It's just like normal NT 4.0, plus you can do server things, such as use it for a DHCP server. If you've already seen Nt 4.0 then the server version isn't going to do a great deal more these days.

NT4 is a strange OS.
It feels more modern with the start menu but lacks things under the hood like Win95 style Plug and Play, device manager, USB support, etc which makes it feel quite old.
It also predates Windows Active Directory so the server side of things is also quite old.
Game wise it lacks support for 16 bit and only DirectX 3 means even windows games are quite limited.

With all that said I really like NT4, it makes for a lightweight server to mess around with but that's all it's good for messing around and seeing how things were done before pre Active Directory

Its a great server OS, and a good introduction to how and why the modern server OSs are so good.
I still have it running on a dual P3 system I have. Its very stable. But then so is a good stout table with 4 legs and a flat top.

chinny22 wrote on 2024-01-15, 03:45:

NT4 is a strange OS. It feels more modern with the start menu but lacks things under the hood like Win95 style Plug and Play, de […]
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NT4 is a strange OS.
It feels more modern with the start menu but lacks things under the hood like Win95 style Plug and Play, device manager, USB support, etc which makes it feel quite old.
It also predates Windows Active Directory so the server side of things is also quite old.
Game wise it lacks support for 16 bit and only DirectX 3 means even windows games are quite limited.

I just tried a few things with a NT4 machine, and I can tell you that it runs 16-bit apps just fine, and it also supports a wireless USB keyboard & mouse with wheel.

The machine also has a USB-key driver added, so I can transfer files with it.

You can set up Services for Macintosh and be able to host a few file shares and printers to some networked classic macs if you have any. Probably even set it up to act as a bridge between retro Macs and PCs (have fun dealing with file type/creator codes though).

I had a copy of nt 4.0 workstation (not server) a long time ago. I installed it and played around with it but never really used it. I actually got that for *free* it came with some software I bought - I think it was visual c++

It is good to learn how classic LANManager/Windows NT domains work.
You can even try to have 2 servers to learn how primary and backup domain controller work.

All great uses for it.
I use it as a file server on my retro LAN myself, thats pretty much all it does these days since I migrated services to a Windows 2000 based server and I use Windows Powered too.
I did use it to host of dial up ISP but I use Windows 2k3 for that now, but Im thinking of moving it back to NT4, I just dont want to go through the pain of setting it up again.

NT4s simplicity stops it getting bogged down a lot of the time, and you can keep uptimes in months and years not weeks and months.

Uses very little resources.
You can run on Pentium 100mhz or higher with good performance,
Runs on very little memory. We use to teach WinNT 40 server on a Pentium 100mhz with 32mb ram and small capacity hard drive.
Supports NTFS, Raid cards, Gigabytes of Hard drives and gigabytes of Memory if needed.
Supports Dual CPU’s
It was very popular back in 1990’s before Win-2000
Was used by most businesses, corporation's, and Telco’s, ISP and Internet companies.
Everyone was using it before Win-2000

I would only use it today if your software requires Win-NT 4.0 or you have an old Dual CPU computer that has very little memory
And hard drive space, or your old computer does not have enough memory and hard drive space.

Windows-2000 is a Better more stable and reliable Operating system if your computer can support it.

But we did allot of things with WinNT 4.0

Setup Nation Wide Networks, Webservers, File Servers, Servers Clusters, Oracle Databases, Network Hard drive imaging servers, Remote administration and management servers, etc…….Allot of Software ran on WinNT 4.0 so it was very popular in the business community.
Also having a WinNT server certification was highly desired among employers.

Yeah I had forgotten about that. My old workplace had a NT domain all set up, with hundreds of users. It was very reliable, although quite limited when compared with W2K (Active Directory). Our IT experts figured out a way for the 2 domains to co-exist and share resources.

I've still got a copy of the NT domain user manager program here... somewhere.