9 replies to this topic

[wendy]

Well, Service pack 7 never really arrived for Windows NT, so i decided to roll in all the post sp6a fixes into sp6a.

It took about three hours to do it all (go to woe), and the first take ran without errors. When i went into the system properties, i was greeted with the title!

Sounds interesting. Anyway, i have a blank fixpack shell, which i plan to roll some things into!

[Moon Goon]

Any luck including the DirectX patches to hack newer versions of DirectX into NT4? I remember there being a DirectX 5 or 6 hack and also a DirectX 8 hack that only caused NT to report it was 8.

UPDATE: I found a working link to the DirectX 5 patch
http://dars.com.ru/d...osoft/direct-x/

P.S. Service Pack 7 never arrived.. on Earth!
http://www.theregist..._sp7_available/

[wendy]

Unlike the Win2k or WinXP service packs, the NT service pack is pretty much unsigned, so you can add virtually anything you want. But because the service pack update.exe does not support a section [ProcessesToRun], we still use a hotfix.

The intention of the service pack is that it will contain the latest official releases of the NT files. This is because some things direct you to extract files from SP6 to add to the install, etc. The file is currently a 45 MB rar file (smaller than the SP6a + SRP packages alone).

The fixpack includes assorted replacements that will work on a SP6 setup, as well as updates of some other files. The SP will use the same number as the SRP (so it appears that this is installed!), but will consist of some utterly different things.

There are three programs referenced in [ProcessesToRun], these are included. We use also the XP boot files (NTLDR and NTDETECT.COM). This eliminates the need to install NT first.

The next included files will be QBEDIT.COM / HELP.COM / QBASIC.EXE / QBASIC.HLP / HELP.HLP. Qbasic is a slightly modified vers 1.1 (ie MS-DOS 6) file. QBEDIT.COM is the old MS-DOS / NT4 edit.com. Its help file is in HELP.HLP, so we don't need a separate EDIT.HLP. HELP.HLP is my largely rewritten form.

A plan exists to install MSED.COM and MSED.OHP (the Win9x EDIT.COM and EDIT.HLP), and prehaps rexx as well (to make Windows NT into a true 32-bit operating system), but these are still to be looked at.

Other additions for NT4 will be some later-released DLL files, such as MSC 6, VB 6, and a few others that continue to annoy me. These will be in the fix-pack, probably.

DefectX

I normally don't install this, especially into NT4. This is because the current version is intended to be a back door / fixup for later operating systems. However, i will look at the files you suggest.

MSJAVA

A version of MS-JAVA 3810, designed for fresh installs has been build. This runs under a separate package.

Plug and Play / USB

Plug and Play support is on the NT cdrom as a separate driver, this appears to work quite well. I downloaded a USB stack from somewhere, and this supports some of the more basic elements, such as USB sticks. However, these are installed separately from the base OS.

Win3.51 stuff

I was looking also at putting some Wnt35 stuff on as well, but these might be done by way of install routines. The current list of progs is cardfile, pifedit, pbrush (all 32-bit!), write (16-bit). The old pbrush and write will become mspaintx and wordpadx. Pinball remains doubtful, partly because it only is to be used if you have all your HPFS partitions smaller than 4 GB.

[Moon Goon]

Hmn, I see your point. I have not experienced any instability using the beta DirectX 5 files but they are beta. The hack that lets you set the DirectX version does indeed cause some problems.

Just about any other add-on that I can think of can add instability. You know, the IE 5 shell, Themes support and that nifty HAL.DLL that supports ACPI shutdown.

You must already know this, but, here is a good source for those post 6a fixes:
ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/bussys/winnt

[wendy]

The SP5 files install by straight copy, as implied in the readme file. This means that they can be included in some SP6 build without error.

We might be able to install defectx 8.1 as well, by the same method. If what Fred Vorck did with defectx 9c in his hfslip package is anything to go by, we might be able to install defectx 8,1 as a smaller package than the defectx already there. This could be done as a fixpack, so users have choice of installing defectx 5 or defectx 8.1 at install.

I have two different defectx control panels (5 and 9), the former says the file versions in the defectx 5, and the win2k system (it has 9c), are vers 5, while the SP6 files are vers 4.06.1381. I have not managed to download defectx 8 as yet, so i leave this alone to this while.

W

[bilou_gateux]

Source: http://www.everythin...windows_nt.html
Dell's NT 4.0 USB HID, MSC & Printer Driver
In late 2003, Dell also released an official USB tool (Version A01) that works with its Latitude D400 and D600-series. The installer comes with drivers including USB stack, USB HID for mice and keyboards, USB hub and USB Mass Storage Compliant devices.


Source: Windows NT 4.0 and USB.
more details about IO Network's USB package solution.

It can be downloaded from here.

[wendy]

I know about this. It does indeed work! I have used it on a couple of no-name computers.

It is easier to install if you copy the files it creates on the c:\ drive to the new install source. It creates a directory c:\dell\[something] You can install it from this [something] directory.

[was_jaclaz]

These ones worked for me also in the past:
http://www.geocities.com/mypublic99/

There are a couple other downloads from "Dell":
http://ftp1.us.dell....lity/R62200.EXE

the above cannot work with hubs, you will need this also:
http://www.ionetwork...40/ip4n4260.exe

Source:
http://www.uwe-siebe...usbstick_e.html

jaclaz

[bearwindows]

For Windows NT4 updates guide look here: http://www.hpcfactor...pport/patching/  ( not only NT4 )

And my SP6a SlipStreaming ToolKit for Microsoft WindowsNT™ 4.00
where to get it: http://navozhdeniye.narod.ru/sskit.zip
and how to use it: http://bearwindows.b....net/winnt4.htm

This tool is not fully replacing SP6a installation but after updating distributive installation folder with sskit it is possible to successfully begin installation process of NT4 on modern hardware. It transfers ALL needed files from SP6a into distributive installation folder and modifies inf/sif files for this purpose. But after installing from updated distributive you MUST apply official SP6a to finish updating registry database and other system changes which I cannot integrate with sskit.

And here is Alter's site: http://alter.org.ua/en/
He made a lot of work to support NT systems; main thing is his Universal (E)IDE/PATA/SATA UniATA (U)DMA/Busmaster driver.

[wendy]

Hi

I do know about the bearwindow site. It is very good.

The bulk of the NT registry stuff (for Windows 3.x and 4.x) lives in actual hive files, which can be loaded and unloaded into regedit. NT4 has a decent interface via things in the registry kit, but NT3 does not.

I plan to look at fixing up a rexx script to do registry mods in vers 3 and 4, largely to avoid all that nonsence where things like reg_expand_sz and reg_multi_sz are handled as hex:(n) sets, as well as a user friendly interface to fonts.

For NT4 updates, i been watching http://nt4ref.zcm.com.au/index.htm but now i have put them all into SP6a, it is not a hassle. Still, there is somewhere to go with slipping sp6a into the base install. I'd like to do this at nt3 and nt4 at this point, eg nt3sp5si.zip and nt4sp6si.zip files for the slipstream of these files into NT351 and NT4 respectively.

W