ao486 Windows NT 4 Install Guide

[alexoughton]

Windows NT 4 install for ao486
It’s now possible to install and run Windows NT 4 and Windows 2000 on ao486, due to some bugfixes I have provided as well as two amazing drivers which have been provided to the community. This is a guide for installing Windows NT 4, with a guide for Windows 2000 coming soon. Note that this guide may look long, but that's only because I like to be verbose. This is actually quite an easy process with the provided images.

Acknowledgments
It would not be possible to run Windows NT on the MiSTer without these two drivers. If you find any of this useful or interesting, you should send them some thanks!

1. UniATA by Alter: http://alter.org.ua/en/soft/win/uni_ata/
2. VBEMP NT by BearWindows: https://bearwindows.zcm.com.au/vbemp.htm

Things you'll need

1. The latest version of the setup/driver floppies I have prepared here: https://github.com/alexoughton/misternt ... s/main.zip.
2. The latest version of uniata.sys from http://alter.org.ua/en/soft/win/uni_ata/ (at time of writing, this file is http://alter.org.ua/en/soft/win/uni_ata ... r_v47b.rar)
3. The Windows NT Workstation 4 setup ISO.
4. The hard disk image you will be installing on.

Technical information (skip to “Getting Started” if you just want the steps!)
A normal Windows NT setup process starts from MS-DOS and does the following:

1. Copies the setup CD to a temporary location on disk
2. Creates three boot floppies containing the setup environment
3. Boots from those floppies, auto-detects hardware and drivers and proceeds with Windows NT setup

The setup images I have provided here instead do the following:

1. Copies the setup CD to a temporary location on disk, and then partially replaces many of the files with those from Service Pack 6a (on the CD image)
2. Provides pre-created boot floppies for the setup environment which specify MiSTer-specific steps and include the SP6a components
3. Boots from those floppies, provides drivers to use during manual device specification, and proceeds with Windows NT setup
4. Executes a final script which finishes Service Pack 6a setup, and properly sets display resolution registry keys.

The "boot first" image is an MS-DOS boot disk with the necessary environment to perform step 1. The main script is in autoexec.bat. The image also includes the "fdisk" and "vinfo" tools from FreeDOS to assist with partitioning.

The fixes needed to MiSTer and ao486 in order to boot NT included:

1. Tweaking support for a few IDE commands
2. Updating the memory map in the BIOS to allow NT to access video memory
3. Fixing the I/O maps for IDE and the floppy controller to remove an inadvertent overlap between the two

Getting Started

1. Start by making sure you have recently updated both the “main” MiSTer binary as well as ao486 itself. This can be done with the “update” or “update_all” script. You must also have recently updated the boot0.rom and boot1.rom files as there have been important fixes here recently.
2. Now copy the following files to your MiSTer’s ao486 folder:
   • The hard disk file you will be using to install NT on.
   • All of the files from the “images” folder inside the “main.zip” file you downloaded in “Things you’ll need” step 1.
   • The Windows NT 4 setup ISO.

   

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3. Now copy the “uniata.sys” file from BusMaster_v47b.rar you downloaded in “Things you’ll need” step 2 to your MiSTer’s ao486/shared folder:

   

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4. Start up the ao486 core and select the following images:
   • Floppy A: “Boot first – Manufacturer-supplied hardware support disk.img”
   • IDE 0-0: The hard disk image you will be installing Windows NT on
   • IDE 1-0: The Windows NT 4 Workstation setup ISO
   • IDE 1-1: “misternt.iso”

   

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5. Select "Reset and apply HDD" to restart ao486 with the correct images mounted.

Installing Windows NT

1. ao486 will reboot from the first setup floppy. Press a key to continue.
2. Since this is probably your first time using this hard disk image, the disk will need to be partitioned. Press a key again to confirm and reboot.

   

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3. After rebooting and starting the process again, you will be asked if you want to set up an MS-DOS prompt. You must select “N” if you are going to choose NTFS format later in the setup process. If you don’t know what this is (or don’t care about using NTFS), I suggest choosing “Y” as this can make troubleshooting easier later.

   

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4. Confirm one more time that it’s OK to format the hard disk by selecting “Y” and pressing enter.
5. The disk will be formatted and then setup will begin copying files from the two ISOs onto the hard disk. Once this process has completed, you will be prompted to swap floppy A to the disk “Windows NT Workstation Boot Disk” and press CTRL+ALT+DEL.

   

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6. When you do so, the next stage of Windows NT setup will boot. You will be prompted for the disk “Windows NT Workstation Setup Disk #2” and should provide this when asked. This will take us to the start of setup where we will configure our hardware.

   

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7. After pressing ENTER, you will be offered the opportunity to perform automatic detection of disk controllers. This does not work on ao486, so you must press S here to skip autodetection.

