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This article contains some information and links for the Microsoft Windows NT operating system
Windows NT has moved into the "not supported" state. Windows 2000 and Windows XP have been released with better manageability features and support for Active Directory. However, lots of functionality that is available out-of-the-box in Windows 2000 / XP has been backported or made available separately for NT. If you want to feed your NT box with microsoftish state-of-the-art technology, you will need most, if not all, updates listed here.
Various Components
Active Directory / ADSI
You can get at least the ADSI functionality for scripting and Site-Awareness for Windows NT by installing the ADSI update.
Windows Installer Engine
To be able to install MSI packages in Windows NT, you will need the Windows Installer Engine. You can find it here.
VBScript / WSH
To empower your Windows NT systems with the abilities of VBScript for easier administration, you can download the scripting engine.
Internet Explorer 4 SP2
IE4 came with the ActiveDesktop extensions and a new Task Scheduler Service, replacing the old "AT" Scheduler Service. If you like the QuickLaunch bar, you will need to install IE4 with the extensions before upgrading to newer IE versions.
IE4 is not available for download from the Microsoft web site anymore, but can be found on some ftp sites around the world.
Internet Explorer 6
If you have some sense for security and privacy, you will either not use Internet Explorer at all or try to keep up with all the patches. As older Internet Explorer versions become "unsupported", Microsoft stops developing security patches for them. So, if you really want to use Internet Explorer as your internet browser (there are lots of very good reasons not to do so and use some secure browser instead) you should download the latest version http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/default.asp
here and visit WindowsUpdate to get every single critical update for IE.
Security Configuration Manager
Always wanted to have the Windows 2000-style editor for Access Control Lists to create complex permission constructs for your files and directories? This ACL editor has been backported to NT4 and is part of the Security Configuration Manager pack.
Distributed File System 4.1
An updated version of Dfs has been made available for NT4 and can be downloaded here.
.NET Framework
You will need the .NET Framework Redistributable to run all those new fancy .NET programs. The framework redistributable (if you are not a developer, you do not need the entire SDK - just the redistributable) can be downloaded here.
The appropriate Service Packs are located here.
IntelliMirror Application Deployment
The idea sounds simple - just query the AD and GPO for "Software Installation" assignments and call appropiate msiexec calls to "port" the AD App Deployment to NT4. But the implementation has never been done - there is no API for GPO querying - not even for Windows 2000. Of course one could try to reverse engineer the GPO filestructure for that, but this seems too much effort for a small gain - using common application deployment solutions as the SMS is more feasible. There is a simple, but not AD-based open-source app deployment package for Windows called WPKG.
FAT32 drivers
Windows NT only has VFAT16 filesystem drivers out of the box. The nice guys from Sysinternals have written a FAT32 filesystem driver for Windows NT with full functionality.
Windows NT Option Pack
The Windows NT Option Pack is a "set of Web and application services that enables developers to create the next generation of distributed network applications for Windows NT Server 4.0 and also take advantage of the Windows 2000 operating system" and contains these addons:
- Internet Information Server 4.0
- Microsoft Transaction Server 2.0
- Microsoft Message Queue Server 1.0
- Internet Connection Services for Microsoft Remote Access Service (RAS)
It can be downloaded from the Option Pack Web Site.
Consumer Stuff
DirectX
A Quote from KB Article 179113:
<address>DirectX Setup does not work with Microsoft Windows NT 4.0. To use DirectX with Windows NT 4.0, you must install Windows NT 4.0 Service Pack 6 (SP6). SP6 includes most of the functionality of DirectX 3.0a.
For a long time, there has been a hack around to replace the DirectX 3 files installed by SP6 with the DirectX 5 libraries taken out of a Windows 2000 Beta. It seems to work, but is not something I would call a "recommended update". Some information on the update can be found here, one of the last remainig copies of DX5NT4.ZIP on the internet is hopefully still here. </address>
Windows Media Player
The last media player version that installs on Windows NT is Media Player 6.4.
USB Support
Windows NT has no USB support from Microsoft. There are some third-party products that will provide limited USB support. Some information and good links can be found on the web in the WinNT USB Guide.
Security Updates
HEP
The High Encryption Pack enables the 128-Bit 3DES encryption in Internet Explorer for NT4. The 128-Bit encryption support was removed from export versions of Windows NT due to US export regulations and was re-introduced as an optional download after the regulations have been revisioned in 2000.
HEP Download site Please note that the installation of IE 5.5 or later automatically will install the HEP.
Service Pack
The last Service Pack for Windows NT 4 was SP 6a. It fixes a whole bunch of bugs in NT4 and adds several features as well. If you have installed either the high encryption pack or IE 5.5 or later, read this KB article 250867.
SP6a itself can be downloaded here.
Security Rollup Package
As Microsoft decided not to publish another Service Pack after SP6a but had a lot of critical security fixes in a short period of time, they released the Post-SP6a-SRP in summer 2001. It contained all security patches that have been released for Windows NT at that time:
http://www.microsoft.com/ntserver/nts/downloads/critical/q299444/default.asp
Security Patches
For all security updates that have been released since the SRP release date either check WindowsUpdate or check this web site for an incomplete list:
http://www.microsoft.com/ntserver/nts/downloads/default.asp
Or this (German) RUS-CERT page for a more complete list:
http://cert.uni-stuttgart.de/winnt-updates.php
Please note that Microsoft does not release security updates for Windows NT anymore.
Feedback
You are very welcome to give feedback, corrections or completions to this information.
Just contact me at
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