[HN Gopher] How to Install Windows NT 4 Server on Proxmox
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How to Install Windows NT 4 Server on Proxmox
Author : thepipetogrep
Score : 153 points
Date : 2025-05-25 01:34 UTC (21 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (blog.pipetogrep.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (blog.pipetogrep.org)
| orionblastar wrote:
| The link for your ISO of the VGA driver
| https://blog.pipetogrep.org/downloads/win_nt_proxmox/vbempk....
| doesn't work. Did you delete it or move it?
| out-of-ideas wrote:
| im guessing its an iso made of the contents from the zip linked
| as the source of that, at
| https://navozhdeniye.narod.ru/vbemp.htm#2 ; you want the 2nd
| column down ( ensure the url file name matches the filename,
| except iso is a zip => vbempk.zip )
| orionblastar wrote:
| The download link for that website goes to here:
| https://navozhdeniye.narod.ru/donate.htm
|
| Do I have to donate to get the driver?
| Lammy wrote:
| That's the first table row, the 2019 version. Click the
| link in the second table row to get the 2015 version
| without donation.
| binarycrusader wrote:
| archive.org to the rescue
|
| https://archive.org/details/VBEMPNT
| out-of-ideas wrote:
| can confirm the iso has the vbempk folder
| - i can also confirm that the two are not the same (aka
| the source vbempk.zip and the archive-org's iso's vbempk
| folder) - i can easily see why text files might
| have improved wording, cannot know why the sys files are
| different
|
| it'll be in a vm, but i'd still be careful with either
| choices
| jacob019 wrote:
| Just got to say that I love the BBS style blog and retro fonts.
| LeoPanthera wrote:
| The Ultimate Oldschool PC Font Pack:
| https://int10h.org/oldschool-pc-fonts/
| bitwize wrote:
| The font shown on this site is VT323, a TrueType/OpenType
| version of the DEC VT320 terminal font. It doesn't come from
| the PC font pack.
| HeckFeck wrote:
| Same. Reminds me of following tutorials on oldos.org back in
| the day.
| LeoPanthera wrote:
| Is there anything you can do with NT4 Server that you can't do
| with 2000 Server? (Other than run it on Alpha, MIPS or PowerPC.)
| reconnecting wrote:
| NT 4 feels way stable comparing with 2000.
|
| Despite my own experience with Windows ends with XP, NT 4 was
| always my favourite version.
| simondotau wrote:
| The main reason for preferring a newer version of Windows has
| generally been hardware compatibility. But when virtualising
| (or emulating), this is far less important as compatibility
| is usually scaffolded by emulated hardware and/or backported
| drivers.
|
| When your requirements call for an old version of Windows,
| generally you have a specific piece of software you want to
| run, so start by choosing the version most widely used at the
| time, which sometimes isn't the latest version. And you
| should always experiment, because there are thousands of
| things which contribute to stability. Newer (or older)
| version of Windows could be better or worse, depending on
| your specific case.
|
| Regardless which version you pick, treat them as a security
| risk and (if you're in a serious production environment)
| avoid giving them unrestricted access to your local network
| or unrestricted access to the wider internet.
| reconnecting wrote:
| NT 4.0 was way different from XP or 2000, and it wasn't
| just a matter of hardware support. It wasn't as "Plug and
| Play" as XP, but somehow it worked much more stably. I
| think back to the days when we had an NT server that ran
| for years without a reboot, and that's not something you
| could expect from XP or 2000.
|
| Actually, if I ever decide to dive into old Windows, NT 4.0
| will be the only version I have personal sentiments for.
| com2kid wrote:
| 2000 was rock solid stable once it was up and running. It
| took a lot of one off patches to get my k7 system to that
| point, but iirc I never had the os crash.
| hulitu wrote:
| > Newer (or older) version of Windows could be better or
| worse, depending on your specific case.
|
| This only applies since Windows 8 when Microsoft started
| bundling new features with patches. For older Windows
| versions, you usually want the latest service pack. Except,
| of course, when your programs depends on a specific bug
| being present.
| simondotau wrote:
| I was only referring to choosing between NT4, 2000, XP,
| etc. I've personally never come across any reason to
| avoid a service pack.
| accrual wrote:
| I really like NT 4.0 as well. In my experience the stability
| varied based on hardware and driver support, though. I tried
| running NT 4.0 on a "relatively fast" K6-3+ system with
| GeForce 2 and AWE64 but had weird issues, like sound
| stuttering in games that the same hardware runs fine under
| Win98 and 2K. I had endless trouble getting it installed too,
| I ended up installing in 86Box then imaging onto the host. I
| could fairly easily get it to BSOD by doing multimedia type
| work on it. Really though, not a fault of NT 4.0 so much as I
| probably didn't have the ideal drivers or hardware combo.
