Category Archives: NT

Windows NT BSOD Aclock Port

Posted on November 7, 2012 by tenox

Do you remember the famous Windows NT Blue Screen Of Death? For years it was a source of jokes and bad reputation of Windows reliability. There even was a Blue Screen Saver! Today we fortunately see much less of it, but it … Continue reading →

Posted in 386, Development, NT, Uncategorized, VGA, Windows, x86 | 2 Comments

Why Windows NT from October 1992 refuses to install on modern CPUs

Posted on October 12, 2012 by Michal Necasek

Attempting to install the October 1992 pre-release on any CPU less than about 20 years old is likely to result in the following error message: This is similar to the behavior of the official Windows NT 3.1 and 3.5 releases, … Continue reading →

Posted in Intel, NT | 7 Comments

NT video miniport HD

Posted on March 9, 2012 by Michal Necasek

The video miniport driver for VirtualBox has been updated. The miniport now supports a much broader range of resolutions, up to 1920×1200. Color depths of 32, 24, 16, 15, and 8 bits per pixel are supported for all resolutions, although … Continue reading →

Posted in NT, VirtualBox | 10 Comments

Simple Windows NT video miniport for VirtualBox

Posted on December 18, 2011 by Michal Necasek

A few months ago, I developed a trivial video miniport for use in Windows NT virtual machines. The primary goal was to improve display speed and get past the 800×600, 16 color display mode which is the maximum Windows NT … Continue reading →

Posted in NT, VirtualBox | 12 Comments

Converting NT DDK/SDK PostScript documents to PDF

Posted on November 19, 2011 by Michal Necasek

Pre-releases of Microsoft’s NT development tools, as well as the final NT 3.1 SDK and DDK, shipped with a full set of printable documentation in PostScript format. The PostScript book-style document were rather more pleasing to the eye than the … Continue reading →

Posted in Documentation, NT | 5 Comments

OS/2 2.0 Limited Availability

Posted on May 30, 2011 by Michal Necasek

In October 1991, IBM released OS/2 2.0 “Limited Availability” (or LA) at the Fall Comdex in Las Vegas. This was a semi-official release of 32-bit OS/2, effectively a beta version, although it wasn’t called a beta. At the same Comdex, … Continue reading →

Posted in NT, OS/2 | 9 Comments

Display Drivers, NT and NeXTSTEP

Posted on January 21, 2011 by Michal Necasek

It is instructive to compare the OS/2 and 16-bit Windows display driver model with other operating systems. Why NT and NeXTSTEP? NT because it was Microsoft’s third take on a (mostly) PC operating system, and NeXTSTEP because it was an … Continue reading →

Posted in NeXTSTEP, NT | 2 Comments

Installing Windows NT 3.x in VirtualBox

Posted on October 12, 2010 by Michal Necasek

All Windows NT 3.x versions can be used in VirtualBox, although they are not officially supported (unlike all following NT versions) and no Guest Additions are provided. Furthermore, for Windows NT 3.1 and 3.5, an extra step needs to be … Continue reading →

Posted in NT, VirtualBox, Virtualization | 6 Comments

NT and OS/2

Posted on July 26, 2010 by Michal Necasek

OS/2 and Windows NT have an interesting and checkered common history. Until late 1990, the operating system eventually released as Windows NT was known as NT OS/2. Despite its name, NT had very little in common with OS/2 as it … Continue reading →

Posted in NT, OS/2 | 2 Comments