   

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8. Setup will tell you that the list of detected mass storage devices is “none”, so now we’re going to specify the correct drivers. Press S again to begin this process, and then select “other”:

   

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9. You will be prompted to provide the “Manufacturer-supplied hardware support disk”, so switch floppy drive A back to that image (the “boot first” disk image). Press Enter and select the only driver available.

   

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10. Setup will now return to the list of recognized mass storage devices. Instead of “none” it will now list the “Alter Group Universal ATA driver”. Press ENTER to continue. It's possible that you may see a warning at this stage that your hard disk has more than 1024 cylinders. It is safe to press ENTER to continue past this. Setup will proceed to the next stage where you will scroll through and agree to the Windows NT Licensing Agreement.
11. After the license agreement you will be presented with the rest of the detected hardware. We need to change the “Display” type to the correct driver (“Auto Detect” will not work correctly). Highlight the “display” and press Enter.

    

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12. Selecting the correct display type is very similar to when we set up the disk controller. So again select “Other”, and provide the “Boot first” disk which contains the driver.

    

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13. Setup will now have the correct list of hardware which should look as follows. Select “The above list matches my computer” to continue.

    

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14. Select the C: drive to install Windows on and press ENTER. You will be asked if you want to convert to NTFS. This is up to you, but remember that the earlier “MS-DOS prompt” option will only work if you “leave the current file system intact”. If you choose “Convert”, then you will be prompted to press C to confirm.

    

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15. You will now be asked the location where to install Windows NT. The default directory (“\WINNT”) is fine. You should then press ESC to skip the exhaustive disk check.
16. The next stage of file copying will begin. Wait for this to finish.

    

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17. Important: Once file copying is done you will be told to remove all floppies and CDs from the computer. While you should follow the instruction to eject the floppy image from drive A, do not remove the CD ISOs until the very end of this guide. They will stay mounted throughout as they will be used in further steps. So eject the floppy image, and then press ENTER to restart. (Note, if you are unfamiliar with the ejection process, this is done by selecting your “A drive” in the ao486 menu, and instead of choosing an image pressing BACKSPACE).

    

    don't

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Finishing setup

1. Windows NT will now boot for the first time. If you selected NTFS conversion then this will happen during first boot. Note that you may see messages about “your disk may be corrupted” during this time. This can be safely ignored (NT is just performing extra checks to make sure all is well with the file system).

   

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2. Press “next” to continue Windows NT setup. You will be asked which components to install. I like to select “custom” and then enable everything, but that’s just me.
3. Set your name, organization and computer name. It doesn’t matter what you choose. Set your administrator password. This also doesn’t matter as long as you remember it!
4. Do not create an emergency repair disk. Do not connect the computer to a network at this time.
5. An important note for the date/time screen: While you can safely choose timezone, you must NOT click on the “Date & time” tab in this window during setup, as this will cause a crash. Feel free to change the date/time once the guide is finished, just don’t try it now!

   

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6. Setup will now open “Display Properties”, and will display three messages you must click OK to clear. Do so, but then click CANCEL. The graphics driver will be automatically set up by a script at the end of setup.

   

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7. Setup will now go through yet another round of file copying. It will then automatically begin the installation of Service Pack 6a. You don’t need to do anything here, just let it run.
8. Click “OK” when told that some information has been successfully entered into the registry. This is the graphics driver getting set up (as mentioned in point 6).
9. Setup will tell you that Windows NT has been successfully installed, and it will tell you to remove the CD-ROMs. Once again, leave these in place as we will use them for the sound driver later. Click “reboot”.

   

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Configuring sound

1. Press CTRL+ALT+DEL and log in with the administrator password you configured during setup. Open control panel, double-click on “Multimedia”, and go to the “Devices” tab. Please excuse poor quality of images from now on, as there is a screenshot corruption bug when Windows NT is running.

   

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2. Click on “Add” and select “Creative Lbs Sound Blaster 1.X, Pro, 16” from the list. Click on “OK”.
3. Enter the path d:\i386\ in the “Install driver” window, and click OK.

   

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4. Set the I/O address to 220 and click continue. Set the MPU401 I/O address to “disable” (even though MPU401 should work, this is giving an error). Click OK.

   

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5. Click “Restart now”. Once the reboot finishes you’re done! You may now unmount those ISOs.
6. (Note: For cosmetic improvement, I do recommend going to “Display properties”, clicking on the “Plus!” tab and enabling “Show window contents while dragging” and “Show icons using all possible colors”.