|
| But on a fast 486 system, a bit older than NT 4.0 was really
| designed for, it ran flawlessly and made the dusty hardware
| feel very competent and modern - lots of common software runs
| fine on NT 4.0 including Winamp and specially compiled
| versions of modern PuTTY. It's probably my favorite OS for a
| DX4-100.
| hypercube33 wrote:
| NT wasn't exactly made for games. If I'm not mistaken video
| drivers were always rough around the edges especially for
| opengl or directx. Half Life and Quake 2 always worked
| pretty flawless on it though.
| Lammy wrote:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41543425
| AdrianB1 wrote:
| Not really. I started using both around the time 2000 Server
| appeared and I preferred 2000 because it was easier to use on
| the hardware that I had, which was some Intel multiprocessor
| servers (made by Intel, not just the CPUs). The Active
| Directory of Windows 2000 was a pain point to support, but
| otherwise 2000 was "a better NT" for me. I don't remember the
| details, but I think the software compatibility was also better
| with 2000, I mean the software written for Win 98 and Win ME.
| jetbalsa wrote:
| Nice, I've had to do this to get NT4 for Open Stack, QEMU has
| better support for some of the older hardware required. I've also
| gotten DOS 6.22 and Networking turned on
| reconnecting wrote:
| Was the choice of Windows NT 4 Server over the Workstation
| version intentional? I can't recall the specifics, but I remember
| the Workstation version being way more lightweight and easier to
| setup.
| chungy wrote:
| They're basically the same, with a different performance
| profile default and server software.
|
| Almost surely the whole article applies identically to
| Workstation
| reconnecting wrote:
| Quoted in PC WeekOnline ("Microsoft: 'significant
| differences' between NTS, NTW", Norvin Leach, September 10):
|
| Roberts acknowledged that NTS and NTW are included in the
| same binary file. It was easier to build and test them that
| way, he said. The setting in the Registry, he said, triggers
| 48 changes to the kernel. These changes cascade down to 700
| additional settings in software outside the kernel.
| Kwpolska wrote:
| Would be nice to link to the source, which contains more
| details:
| https://landley.net/history/mirror/ms/differences_nt.html
| 1oooqooq wrote:
| > easily saturate a T-1 connection (1.55M bps) to the
| Internet -- after which the performance differences
| become meaningless.
|
| reading this part reminded me of all the plans I'd hear
| for "the day everyone will have a T1 on their homes"...
| sigh. and all we got was Facebook.
| mdaniel wrote:
| I don't believe the lack of high speed connectivity is
| strictly technical, as community fiber initiatives have
| shown, but rather monopolies seek to outlaw self-
| sufficiency
| 1oooqooq wrote:
| everyone have 10x T1 in their pockets and none of the
| good ideas survived, was my point.
|
| next they will sell us a chip in the brain and all we
| will get is still Facebook.
| mc32 wrote:
| Workstation had a limit[1] of 10 where server had a limit of
| 5000.
|
| [1] I don't remember the details but often workstation had
| soft limits compared to server. There were hexedit ways
| around them.
| AdrianB1 wrote:
| The server edition had DHCP, WINS and DNS servers included and
| also could create Windows Domains (act as domain controller).
| All optional, but useful at that time as there were not many
| options.
| CursedSilicon wrote:
| My only "critique" of the article is the lack of SMP (multi-core)
| enablement
|
| NT 4 _did_ support rudimentary multi-processor (Symmetric Multi-
| Processor) systems back in the day. But it seems to lack the
| `HLT` instruction in the SMP enabled HAL
|
| This means an NT 4 VM will always operate at 100% CPU usage even
| if it's simply idling.
|
| Back in the 2000's when folks were slowly migrating NT 4
| workloads to VMware, enterprising users took it upon themselves
| to patch the NT4 SMP HAL to fix this. But in my own testing that
| doesn't seem to work and results in a blue screen of death on
| boot.
|
| There's _probably_ a way to do it under QEMU /Proxmox. But I
| haven't dug deep enough to figure it out myself
| Lammy wrote:
| > There's probably a way to do it under QEMU/Proxmox. But I
| haven't dug deep enough to figure it out myself
|
| Maybe one of the same utilities commonly used to work around
| this same issue on Windows 95?
|
| Amn Refrigerator (formerly AmnHLT) -- not relevant for NT
| because it uses a VxD driver, but it's my favorite for Windows
| 95 so I'm linking it here for completeness:
| https://web.archive.org/web/20010331184312/http://www.amn.ru...
