This page lists and links to information on the various versions of Microsoft Windows, a major computer operating system developed by Microsoft.

Software Power Off on Windows NT 4.0 Introduction: Software 'Power Off' was first introduced for compliant hardware with Windows 95. Windows NT 4.0, as released by Microsoft in 1996, did not support the operation 'out of the box', except in some cases of laptop computers (with Vendor installed versions of NT - more details here). Feb 04, 2003  End Of Life - This download, Windows NT. 4.0 Driver NT40DRV304.EXE 3.04, and older, will no longer be available after October, 28, 2019 and will not be supported with any additional functional, security, or other updates. All versions are provided as is. Intel recommends that users of Windows NT. 4.0 Driver NT40DRV304.EXE 3.04 uninstall and discontinue use as soon as possible. Windows NT 4.0 4.0. Windows NT 4.0 is the successor to the Windows NT 3.x release. In this release, the user interface from Windows 95 was integrated, making NT just as easy to use as its consumer counterpart. Internet Explorer was bundled, providing a web browser out of the box.

• 3Device versions

Personal computer versions[edit]

In this section, a client version of Windows is a version that end-users or OEMs can install on personal computers, including desktop computers, laptops and workstations.

Server versions[edit]

Device versions[edit]

Appliances[edit]

Mobile devices[edit]

Mobile devices include smartphones, handheld tablet computers and personal digital assistants

• Windows 10
• Windows Phone
• Windows Mobile

Embedded devices[edit]

• Windows Embedded
  • Windows NT 4.0 Embedded – Abbreviated NTe, it is an edition of Windows NT 4.0 that was aimed at computer-powered major appliances, vending machines, ATMs and other devices that cannot be considered computers per se. It is the same system as the standard Windows NT 4.0, but it comes packaged in a database of components and dependencies, from which a developer can choose individual components to build customized setup CDs and hard disk boot images. Windows NT 4.0 Embedded includes Service Pack 5.
• Windows Embedded Compact
  • Windows Embedded CE 6.0 (2006)
  • Windows CE 5.0 (2005), with version for smart phones and PDAs sold as Windows Mobile 5.0
  • Windows CE 4.2 (2004), with version for smart phones and PDAs sold as Windows Mobile 2003 SE
  • Windows CE 4.1 (2003), with version for smart phones and PDAs sold as Pocket PC 2003
  • Windows CE 4.0 (2002), with version for smart phones and PDAs sold as Pocket PC 2002
  • Windows CE 3.0 (June 2000), with version for smart phones and PDAs sold as Pocket PC 2000
  • Windows CE 2.12 (1999 August)
  • Windows CE 2.11 (1998 October)
  • Windows CE 2.1 (1998 July)
  • Windows CE 2.0 (September 1997)
  • Windows CE 1.0 (November 1996)

Cancelled versions[edit]

• Windows Odyssey – a version intended to be an update to the Microsoft Windows NT 5.x codebase. The teams working on Neptune and Odyssey combined to work on Windows XP.
• Windows Mobile 7 or Photon - originally a successor of Windows Mobile, it had been scrapped for Windows Phone 7 with Metro UI.^[5][6]
• Windows Neptune (December 27, 1999) – the first planned version of Microsoft Windows NT to have a consumer edition variant, based on the Windows 2000 codebase. A version was sent out to testers but was never released.^[7]
• Windows Nashville (May 2, 1996) – also known as Windows 96
• Cairo (February 29, 1996) – a 'true object-oriented OS', planned after Windows NT 4.0.
• Windows Longhorn – Planned to be after XP but was eventually scrapped and became Windows Vista.

