multicore mode. All the pretty hearts and random characters all over my screen...
Oh wait, that was a crash. And no information given. Is it a problem specifically with this Core2Duo model or something?

[louisw3]

I attempted bootup of setup with Multicore mode. All the pretty hearts and random characters all over my screen...
Oh wait, that was a crash. And no information given. Is it a problem specifically with this Core2Duo model or something?

Something like this right?



It's the CPU function level being too high.

Once SP6a is installed it should be fine, which is why I was mentioning to transplant the install....

[louisw3]

For whatever it's worth, I installed NT something like this:

qemu-system-i386.exe -m 64 -cdrom winnt40wks_sp1_en.iso -hda nt4 -smp 1 -cpu pentium

Make sure you select the Multiprocessor HAL

And then afterwards as a dual proc, core2duo it should boot up...

qemu-system-i386.exe -m 64 -cdrom winnt40wks_sp1_en.iso -hda nt4 -smp 2 -cpu core2duo

[Stephanos]

I attempted bootup of setup with Multicore mode. All the pretty hearts and random characters all over my screen...
Oh wait, that was a crash. And no information given. Is it a problem specifically with this Core2Duo model or something?

Something like this right?



It's the CPU function level being too high.

Once SP6a is installed it should be fine, which is why I was mentioning to transplant the install....

What version of QEmu and what options are you using to get that result?

NOTE: This question is for louisw3. I'd like to be able to reproduce that result (in the screenshot he provided) so that I can potentially implement a fix in the NT 4 source I am working on.

[wasabilee]

can NT4 even utilize multicore ?
i had crappy experiences with XP and that one is miles ahead ...

[yourepicfailure]

I'm not using QEMU, I'm installing this on bare metal.

[Stephanos]

can NT4 even utilize multicore ?
i had crappy experiences with XP and that one is miles ahead ...

Yes, it can fully utilise them. Multicore or multiprocessor, they're all separate processors as per the MP specification. NT 4 fully supports the APIC (though not x2APIC) on x86.

Meanwhile, XP, besides having a limited max number of supported processors/cores, has nothing wrong with the MP support. Remember, it shares the same kernel source base as Server 2003.

[louisw3]

can NT4 even utilize multicore ?
i had crappy experiences with XP and that one is miles ahead ...

Every version of NT had multiproc support.

[louisw3]

can NT4 even utilize multicore ?
i had crappy experiences with XP and that one is miles ahead ...

Yes, it can fully utilise them. Multicore or multiprocessor, they're all separate processors as per the MP specification. NT 4 fully supports the APIC (though not x2APIC) on x86.

Meanwhile, XP, besides having a limited max number of supported processors/cores, has nothing wrong with the MP support. Remember, it shares the same kernel source base as Server 2003.

All the 'workstation' user versions do 2 processors, server up to 4. NT 4.0 enterprise does up to 8 processors.

Windows 2000 pro 2 cpu (it's still workstation), server 4, Advanced server 8, and datacenter 32.

Multicore processors sure have blended things, compared to the old monster 8 processor machines of way back then.

[louisw3]

What version of QEmu and what options are you using to get that result?

It's not a Qemu thing, it's a CPU level thing. Any Pentium 4 or above processor crashes out the 1381 SP1 kernel on NT.

So setting Qemu with no cpu flags will emulate something way higher than the p4 (its always a moving target) which is why you have to restrict it for install, update to sp6a, then you can turn off the restrictions.

Of course you can't slipstream the install, so this is the issue yourepicfailure is facing.

[louisw3]

I'm not using QEMU, I'm installing this on bare metal.

I just used Qemu to take a screen shot, as I'm not going to even try to install NT 4 on my pc. It was just what I had on hand to show how it'll crash out when the cpu level is too high.

[Stephanos]

What version of QEmu and what options are you using to get that result?

It's not a Qemu thing, it's a CPU level thing. Any Pentium 4 or above processor crashes out the 1381 SP1 kernel on NT.

So setting Qemu with no cpu flags will emulate something way higher than the p4 (its always a moving target) which is why you have to restrict it for install, update to sp6a, then you can turn off the restrictions.

Of course you can't slipstream the install, so this is the issue yourepicfailure is facing.

