Windows NT 4.0 is a major release of the
Windows NT operating system
An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware and software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs.
Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ...
developed by
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...
, targeting the data server and personal workstation markets. It is the direct successor to
Windows NT 3.51, and was
released to manufacturing on July 31, 1996,
and then to retail in August 24, 1996, with the Server versions released to retail in September 1996.
Its most prominent user-facing change was the adoption of
Windows 95's
user interface
In the industrial design field of human–computer interaction, a user interface (UI) is the space where interactions between humans and machines occur. The goal of this interaction is to allow effective operation and control of the machine fro ...
, introducing features such as the
Start menu and
taskbar to the Windows NT product line. It also includes various performance and stability improvements to system-level components, as well as new components such as a
cryptography API,
DCOM,
TAPI 2.0, and the
Task Manager, and limited support for
DirectX. Over its support lifecycle, NT 4.0 received various updates and
service packs offering patches, enhancements to its hardware support, and other new components. Two new editions of NT 4.0 were released post-launch, including a modular variant for
embedded systems, and the
Terminal Server edition. NT 4.0 was the last version of Windows NT to support
RISC processors until the addition of
ARM support in
Windows 10
Windows 10 is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. The successor to Windows 8.1, it was Software release cycle#Release to manufacturing (RTM), released to manufacturing on July 15, 2015, and later to retail on July 2 ...
.
Most editions of NT 4.0 were succeeded by
Windows 2000 on December 15, 1999. Mainstream support for Windows NT 4.0 Workstation ended on June 30, 2002, following by extended support ending on June 30, 2004. Windows NT 4.0 Server mainstream support ended on December 31, 2002, with extended support ending on December 31, 2004. Windows NT 4.0 Embedded would be succeeded by
Windows XP Embedded; mainstream support ended on June 30, 2003, followed by extended support on July 11, 2006.
Overview
The successor to
Windows NT 3.51, Windows NT 4.0 introduced the user interface of
Windows 95 to the Windows NT family, including the
Windows shell,
File Explorer (known as Windows NT Explorer at the time), and the use of "My" nomenclature for shell folders (e.g.
My Computer). It also includes most components introduced with
Windows 95. Internally, Windows NT 4.0 was known as the Shell Update Release (SUR).
While many administrative tools, notably ''User Manager for Domains'', ''Server Manager'' and ''Domain Name Service Manager'' still used the old graphical user interfaces, the
Start menu in Windows NT 4.0 separated the per-user shortcuts and folders from the shared shortcuts and folders by a separator line. Windows NT 4.0 includes some enhancements from
Microsoft Plus! for Windows 95 such as the
''Space Cadet'' pinball table,
font smoothing, showing window contents while dragging,
high-color icons and stretching the wallpaper to fit the screen. Windows NT 4.0 Resource Kit included the Desktop Themes utility.
Windows NT 4.0 is the last major release of Microsoft Windows to support the
Alpha
Alpha (uppercase , lowercase ) is the first letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of one. Alpha is derived from the Phoenician letter ''aleph'' , whose name comes from the West Semitic word for ' ...
,
MIPS or
PowerPC CPU architectures as Windows 2000 runs solely on IA-32 only. It remained in use by businesses for a number of years, despite Microsoft's many efforts to get customers to upgrade to Windows 2000 and newer versions. It was also the last release in the Windows NT family to be branded as ''Windows NT'' although Windows 2000 carried the designation "Built on NT Technology".
Features
Although the chief enhancement has been the addition of the Windows 95 shell, there are several major performance, scalability and feature improvements to the core
architecture
Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and construction, constructi ...
,
kernel,
USER32,
COM and
MSRPC.
Windows NT 4.0 also introduced the concept of ''system policies'' and the
System Policy Editor.
Other important features were:
*
Crypto API
*
Telephony API 2.0 with limited Unimodem support, which was the first release of TAPI on Windows NT
*
DCOM and new
OLE features
*
Microsoft Message Queuing (MSMQ), which improved
interprocess communication
*
Winsock 2 and the
TCP/IP stack improvements
* File system
defragmentation support
*
Internet Explorer 2
The server editions of Windows NT 4.0 include
Internet Information Services 2.0,
Microsoft FrontPage 1.1,
NetShow Services,
Remote Access Service (which includes a
PPTP server for VPN functionality) and Multi-Protocol Routing service. There are new administrative
wizards and a lite version of the
Network Monitor utility shipped with
System Management Server. The Enterprise edition introduced
Microsoft Cluster Server.
