July 31 2006 is NT4's 10th birthday. A decade of service to the
computing community !

It's been a rocky road, with a few big scares along the way - but
overall NT4 would probably rate as Microsoft's BEST EVER effort at
creating an operating system.

To Dave Cutler and the entire NT team - THANKS from a grateful user who
still gets 12 to 16 hours a day of operation out of his copy of NT4.

As the NT4Ref web site can attest - 1400+ hits a month on the site tells
me that there is still a LOT of NT4 users and significant interest in
this OS.

Calvin.

Calvin wrote:
good read here:
History of Microsoft Windows
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History...rosoft_Windows

and:
Windows NT 4.0
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_NT_4.0
"released to manufacturing on July 29, 1996."

Yes; agree but DOS 1.1/3.3/5.0/6.22 and
Windows-for-Working-Stiffs 3.11 were good
for their time ..

You Slacker !! up here there are 24 hours in a
day ( :-; tongue-n-cheeck-sarcasm) as evidenced
by my Dec-2002 WDC disk reports 24748 hours

is there a javascript/bookmarklet that automagically
downloads and saves to disk all the links on a page ?
when i go to http://nt4ref.zcm.com.au/index.htm
and right-click a link in FireFox 1.04 and save to disk;
it Hangs until the download is complete and on
dial-up that is slow ..

(google says "NT4" site:microsoft.com search
has 89,000 hits whilst "NT 4.0" site:microsoft.com
returns 2,710,000 hits)

:rod--NT4 since May-1997 -- it still Kicks it after all these years

nt4-ever wrote:
Yes - the wikipedia is a marvel of knowledge and wisdom :-) I submitted
a link to NT4Ref a while ago, which the controlling author of the page
(I'm pleased to say) accepted !

Yep - MSDOS still gets a workout here to - needed as a boot environment
to do disk imaging backups :-) I still have some utilities I originally
wrote 12 years ago that still get used on DOS on occasion as well.

I actually only leave the system running whilst I have useful work for
it to do - I've never seen the point of wasting electrical energy
running a system 24 hours a day when it probably spends 10 of those
hours bone idle ! Nothing happens here that is SOO important that it
won't wait until morning !

Not that I know of. If you want to 'grab' a 'whole site' or a subset of
it, a tool like HTTrack http://www.httrack.com would be a good starting
point.

My counters are independent and keep cumulative hit counts of each page
of the site - which I total to get a 'site count'. The ClustrMaps web
page ONLY counts hits on index.htm, so the number presented there is WAY
short of the true site activity count. The ClustrMaps link is useful to
work out where the visitors are coming from - and it seems to be 'all
four corners of the globe' !! :-)

NT4Ref is approaching it's 3rd birthday - November 18 to be precise !

Calvin.

All the servers on my lans are NT4. Several have been continuously up almost a year. The
only reason I ever take one down is to upgrade a hardware component.


--
#include <standard.disclaimer>
_
Kevin D Quitt USA 91387-4454 96.37% of all statistics are made up

Kevin D. Quitt wrote:
Hi Kevin,

of course SERVERS are a totally different 'kettle of fish', here maximum
up-time is really important and this is where NT4 is a real winner !
I've heard instances of 3+ years without requiring a reboot - and still
"chuggin' along" nicely :-)

Was interesting reading just recently - an article I found on the 'net
talking about the development cycle for Server 2k3 - apparently the
ultimate test by Microsoft before RTM was to run their system on a fresh
install of the RTM candidate. The system had to stay up 21 days without
a reboot to pass !

Calvin.

On Wed, 02 Aug 2006 10:40:04 +1000, Calvin <nospam@spamcop.net> wrote:
Now, I'm not knocking NT4, I think it's the most reliable thing that
MS has produced to date, but...