Ah, SP1. I thought this was an issue present in more recent versions.
Thanks for the update.

[abbers]

I installed Windows NT 3.51 on a Compaq Deskpro Pentium 3 and NT 4.0 on a Dell Dimension 2400 Celeron 2Ghz, just so I could run the 32-bit version of Word 6 and Excel 5.

The NT 4.0 installation went surprisingly well, but the NT 3.51 install was tricky.

I had to find audio, video and NIC drivers for 10+ year old hardware, copy them to floppy disks (!) that were still working after being thrown in the back of a cupboard a decade ago. . . oops, I'd forgot about the lack of AGP video support in the original non-SP releases. I still had to hunt around for updated HAL.DLLs that supported AGP and allowed a full power-off shutdown.

I got it all working in the end, but the lack of a suitable web browser for NT 3.51 limits its usefulness in the modern age.

[nerd70]

I installed Windows NT 3.51 on a Compaq Deskpro Pentium 3 and NT 4.0 on a Dell Dimension 2400 Celeron 2Ghz, just so I could run the 32-bit version of Word 6 and Excel 5.

The NT 4.0 installation went surprisingly well, but the NT 3.51 install was tricky.

I had to find audio, video and NIC drivers for 10+ year old hardware, copy them to floppy disks (!) that were still working after being thrown in the back of a cupboard a decade ago. . . oops, I'd forgot about the lack of AGP video support in the original non-SP releases. I still had to hunt around for updated HAL.DLLs that supported AGP and allowed a full power-off shutdown.

I got it all working in the end, but the lack of a suitable web browser for NT 3.51 limits its usefulness in the modern age.

Firefox? I am pretty sure that runs on NT 3.51.

[x010]

I installed Windows NT 3.51 on a Compaq Deskpro Pentium 3 and NT 4.0 on a Dell Dimension 2400 Celeron 2Ghz, just so I could run the 32-bit version of Word 6 and Excel 5.

The NT 4.0 installation went surprisingly well, but the NT 3.51 install was tricky.

I had to find audio, video and NIC drivers for 10+ year old hardware, copy them to floppy disks (!) that were still working after being thrown in the back of a cupboard a decade ago. . . oops, I'd forgot about the lack of AGP video support in the original non-SP releases. I still had to hunt around for updated HAL.DLLs that supported AGP and allowed a full power-off shutdown.

I got it all working in the end, but the lack of a suitable web browser for NT 3.51 limits its usefulness in the modern age.

Firefox? I am pretty sure that runs on NT 3.51.

Till what version anyway? I think somewhere not more than ver 2 or 3.

[MrFreeman]

Despite what many people out there would say, firefox versions 2 and 3 would work just fine for web browsing in 2015.

[computergoose]

You know, reading this thread made me think of a website.

Ever heard of www.toastytech.com ?

It's a great website (and it looks like nerd70 knows about it -- his picture is of an anti IE button from that website). One page he has is on how to install NT 4 on a FAT32 partition.

http://toastytech.com/guis/miscb2.html (installing NT 4 is at the bottom of the page).

[abbers]

Firefox? I am pretty sure that runs on NT 3.51.

I hadn't given Firefox a thought at the time.

I tested IE, Netscape (and possibly Opera) - it was over a year ago so I can't remember exactly. IE seemed to hang on every website I opened, and Netscape Navigator either didn't install or didn't open. I seem to remember WININET.DLL complaining a lot, too.

This topic has piqued my interest, so I'll dig out my NT 3.51 installation media and have another go.

[nerd70]

Firefox? I am pretty sure that runs on NT 3.51.

I hadn't given Firefox a thought at the time.

I tested IE, Netscape (and possibly Opera) - it was over a year ago so I can't remember exactly. IE seemed to hang on every website I opened, and Netscape Navigator either didn't install or didn't open. I seem to remember WININET.DLL complaining a lot, too.

This topic has piqued my interest, so I'll dig out my NT 3.51 installation media and have another go.

I had a quite fun experience (not really) trying to get firefox to run on NT 3.51, but it does work.

What you will need:
An updated COMCTL32.DLL, OLEAUT32.DLL, IMM32.DLL, and MSVCRT.DLL
Service Pack 5
and WININET.DLL (If you want to use flash)