|
| KCPUCooler:
| https://web.archive.org/web/20010607173439/http://www.kt2k.c...
|
| CpuIdle:
| https://web.archive.org/web/20030925110541/http://www.cpuidl...
|
| Waterfall and/or Rain from Leading Wintech (can't find the
| original URL):
| https://vetusware.com/manufacturer/Leading%20Wintech/?author...
|
| VCool or CPUCooL might be the ones to try because they're the
| only ones that seem to explicitly mention supporting NT:
|
| "VCool now utilizes its own driver on NT, W2K, XP: vcool.sys"
| https://web.archive.org/web/20041205132318/http://vcool.occl...
|
| "CPU Cooling under Windows 95 / 98 / NT / 2000 (Watch Wintop
| !)"
| https://web.archive.org/web/20041211214000/http://www.cpufsb...
| anonymars wrote:
| Which, by the way, for background of why this issue exists
| (Old New Thing of course): https://devblogs.microsoft.com/old
| newthing/20030828-00/?p=42...
|
| If anyone can find the archive link to the original, I
| believe there was discussion in the comments about "why not
| exclude it for specific hardware only" and the risk of false
| negatives was deemed too high
| Lammy wrote:
| > If anyone can find the archive link to the original
|
| Here's the full list: https://web.archive.org/web/202207121
| 61524/https://bytepoint...
|
| Here's this particular entry: https://web.archive.org/web/2
| 0220712161524/https://bytepoint... (11 comments)
| pjmlp wrote:
| In the proxy server that I wrote back in 2000's, relying on the
| Windows NT/2000 scheduler for multiple CPUs was a big
| performance hit.
|
| Threads would jump around cores, killing most performance gains
| by using multiple threads.
|
| The workaround was the typical getting the amount of CPUs and
| park each thread on their own one, this alone made quite an
| observable improvement.
|
| I think by Windows Server 2003, this scheduler issue was
| already sorted out.
| dspillett wrote:
| _> migrating NT 4 workloads to VMware, ... patch the NT4 SMP
| HAL to [issue HTL]. But in my own testing that doesn 't seem to
| work and results in a blue screen of death on boot._
|
| IIRC some drivers were very unhappy with this, IIRC something
| about interrupts waking a processor that then started a
| transfer, while something running on the other was already
| waiting for a transfer to complete. For some (virtual) hardware
| combinations it worked smoothly but others were very
| unreliable.
|
| We just switched to the single professor HAL as that still
| performed as well as the older CPUs when virtualizing on newer
| kit and was much more reliably stable.
| HeckFeck wrote:
| I wonder whether this has been patched in that OpenNT 'fork' of
| the leaked NT4 source.
| racingmars wrote:
| Now all we need is for Apache Guacamole to add support into its
| RDP client for whatever old version of RDP NT 4 Terminal Server
| uses. Access all those old NT 4 applications through my web
| browser!
| jeroenhd wrote:
| With the power of modern CPUs and web browsers, you don't need
| virtual machines, just use https://www.boxedwine.org/ or
| https://bellard.org/jslinux/vm.html?url=win2k.cfg&mem=192&gr...
| to run the applications inside of your browser!
|
| The QEMU image discussed in this article will probably boot
| fine on JSLinux
| Lammy wrote:
| > Disk size: 4GB. I could not get it to format a boot drive
| larger than this.
|
| > Bus/Device: SCSI. IMPORTANT: Do NOT use IDE. It will be slow
| noticeably slower and for some reason leads to file system
| corruption on NT4 guests despite changing the caching options.
|
| IMO what you really want is Alter's Universal ATA Driver
| (UniATA): http://alter.org.ua/soft/win/uni_ata/
|
| Here's some relevant Knowledge Base for you:
|
| Q98080: 1024 Cylinder Limit, How Windows NT Gets Drive Geometry
| https://helparchive.huntertur.net/document/45884
|
| Q100525: Definition of System and Boot Partition
| https://helparchive.huntertur.net/document/47139
|
| Q114841: Windows NT Boot Process and Hard Disk Constraints
| https://helparchive.huntertur.net/document/52494
|
| Q119497: Boot Partition Created During Setup Limited to 4
| Gigabytes https://helparchive.huntertur.net/document/46361
|
| Q127851: Problems Accessing FAT16 Drives Larger Than 2 GB
| https://helparchive.huntertur.net/document/106328
|
| Q138364: Windows NT Partitioning Rules During Setup
| https://helparchive.huntertur.net/document/52635
|
| Q154052: Explanation of X86 Boot Drive Limitations
| https://helparchive.huntertur.net/document/48096
|
| Q161563: How Windows NT Handles Drive Translation
| https://helparchive.huntertur.net/document/48808
|
| Q197295: WinNT Does Not Boot to Partition That Starts More Than 4
| GB Into Disk https://helparchive.huntertur.net/document/69226
|
| Q197667: Installing Windows NT on a Large IDE Hard Disk
| https://helparchive.huntertur.net/document/69256
|
| Q224526: Windows NT 4.0 Supports Maximum of 7.8-GB System
| Partition https://helparchive.huntertur.net/document/70367
| InsideOutSanta wrote:
| I couldn't find a way to contact the author, but in case he's
| reading this or anyone knows his contact information: I'd like to
| subscribe to your blog, but your RSS feed is currently broken.