VAX/VMS is damned near bulletproof. I remember back in the early 90s,
a bunch of MS clowns wanting to load some of their software on Windows
clients being served by a VAX/VMS cluster saying that the whole system
would need to be rebooted when that was done. They were horrified
when they were told that the next cluster shutdown and reboot was
scheduled for November, which as I recall was about 8 months hence at
the time.

Now, don't even get me *started* on the current MS state of clustering
technology...
--
Dan.

Dean Dark wrote:
AGREED - I was only talking about OSes in the MS world - In the 'whole
world' situation there certainly are far better solutions like:

LOL - unfortunately I'm really of the opinion that Microsoft have really
squashed there own chances here. In attempting to write an OS that the
'Mums, Dads and Kiddies' could contend with (ie: XP etc....) they have
had to introduce a LOT of stuff that has NO RIGHT to be in an OS and is
the big contributor to instability - and probably a lot of the security
holes to boot !

I think NT3.5(1) was probably actually an even a better stability system
than NT4.0 is, but 4.0 introduced a lot of new features and hardware
support, perhaps with a few added stability issues - so the trade-off
was probably acceptable.

To a great degree (IMHO) the 'advances' made since (like adding stuff
such as PnP [read = Plug n StuffIt]) and integrating a whole heap of
unnecessary crap is what destabilised the OS. (Win2k somewhat, XP much
more so, Win2k3 I really haven't seen much of to comment on in detail :-) )

Certainly no plans to change OSes here in the foreseeable future, and
when the day comes that I do have to change it's 10 to 1 odds on that
the replacement OS WON'T be written by Microsoft !

PS: I'm actually keeping a close eye on ReactOS http://www.reactos.org -
a possible future candidate OS when development is a bit further along
the track :-)

Calvin.

from Kevins prior post:
The
only reason I ever take one down is to upgrade a hardware component.
Kevin D Quitt USA 91387-4454 96.37% of all statistics are made
up

How do you do that Kevin, since my search
on google for NT 4 supported hardware is
void for any new stuff that is available ??
(and your 96.37 percent claim is wildly optomistc)

Calvin wrote:
yes i checked that site and they appear to be in disaray
my famous quote:
"Even Windows can Barely run Windows"
so how can we expect the others to emulate
Win under another OS eg Wine under @nix ??

nt4-ever wrote:

Hi,

That maybe a little unfair on them. The project has only been under firm
direction and serious development for 18 months. It is a 'phoenix' of a
previous project that was going to write a Win9x clone, and ultimately
failed because of lack of direction. The history of the project is
chronicled on the site somewhere.

I cast my mind back to Linux 18 months after Linus Torvalds first posted
his first public release - there was still a lot of development work
required there too. These things take time - I'm in no hurry -I'm sure
NT4.0 will continue to serve my needs for several years yet !

Calvin.

On 4 Aug 2006 14:37:54 -0700, "nt4-ever" <nt4-ever@hotmail.com> wrote:

Upgrades are generally just memory or disk.

--
#include <standard.disclaimer>
_
Kevin D Quitt USA 91387-4454 96.37% of all statistics are made up

Kevin D. Quitt wrote:
Yes; just my hundreds of hours doing search
for NT 4 supported hardware is void ..

whilst the stuff from a few years ago that has
NT 4 drivers appears to be unavailable now ..

check these threads where i try to ask
for support re NT 4 and FireFox and then
i am Trashed for asking so:

http://groups.google.com/group/mozil...b885f14ba0d188
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.c...2c1a8f175c5c99

Have been bumping the XP forum and came across this one…

Long time NT user and big time fan. Hard drive on system bought in 2000
recently died so I had to buy a new one. Installing NT from scratch is no
fun nowadays. Driver support for old faithful was unfortunately hard to come
by and caused many problems with display, video and sound cards as proper
drivers were no longer available. What do they call it, engineered
obsolescence? Ran into formatting issues with OEM NT reinstall disks. When
attempting to update components I was constantly being informed that I needed
a higher version of something else in order to complete. Well, you can’t
install this service pack until you are running this version of explorer, but
you need that version of explorer to install that service pack and so forth.
I tried to go in order but found it impossible. Anyway, all this rambling is
my best attempt at justifying the following…

I finally resorted to XP. I feel like I was forced into it. As a licensed
user of MS software, shouldn’t I be able to use what I bought? It’s like
buying a car and after 10 years not being able to find parts for it. Wait a
minute…

Anyway, loved NT and was sorry to see it go. XP isn’t so bad. With the pro
version optioned for maximum user control and minimum autonomy, it seems
pretty stable and reasonably proficient.

