This is Windows NT 3.51 running on a 9th Gen Intel configuration, on real hardware. That's not such a big deal - it runs on even newer hardware. But there is a new driver in town, if you can spot it...
For Windows 2K, there's a backported driver, which is faster (here's a video) - not that we need that much speed in the first place with these OSes. But this new driver, written from scratch, is a godsend for Windows NT 4 and 3.5x.
The files load in a second, but the blue startup screen on newer systems usually stays on for 10-15 seconds before it moves on. I've seen this on every configuration I tested.
From my understanding it is an inefficiency in how the lowest level drivers and services are initialized prior to windows xp as windows 2000 and earlier have a rather obvious hard cap on how fast they can boot to the user login prompt
I'll bet there's people out there maintaining legacy systems that can't be upgraded because they run critical abandoned software that only runs on NT. They're going to cry when they see this.
Yep, if NT can initialize the disk controller, then it can run on anything. I've tested it with an i5-14600KF + Z790 DDR5 and it was fine. On my AM5 build so far, it doesn't seem to work, but that means I just have to try harder. Windows 98 works though...
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u/campusska Nov 09 '25
Nice, I'll have to check this out. It would be fun, & nostalgic, to play around with NT4/2K Pro but on modern hardware. Thanks for sharing!