Timeline[edit]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

1. ^Bowden, Zac (March 28, 2018). 'Microsoft to move away from 'Redstone' codename for Windows 10 updates in 2019'. Windows Central. Retrieved May 3, 2019. Microsoft will be moving to a new codename format starting in 2019 [...] now known internally as 19H1. [...] The '19' stands for the year in which the update is released, and the 'H1' stands for the first update of that year. [...] following that format, the update coming after 19H1 would be codenamed 19H2, being the second update for 2019, followed by 20H1, 20H2, and so on.
2. ^Thurrott, Paul (November 22, 2014). 'Microsoft Confirms that Windows 10 will also be Version 10 Internally'. SuperSite for Windows. Penton Media.
3. ^. Microsoft.com. April 27, 2019 https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4020089/windows-10-in-s-mode-faq. Retrieved May 3, 2019.Missing or empty |title= (help)
4. ^Microsoft Corporation 'Windows Lifecycle Fact Sheet', Microsoft, 5 June 2019. Retrieved on 4th July 2019.
5. ^'Windows Mobile 7 vs Windows Phone 7'. Popular Pages at brighthub.com. May 20, 2011. Retrieved December 15, 2016.
6. ^'Revealed: Original Windows Mobile 7 UI'. news at neowin.net. February 20, 2010. Retrieved December 15, 2016.
7. ^'Microsoft combines Neptune, Odyssey into Whistler'. CNN. January 27, 2000. Archived from the original on September 1, 2008. Retrieved January 6, 2010.

Windows NT 4.0 is an operating system that is part of Microsoft's Windows NT family of operating systems. It was released to manufacturing on July 31, 1996.^[1] And was launched to retail on August 24, 1996. It was Microsoft's primary business-oriented operating system until the introduction of Windows 2000. Workstation, server and embedded editions were sold; all editions feature a graphical user interface similar to that of Windows 95.

Microsoft ended mainstream support for Windows NT 4.0 Workstation on June 30, 2002 and extended support on June 30, 2004, while Windows NT 4.0 Server mainstream support ended on December 31, 2002 and extended support on December 31, 2004. Both editions were succeeded by Windows 2000 Professional and Server, respectively.^[6][7][8]

• 4Editions

Overview[edit]

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).^[9] 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.^[10] 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 Desktop Update could also be installed on Windows NT 4.0 to update the shell version and install Task Scheduler.^[11] Windows NT 4.0 Resource Kit included the Desktop Themes utility.^[12]

Windows NT 4.0 is a preemptively multitasked^[13], 32-bit operating system that is designed to work with either uniprocessor or symmetric multi-processor computers.

Windows NT 4.0 is the last major release of Microsoft Windows to support the Alpha, MIPS or PowerPC CPU architectures. 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'.^[14]

Features[edit]

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, kernel, USER32, COM and MSRPC.^[9][15] Windows NT 4.0 also introduced the concept of system policies^[16] and the System Policy Editor.

Other important features were:

• Crypto API^[9]
• Telephony API 2.0 with limited Unimodem support,^[17] which was the first release of TAPI on Windows NT
• DCOM and new OLE features^[18]
• Microsoft Transaction Server for network applications
• Microsoft Message Queuing (MSMQ), which improved interprocess communication
• Winsock 2 and the TCP/IP stack improvements
• File system defragmentation support^[19]

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^[20] 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,^[21] 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. Later versions of DirectX were not released for Windows NT 4.0. However, OpenGL was supported; it was used by Quake 3^[22] and Unreal Tournament.^[23]

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.^[24]

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.^[25]

Internet Explorer 2 was bundled with Windows NT 4, with updated versions included with each service pack. Service Pack 6, the last service pack for Windows NT 4, included Internet Explorer 5.01 although it also supports Internet Explorer 6.0.^[26]

Windows NT 4.0 upgraded NTVDM's x86 emulation in the RISC versions from 286 to 486.^[27]Sysprep was introduced as a deployment tool with Windows NT 4.0.

Comparison with Windows 95[edit]

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.^[28]

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 the infamous error known as the Blue Screen of Death (BSoD) that would require the system to be restarted.^[26]

In spite of shipping a year later than Windows 95, by default there is no 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). 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 (API) for defragmentation,^[19] 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.^[29][30]

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. On the other hand, 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,^[31] which is the maximum possible for a purely 32-bit x86 operating system. By comparison, Windows 95 fails to boot on computers with more than approximately 480 MB of memory.^[32]

Like previous versions of NT, version 4.0 can run on multiple processor architectures. Windows 95, however, can only run on x86.

Windows Nt 4.0 Backup Software

Editions[edit]

Windows NT 4.0 Server was included in versions 4.0 and 4.5 of BackOffice Small Business Server suite.

Client[edit]

• Windows NT 4.0 Workstation was designed for use as the general business desktop operating system.