| st_goliath wrote:
| > I couldn't find a way to contact the author
|
| If you remove the "blog." subdomain and go to
| https://pipetogrep.org/ you are greeted by a typical "about me"
| page. It includes a link back to the blog, as well as a mailto
| link, and links to GitHub and LinkedIn profiles.
| genewitch wrote:
| What are you, some kind of hacker wizard
| Scharkenberg wrote:
| This is Wizard News after all.
| stavros wrote:
| I want to subscribe to your comments but your RSS feed is
| currently broken.
| mdaniel wrote:
| I'm guessing you were being funny but
| https://hnrss.org/replies?id=44086171
| stavros wrote:
| Oh nice, thank you! Didn't know that was a thing.
| mr_tox wrote:
| I love the BBS style blog and all the other retro stuff :)
| Kwpolska wrote:
| > Add a bigger disk. Share some files to your old Windows
| machines. Learn how old Active Directory worked. Set up Exchange
| and get some mail going.
|
| Active Directory was in Windows 2000, NT4 has a different domain
| technology. If you want to play with old Windows Server stuff,
| Windows 2000 would be a better, more coherent option, compatible
| with more modern software.
| anthk wrote:
| This. It woudn't be too difficult to even port Supermium to
| Windows 2000 given it has an XP release.
| EvanAnderson wrote:
| Total agreement.
|
| I ran a lot of Exchange 4.0 thru 5.5 on NT 4.0 and Exchange
| 2000 on Windows 2000 and 2003 back in the day. I can't say I
| miss any of that software (except, maybe, some faint happy
| remembrance of Windows Server 2003). Windows 2000 and newer are
| infinitely more useful and less quirky the prior NT versions
| (coherent OS servicing strategy, fewer reboots after settings
| changes, plug 'n play support).
|
| I suppose there's an argument to be made for trying that stuff
| out to see why the newer stuff is better. In a homelab, though,
| you're never going to get to the scale to see why NT 4.0
| domains were a pain point. Likewise, you probably won't be
| max'ing out an Exchange EDB size, or feeling the I/O pain that
| came w/ trying to sling content from a 50GB Exchange
| Information Store thru a 32-bit OS.
|
| There definitely is an "ah, ha!" moment to be had looking first
| at the NT 4.0 Domain system, then at an Exchange Directory
| Service, and thinking "What if my Windows Domain could be like
| this?" (This was the genesis of Active Directory.)
| simonjgreen wrote:
| Wow that NT era weave logo triggered a lot of memories. In
| particular Windows Back Office (which later became SBS). Many
| evenings spent fixing SMS, Mail, and ISA.
|
| There is a lot to be said for on prem that the cloud era
| marketing departments have erased. I seriously miss the on prem
| first mindset. It's not clear at all to me if there is a
| universal best/winner now.For example: I regularly hit issues
| with Entra where there are feature gaps vs AD such as MemberOf.
| But as a counter, I have no love lost for roaming profiles. You
| could probably debate it for weeks.
| ComputerGuru wrote:
| > Windows NT 4 doesn't virtualise well
|
| Citation needed? I remember running into no issues with VMware
| Workstation when I was preserving historical content from legacy
| OSes well over a decade ago.
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| >> Windows NT 4 doesn't virtualise well
|
| > Citation needed?
|
| https://kagi.com/search?q=Windows+NT+4+doesn%27t+virtualise+...
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| NT4 can do USB! tl;dr: https://nt4ref.zcm.com.au/usb.htm
|
| I learned this last Thur. A pharma client had an NT4 box with a
| fried PS2 port. I got onboard USB operational using the above
| resource and they can mouse again.
|
| MS chose to omit USB from NT4 and the OS EOL'd that way. A 3rd
| party corp wrote a USB driver stack for NT, 20+yr ago. A civic
| minded someone put up the above linked site to make it usable.
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(page generated 2025-05-25 23:01 UTC)