Cheers to NT.

Hi Patrix,

Yes, installing NT4 on modern hardware can be a daunting task - but need
not be rated as 'impossible' - that is what NT4Ref (
http://nt4ref.zcm.com.au ) was invented to help people with (along with
other issues)

I'm afraid XP would be my absolute last resort (and I think if it was a
'XP or nothing' choice, I'd be looking at Linux or other !) I've had
several persons suggest I should have XP - to which I usually retort:

"OVER MY DEAD and ROTTING BODY !!"

I've had reasonable success with Win2k, it certainly has a much smaller
OS footprint, behaves a lot more like 'classic NT', and dare I say it
I'm sure it's a damn side more stable than XP to boot !! (If that
doesn't trigger a howl of protest from the XP fanbois I don't know what
will !)

Calvin.

Calvin,

I sure wish I’d known about this resource before moving to XP. I feel like
I may have given up too easily, although a week was spent attempting to get
NT to stabilize. Having used XP now for around a month, it seems solid
enough. I am very particular about what my systems are doing and at first
did not like all of the automation XP offers. Being a somewhat proficient
user, I want to control what the OS does and how it does it. This is what I
liked about NT. Although somewhat of a challenge to your average user,
Windows NT offered the more advanced user much in the way of customizability.
Having tinkered with XP for a while now, it can be optioned to emulate NT’s
UI as well as operation.

I am curious though, about what specific shortcomings you think XP has. Not
from a, this is better, that is better, blah, blah, but from a learning
standpoint. I looking to learn about the differences here, not just read
bashing comments about XP.

Also, I’ve heard MS completely scraped NT’s network code and re-wrote it for
XP, is this true? And then there are the on-going security vulnerabilities
in XP - that have supposedly been addressed with service pack 2.

Anyway, I think for my case, having interfaced with NT for so long, I got
used to it and was reluctant to change due to familiarity and comfort, but,
as they say, change CAN be good, the question remains, will it be?

Cheers.


"Calvin" wrote:

Follow up post from former NT user now converted to XP. Just installed
optical hardware device salvaged from NT system with dead hard drive. As
previous post details, all attempts were made to bring NT system back on-line
with new HD. See previous post. Anyway, wanted to install this fully
functioning drive in new XP system. Wow, this is where XP shines. Connect
as slave, power up and XP detected, installed and functioned drive perfectly,
so far at least.

As a former NT user and still an advocate, I must admit, this was the
easiest hardware install I’ve ever experienced, true plug and play, so far.
Cheers to XP in that respect at least.

"PatrixUSA" wrote:

Hi Patrix,

PatrixUSA wrote:
On NT4 adding an optical drive is just as simple. Power system off, plug
in drive. (set as master /slave etc.. on the right bus, or plug it into
a spare ID on the SCSI bus)

If you've never had any optical drives on the system before, you would
have to do a small amount of work adding drivers, but it is not hard.
Most people never encounter this problem because NT is installed from an
optical drive originally, and as such the necessary drivers are already
in place. Changing from a CD-ROM drive to a DVD writer makes no
difference. All optical drives are treated initially as CD-ROM.

After you've applied SP5 or above DVD-ROM is also recognised fine - the
CDFS driver is modified to allow for volumes larger than 700MB :-)

Writing to a CD/DVD requires installation of appropriate software - see
http://nt4ref.zcm.com.au/optical.htm for all the info on this.