Free Windows Nt 4.0 Download

Servers[edit]

• Windows NT 4.0 Server, released in 1996, was designed for small-scale business server systems.^[26]
• 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.^[33] The Enterprise Edition saw the introduction of the /3GB 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. It also introduced a PSE36 driver for mapping up to 64 GB memory (although chipsets of the era supported only up to 8 GB.)^[34] This version also sees the first introduction of cluster service.^[35]
• Windows NT 4.0 Terminal Server Edition, released in 1998, allows the users to log on remotely.^[36] 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.

Embedded[edit]

• Windows NT 4.0 Embedded (abbreviated NTe) is an edition of Windows NT 4.0 that was aimed at computer-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 of components and dependencies, from which a developer can choose individual components to build customized setup CDs and hard diskbootimages. Windows NT 4.0 Embedded includes Service Pack 5. It was succeeded by Windows XP Embedded.^[37]

Upgradeability[edit]

An Option Pack was available as a free-bundled CD starting around 1998, which included IIS 4.0 with Active Server Pages, FrontPage Server Extensions, Certificate Server, MTS, MSMQ, CDONTS, Internet Authentication Service (IAS), Indexing Service, Microsoft Management Console 1.0, Microsoft Site Server, SMTP and NNTP services and other new software.

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.

The last version of Microsoft Office to be compatible with Windows NT 4.0 is Office XP, and the last version of Internet Explorer compatible with the operating system is Internet Explorer 6 with SP1 (Service Pack 6 and 6a are required, respectively).

Windows NT 4.0 could be directly upgraded to Windows 2000 or Windows XP Professional.^[38]

Service packs[edit]

Windows NT 4.0 received seven 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, and Service Pack 3 was the final release for the PowerPC architecture. The last full service pack was Service Pack 6a (SP6a).

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 after the release of Windows 2000 and nearly three months prior to the release of Windows XP.^[39]

In addition to bug fixes, the service packs also added a multitude of new features such as newer versions of or improvements to Internet Information Services, public-key and certificate authority functionality, user accounts and user profile improvements, smart card support, improved symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) scalability, clustering capabilities, COM support improvements, User Profile Disk Quotas, Event Log service, Security Configuration ManagerMMC snap-in, 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.^[40]

Resource Kits[edit]

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[edit]

Microsoft stopped providing security updates for Windows NT 4.0 Workstation on June 30, 2004 and Windows NT 4.0 Server on December 31, 2004, due to major security flaws including 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[edit]