One significant difference from previous versions of Windows NT is that the
Graphics Device Interface (GDI) is moved into kernel mode rather than being in user mode in the CSRSS process. This eliminated a process-to-process context switch in calling GDI functions, resulting in a significant performance improvement over Windows NT 3.51, particularly in the graphical user interface. This, however, also mandated that graphics and printer drivers had to run in kernel mode as well, resulting in potential stability issues.
Windows NT 4.0 was the first release of Microsoft Windows to include
DirectX as standard—version 2 shipped with the initial release of Windows NT 4.0, and version 3 was included with the release of Service Pack 3 in mid-1997. However advanced hardware accelerated Direct3D and DirectSound multimedia features were never available on Windows NT 4.0. Later versions of DirectX were not released for Windows NT 4.0. However,
OpenGL
OpenGL (Open Graphics Library) is a Language-independent specification, cross-language, cross-platform application programming interface (API) for rendering 2D computer graphics, 2D and 3D computer graphics, 3D vector graphics. The API is typic ...
was supported; it was used by
''Quake 3'' and ''
Unreal Tournament''.
In early releases of 4.0, numerous stability issues did occur as graphics and printer vendors had to change their drivers to be compatible with the kernel mode interfaces exported by GDI. The change to move the GDI to run in the same process context as its caller was prompted by complaints from NT Workstation users about real-time graphics performance, but this change put a considerable onus on hardware manufacturers to update device drivers.
Windows NT 4.0 also included a new
Windows Task Manager utility. Previous versions of Windows NT included the Task List utility, but it only shows applications currently on the desktop. To monitor CPU and memory usage, users were forced to use
Performance Monitor. The task manager offers a more convenient way of getting a snapshot of all the processes running on the system at any given time.
Windows NT 4.0 upgraded
NTVDM's x86 emulation in the
RISC versions from
286 to
486.
Sysprep was introduced as a deployment tool with Windows NT 4.0.
x86 versions of Windows NT 4.0 require the
BIOS firmware.
RISC versions of Windows NT 4.0 require the
ARC firmware.
System requirements
Comparison with Windows 95
Windows NT 4.0, like previous versions of Windows NT before it and versions after it, is a fully 32-bit OS, while Windows 95 is a 16/32-bit hybrid OS.
While providing much greater stability than Windows 95, Windows NT 4.0 was less flexible from a desktop perspective. Much of the stability was gained through the use of protected memory and the
hardware abstraction layer. Direct hardware access was disallowed and "misbehaving" programs were terminated without needing the computer to be restarted. The trade-off was that NT required much more memory (32 MB for normal desktop use, 128 MB or more for heavy 3D applications) in comparison to consumer targeted products such as Windows 95.
While nearly all programs written for Windows 95 run on Windows NT, many 3D games would not, partly because of limited DirectX support for Windows NT 4.0. Third-party device drivers were an alternative to access the hardware directly, but poorly written drivers became a frequent source of
system crashes.
In spite of shipping a year later than Windows 95, by default there is no
Legacy Plug and Play support and no
Device Manager on Windows NT 4.0, which greatly simplifies installation of hardware devices (although limited support could be installed later). However,
EISA bus and
PCI bus is supported by Windows NT 4.0. Many basic DOS programs would run; however, graphical DOS programs would not run because of the way they accessed graphics hardware. Although Windows NT 4.0 introduced an
application programming interface
An application programming interface (API) is a connection between computers or between computer programs. It is a type of software Interface (computing), interface, offering a service to other pieces of software. A document or standard that des ...
(API) for defragmentation,
there was no built-in defragmentation utility, unlike Windows 95. Also, Windows NT 4.0 lacked
USB support, a preliminary version of which would be added to OEM editions of Windows 95 in OSR 2.1.
AGP support can be added with SP3 or later. Large disk (> 8 GB) support can be added with SP4 or later.
FAT32 is not officially supported by Windows NT 4.0.