One of my pet hates - along with the DREADFUL "Telli-tubbies" default
user interface.

What I hate is to get the user interface back to 'classic mode' fully
requires 'fiddling' with settings and options in about 4 different
places - WHY can't it simply be switch to 'classic windows' interface
and EVERYTHING is changed back to sensible ?

My primary complaints about XP are:

1. MASSIVE BLOAT - I'm left astounded how a base OS install could have a
footprint of 1.5GB+ - what the hell did they put in there to waste that
much space ?

2. The dreadful "Telli-tubbies" default user interface and the large
amount of work required to turn it into something approaching sensible.

3. Plug and Play - or should I call it 'Plug and Stuff It' ??
Guaranteed to get at least one device wrong nearly every time, and then
virtually impossible to convince it that it is wrong and the end user
may actually know better ! I've seen instances where adding a new
peripheral has resulted in Plug and Play totally destabilising the
system, requiring a complete rebuild. If Microsoft had ANY brains at
all, the first question offered during XP setup would be a big tick box
entitled 'DISABLE all plug and play features' !

4. You ARE FORCED to endure having Internet Exploder on the system - the
application from whence 10,000 security holes spring. Apparently there
is a method of disentangling IE from the OS, but it is EXTREMELY messy
and entails considerable risk to system stability - so you have no
choice but to grin and bear it :-(

5. The really annoying 'helpful' popups like 'Your system may be at
risk... blah blah woof woof' - I'm not 5 years old and I really object
to being constantly treated as though I was by the OS !

6. The ridiculous software firewall. All this useless piece of
paraphernalia does is get in the way of legitimate network traffic and
guarantee every user has problems. I HIGHLY disapprove of software
firewalls, all I think they do is lull the user into a false sense of
security. If intrusion and control on network connectivity are big
issues do it properly with an external hardware device !

Dunno - but nothing Microsoft do surprises me any more. I'm convinced
the primary reason why XP had so many security vulnerabilities is for
exactly the reasons I stated above. They were trying to create and OS
with 'all the bells and whistles' built in and fully automated so that
the 'Mums, Dads and Kiddies' could set it up themselves. All they
succeeded in doing is creating an automation nightmare that NOBODY truly
understands WHAT it is doing half the time. I've lost count of the
number of "How the Hell Did It DO That ??" situations XP has presented
to me !

Good luck. Most people I know who have XP are back to same old story as
Win 98 - ie: about every 12 to 18 months the OS becomes SOOO screwed
that you have to reload from scratch to recover any form of stability.

Finally - why in my opinion NT4 wins:

1. Size - base OS footprint is 85MB or less.
2. No annoying 'add-ins' like IE, WMP etc. etc. etc. What is added at
OS install can be simply removed if you don't want it - it is not
'entangled' into the base OS like an octopus.
3. Simple straight forward user interface which is reasonably logical -
but not perfect.
4. FAST - try XP and NT4 on the same hardware and see for yourself.
5. NT4 is VERY stable. I've seen many installations that have run for
YEARS continuously (ie: NO REBOOTS) and trouble free.
6. NO Plug and Play constantly trying to second guess you and invariably
getting it wrong !
7. Simple structured OS architecture that closely follows the original
plan for NT as charted by Dave Cutler and the original NT development team.

With the demise of Win98/ME (Boy what a DISASTER WinME was !) and these
software writers becoming involved in NT 5.0 (which the marketing spin
doctors renamed to Win2k) is where I feel the rot started to set in. We
got an NT OS with ALL the BAD features of Win98 that everyone was trying
to get AWAY from !

Good luck with XP, I hope it serves your needs. I have to endure dealing
with it for customers, but I can tell you in all honesty, such dealings
are a CHORE not a delight. Working on NT4 I always felt I was on firm
ground, with XP it's more like shifting PnP quicksand !!

Calvin.