1. ^ ^ab'Microsoft Announces the Release of Windows NT Workstation 4.0'. News Center. Redmond, WA: Microsoft. July 31, 1996.
2. ^'Post-Windows NT 4.0 Service Pack 6a Security Rollup Package (SRP)'. Support. Microsoft. June 19, 2014.
3. ^ ^ab'Microsoft Support Lifecycle for Windows NT Embedded 4.0'. Microsoft. Retrieved February 3, 2015.
4. ^ ^ab'Microsoft Support Lifecycle for Windows NT 4.0 Server'. Microsoft. Retrieved September 4, 2009.
5. ^ ^ab'Microsoft Support Lifecycle for Windows NT 4.0 Workstation'. Microsoft. Retrieved September 4, 2009.
6. ^'Q&A: Support for Windows NT Server 4.0 Nears End; Exchange Server 5.5 to Follow in One Year'. Stories. December 3, 2004. Retrieved September 17, 2019.
7. ^'Windows NT 4.0 Support Ends Tomorrow'. www.serverwatch.com. December 30, 2004. Retrieved September 17, 2019.
8. ^Leyden, John (July 27, 2003). 'Almost dead: Win NT 4 support'. www.theregister.co.uk. Retrieved September 17, 2019.
9. ^ ^abcPietrek, Matt (August 1996). 'Poking Around Under the Hood: A Programmer's View of Windows NT 4.0'. MSDN. Microsoft. Archived from the original on August 29, 2003. Retrieved May 17, 2019.
10. ^Thurrott, Paul (April 30, 2019). 'Windows 2000 Professional Beta 3 Review'. IT Pro Today. Retrieved May 17, 2019.
11. ^'The New Task Scheduler (Windows 95 and Windows NT 4.0)'. microsoft.com. Microsoft.
12. ^'NT 4.0 RESOURCE KIT UTILITIES Corrections and Comments'. Support (1.5 ed.). Microsoft. Archived from the original on January 18, 2019. Retrieved May 17, 2019.
13. ^Donald McLaughlin and Partha Dasgupta (August 4, 1998). 'Distributed Preemptive Scheduling on Windows NT'. 2nd USENIX Windows NT Symposium. USENIX. Retrieved September 4, 2009.
14. ^'Microsoft Renames Windows NT 5.0 Product Line to Windows 2000; Signals Evolution of Windows NT Technology Into Mainstream'. Stories. October 27, 1998. Retrieved September 17, 2019.
15. ^Microsoft, DCE, and COM
16. ^'Guide To Windows NT 4.0 Profiles and Policies (Part 1 of 6)'. microsoft.com. Microsoft.
17. ^Umeno, Hiroo (April 1998). 'For the Telephony API, Press 1; For Unimodem, Press 2; or Stay on the Line'. MSDN. Microsoft. Archived from the original on February 25, 2004. Retrieved May 17, 2019.
18. ^Box, Don (May 1996). 'Introducing Distributed COM and the New OLE Features in Windows NT™ 4.0'. MSDN. Microsoft. Archived from the original on December 12, 2003. Retrieved May 17, 2019.
19. ^ ^abInside Windows NT Disk Defragmenting
20. ^Pleas, Keith (April 1996). 'Windows NT 4.0'. Windows IT Pro. Archived from the original on March 10, 2007. Retrieved May 17, 2019.
21. ^'Converting Win32 Kernel-mode Print Drivers to User Mode'. unixwiz.net.
22. ^'Quake 3 Arena overview'. Computerhope.com.
23. ^'Unreal Tournament help and support'. Computer Hope. Retrieved May 17, 2019.
24. ^Jackman, Michael (September 22, 2000). 'Windows NT 4.0 default drivers and services'. TechRepublic. Retrieved September 17, 2019.
25. ^'Inside the NT 4.0 Task Manager'. IT Pro. February 28, 1997. Retrieved September 17, 2019.
26. ^ ^abc'Windows NT 4.0: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly'. IT Pro. September 30, 1996. Retrieved September 17, 2019.
27. ^'INFO: How Windows handles floating-point calculations'. Support (2.3 ed.). Microsoft. November 21, 2006. Archived from the original on September 19, 2012. Retrieved May 17, 2019.
28. ^'Troubleshooting and Configuring the Windows NT/95 Registry: Windows 95 and Plug and Play'. Macmillan Computer Publishing. Archived from the original on April 24, 2008. Retrieved September 4, 2009.
29. ^'Does Windows NT/2000 support USB?'. IT Pro. January 8, 2000. Retrieved September 17, 2019.
30. ^Perlow, Jason (February 22, 2001). 'The utilities that NT 4.0 forgot: Disk Defragmenter'. ZDNet. Retrieved September 17, 2019.
31. ^'Memory Support and Windows Operating Systems'. Microsoft Docs. Microsoft. June 1, 2017. Retrieved May 17, 2019.
32. ^Chen, Raymond (August 14, 2003). 'Windows 95 doesn't boot with more than 1GB of RAM'. The Old New Thing. Microsoft.
33. ^'Windows NT Server, Enterprise Edition Administrator's Guide and Release Notes'. microsoft.com. Microsoft.
34. ^Tuning IBM xSeries Servers for Performance(PDF) (3rd ed.). IBM SG24-5287-02. June 2002. pp. 92–93.
35. ^'Digital Clusters for Windows NT'. IT Pro. July 31, 1996. Retrieved September 19, 2019.
36. ^'Microsoft Releases Windows NT Server 4.0 Terminal Server Edition'. Stories. June 16, 1998. Retrieved September 19, 2019.
37. ^'Microsoft releases Windows NT 4.0 Embedded Edition'. IT Pro. August 8, 1999. Retrieved September 20, 2019.
38. ^Thurrott, Paul (October 6, 2010). 'Upgrading to Windows XP Pro from Windows NT/2000'. IT Pro Today. Retrieved June 18, 2019.
39. ^Rob Kerr (April 18, 2001). 'MS ditches Service Packs for Windows NT 4.0'. The Register. Retrieved September 24, 2009.
40. ^'What's New in Windows NT 4.0 Service Pack 4?'. January 12, 1999. Archived from the original on January 17, 1999. Retrieved August 17, 2018.

Windows Nt 4.0 Software

External links[edit]

• Guidebook: Windows NT 4.0 Gallery – A website dedicated to preserving and showcasing Graphical User Interfaces

Windows Nt 4.0 Software