The difference between the NT family and 9x family would remain until the release of
Windows XP in 2001. At that time, the APIs — such as OpenGL and DirectX — had matured sufficiently to be more efficient to write for common PC hardware, and the hardware itself had become powerful enough to handle the API processing overhead.
The maximum amount of supported physical
random-access memory (RAM) in Windows NT 4.0 is 4 GB, which is the maximum possible for a 32-bit operating system that does not support PAE. By comparison, Windows 95 fails to boot on computers with more than approximately 480 MB of memory.
Like previous versions of NT, version 4.0 can run on multiple processor architectures. Windows 95, however, can only run on x86.
Editions
Windows NT 4.0 Server was included in versions 4.0 and 4.5 of
BackOffice Small Business Server suite.
Client
* Windows NT 4.0 Workstation was designed for use as the general business desktop operating system.
Servers
* Windows NT 4.0 Server, released in 1996, was designed for small-scale business server systems.
* Windows NT 4.0 Server, Enterprise Edition, released in 1997, is the precursor to the ''Enterprise'' line of the Windows server family (''Advanced Server'' in
Windows 2000). Enterprise Server was designed for high-demand, high-traffic networks. Windows NT 4.0 Server, Enterprise Edition includes Service Pack 3. The Enterprise Edition saw the introduction of the boot flag, which changed the default virtual address space mapping from 2 GB kernel and 2 GB
user space to 1 GB kernel and 3 GB userland.
This version also sees the first introduction of
cluster service.
* Windows NT 4.0 Terminal Server Edition, (known as Windows-based Terminal Server 4.0 and Windows Terminal Server 4.0 in beta builds) released on June 16, 1998, allows the users to log on remotely. The same functionality was called ''
Terminal Services'' in Windows 2000 and later server releases, and also powers the ''
Remote Desktop'' feature that first appeared in
Windows XP and later versions of Windows. Windows NT 4.0 Terminal Server Edition, like Windows NT 4.0 Server, Enterprise Edition, includes Service Pack 3.
Embedded
* Windows NT 4.0 Embedded (abbreviated NTe) is an edition of Windows NT 4.0 that was aimed at
computer
A computer is a machine that can be Computer programming, programmed to automatically Execution (computing), carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations (''computation''). Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic set ...
-powered
major appliances,
vending machines,
ATMs and other devices that cannot be considered general-purpose computers per se. It is the same system as the standard Windows NT 4.0, but it comes packaged in a
database
In computing, a database is an organized collection of data or a type of data store based on the use of a database management system (DBMS), the software that interacts with end users, applications, and the database itself to capture and a ...
of components and
dependencies, from which a developer can choose individual components to build customized setup
CDs and
hard disk boot image
An image or picture is a visual representation. An image can be Two-dimensional space, two-dimensional, such as a drawing, painting, or photograph, or Three-dimensional space, three-dimensional, such as a carving or sculpture. Images may be di ...
s. Windows NT 4.0 Embedded includes Service Pack 5. It was succeeded by
Windows XP Embedded. Microsoft ended mainstream support for Windows NT 4.0 Embedded on June 30, 2003, and received three years of extended support, which means that support for Windows NT 4.0 Embedded ended on the same day support for
Windows 98 and
Windows Me ended on July 11, 2006.
The last version of
Microsoft Office to be compatible with Windows NT 4.0 is
Office XP. Similarly,
Windows Media Player 7.0 (which was released in June 2000) and
DirectX 3.0a (which was released in December 1996) are the last versions of Windows Media Player and DirectX available for Windows NT 4.0, respectively. The last versions of
.NET Framework and
Windows Installer available for Windows NT 4.0 are
.NET Framework 1.1 (released in April 2003) and Windows Installer 2.0 (released in September 2001), respectively. The last version of
Internet Explorer
Internet Explorer (formerly Microsoft Internet Explorer and Windows Internet Explorer, commonly abbreviated as IE or MSIE) is a deprecation, retired series of graphical user interface, graphical web browsers developed by Microsoft that were u ...
supported on Windows NT 4.0 is
Internet Explorer 6 with SP1, which was released on September 9, 2002.
Windows NT 4.0 was succeeded by
Windows 2000, which also included the
Windows Desktop Update and
Internet Explorer 5 by default. It also could be directly upgraded to
Windows XP Professional on
IA-32
IA-32 (short for "Intel Architecture, 32-bit", commonly called ''i386'') is the 32-bit version of the x86 instruction set architecture, designed by Intel and first implemented in the i386, 80386 microprocessor in 1985. IA-32 is the first incarn ...
-based systems only.
An independent project named Windows Update Restored aims to restore the
Windows Update websites for older versions of Windows, including Windows NT 4.0.
Updates and service packs
Windows NT 4.0 received six service packs during its lifecycle, as well as numerous service rollup packages and option packs. Only the first service pack was made available for the MIPS architecture, Service Pack 2 was the final release for the PowerPC architecture, and Service Pack 6 was the final release for the Alpha architecture. Service Pack 6a (SP6a) is the last released service pack for Windows NT 4.0. Service Pack 7 was planned at one stage in early 2001, but this became the ''Post SP6a Security Rollup'' and not a full service pack, released on July 26, 2001, 16 months following the release of Windows 2000 and nearly three months prior to the release of Windows XP.
In addition to bug fixes, the service packs also added a multitude of new features such as
Ultra DMA mode for disk drives along with bus mastering, newer versions of
Internet Information Services (IIS), user accounts and user profile improvements, smart card support, improved symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) scalability, clustering capabilities,
MMX /
3DNow! /
SSE /
SSE2 support,
AGP support,
COM support improvements, Event Log service,
MS-CHAPv2 and
NTLMv2,
SMB packet signing,
Syskey,
boot improvements,
WINS improvements,
Routing and Remote Access Service (RRAS),
PPTP, DCOM/HTTP tunneling improvements, IGMPv2,
WMI,
Active Accessibility and
NTFS 3.0 support among others.
In 1997, Microsoft released an optional update known as the "Option Pack" to add new technologies slated to be included in Windows 2000; it included IIS 4.0 with
Active Server Pages (ASP),
FrontPage Server Extensions, Certificate Server,
MTS,
MSMQ,
CDONTS,
Internet Authentication Service (IAS),
Indexing Service,
Microsoft Management Console 1.0,
Microsoft Site Server,
Microsoft Transaction Server, and
SMTP and
NNTP services.
Several features such as
Distributed File System and
Windows NT Load Balancing Service (WLBS) were delivered as addons for Windows NT Server 4.0. The
Routing and Remote Access Service was also a downloadable feature which replaced Windows NT 4.0's separate RAS and Multi-Protocol Routing services.
Internet Explorer 4 optionally includes the "
Windows Desktop Update", which integrates Internet Explorer with
Windows Explorer and adds additional features to the Windows NT shell such as
Active Desktop.
Resource Kits
Microsoft released five revisions of the Windows NT 4.0 Workstation and Server
Resource Kit (original release plus four supplements) which contained a large number of tools and utilities, such as desktops.exe which allowed the user to have multiple desktops, as well as third-party software.
Security
Microsoft stopped providing security updates for Windows NT 4.0 Workstation on June 30, 2004, Windows NT 4.0 Server on December 31, 2004, and Windows NT 4.0 Embedded on July 11, 2006, due to major security flaws includin
Microsoft Security Bulletin MS03-010 which according to Microsoft could not be patched without significant changes to the core operating system. According to the security bulletin, "Due to the fundamental differences between Windows NT 4.0 and Windows 2000 and its successors, it is infeasible to rebuild the software for Windows NT 4.0 to eliminate the vulnerability. To do so would require re-architecting a very significant amount of the Windows NT 4.0 operating system, and there would be no assurance that applications designed to run on Windows NT 4.0 would continue to operate on the patched system."
Between June 2003 and June 2007, 127 security flaws were identified and patched in Windows 2000 Server, many of which may also affect Windows NT 4.0 Server; however, Microsoft does not test security bulletins against unsupported software.
References
External links
Guidebook Windows NT 4.0: Gallery– A website dedicated to preserving and showcasing Graphical User Interfaces
HPC:Factor Windows NT 4.0 Workstation Patches & Updates GuideHPC:Factor Windows NT 4.0 Server Patches & Updates GuideJosephn.net: Windows NT 4.0 Terminal Server Edition Tips & Updates
{{Microsoft Windows family
1996 software
Products and services discontinued in 2006
4.0
IA-32 operating systems
MIPS operating systems
PowerPC operating systems
Microsoft Windows