[alexoughton]

For those interested, the original thread where NT first successfully booted can be found here: viewtopic.php?t=4175

[thera34]

I made successful PPP connection

How:
After all finished to install as per @alexoughton's instructions, open My Computer and click on the Dial-Up Networking.
As networking support is not yet installed, you will be prompted to provide the location of "rascfg" related files.
Mount the Win NT 4.0 CD-ROM and navigate to /i386 folder. There will be the "rascfg" files and the rest.
The setup will copy the necessary files/install services until it will start Remote Access Setup and ask you to add a modem:

Capture1a.PNG (104.27 KiB) Viewed 11227 times

Hit Yes, then in the following window, check "Don't detect my modem..."
In the next window, click on "Have disk" and point to where modem9x driver is (I use a FAT 500MB VHD only with drivers and usual apps)
The driver is obtainable here: https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/ao486_M ... odem9x.inf
From that point on, the setup will take you to use the Generic null modem, hit OK, hit Continue, check only TCP/IP when prompted then again Continue. Setup will continue and at some point it will ask you to restart.(same procedure as you did for installing SoundBlaster drivers).

Important: Open OSD and at UART mode PPP, change Baud setting from Turbo115200 to plain 115200)

Important: After installing Dial-Up Networking, you will get an Event Error at every boot. It doesn't break PPP (at least from my very few tests), but get rid off it by re-running the Service Pack 6 (mount misternt.iso CD-ROM and run sp6ai386) and restart again when asked.

The New Phonebook Entry Wizard will appear after, name your connection to your liking and Check "I know all about phonebook...." box to jump to finish.
You can use any number (I used 555-1234). As for other settings, click on More / Edit entry and modem properties:

My Great Game - My Great Capture_2022-04-29_21-20-07.png (48.21 KiB) Viewed 11310 times

Basic tab should look like this:

My Great Game - My Great Capture_2022-04-29_21-39-20.png (39.68 KiB) Viewed 11310 times

In the Server tab, uncheck everything unless TCP/IP, Dial up server type should be "PPP: WinNT, 98 Plus, Internet"

My Great Game - My Great Capture_2022-04-29_21-23-42.png (35.81 KiB) Viewed 11310 times

IMPORTANT:
DNS is not acquired automatically by Windows NT (or Win95) unless either:
1. Click on TCP/IP Settings in the above Server tab and use configure static Nameserver (either by using your router's internal IP address - usually .1 - or Google public ones like 8.8.8.8)
2. Login into your MiSTer by SSH or F9, go to /media/fat/linux and change your ppp_options file by uncommenting (delete the front #) and modifying the IP addresses from "ms-dns" entries:

Code: Select all

# /etc/ppp/options

# Specify which DNS Servers the incoming Win95 or WinNT Connection should use
# Two Servers can be remotely configured
ms-dns 192.168.1.1  #CHANGE it to your network's needs
ms-dns 8.8.8.8         #or  8.8.4.4 etc

You should now have PPP connection working

My Great Game - My Great Capture_2022-04-29_21-07-28.png (47.44 KiB) Viewed 11310 times

*Thank you @NML32 for your help in solving the DNS and Event error issues, thus making this mini how-to more complete

I quickly re-made the steps on a clean NT VHD, here's a capture of all process, the only thing I cut was the blue screen waiting period, the rest of waiting for install is real https://youtu.be/JEPMJSWws5E

[alexoughton]

This is great, thank you so much for adding this to the guide!

[netbeui]

I made successful PPP connection

<snip>

Thank you thera34 for putting this guide together, hoping you can help me as I followed all your steps but DNS doesn't seem to be working for me. I can successfully ping my router at 192.168.1.254 but when I try to ping google.com it fails. I tried setting the Primary DNS in my TCP/IP settings to 192.168.1.254 and the Secondary DNS to 8.8.8.8. Also tried setting only the primary to .254 or .8 but no go. I also tried un-commenting the lines in the ppp_options file.

Do those lines in the ppp_options file need to be un-commented AND also have the DNS set in NT4's TCP/IP settings? Or is it supposed to be one OR the other? I also made sure my UART mode in the core settings is correctly configured as PPP and regular 115200 baud.

If you have any ideas on what I should check or any other suggestions please let me know!

[thera34]

Thank you thera34 for putting this guide together, hoping you can help me as I followed all your steps but DNS doesn't seem to be working for me. I can successfully ping my router at 192.168.1.254 but when I try to ping google.com it fails. I tried setting the Primary DNS in my TCP/IP settings to 192.168.1.254 and the Secondary DNS to 8.8.8.8. Also tried setting only the primary to .254 or .8 but no go. I also tried un-commenting the lines in the ppp_options file.

Do those lines in the ppp_options file need to be un-commented AND also have the DNS set in NT4's TCP/IP settings? Or is it supposed to be one OR the other? I also made sure my UART mode in the core settings is correctly configured as PPP and regular 115200 baud.

If you have any ideas on what I should check or any other suggestions please let me know!

Hello netbeui
You can just edit the ppp_options and uncomment those lines, there is no need to further declare it static on NT's settings.
However, from your post, if I understand right, your router is 192.168.1.254. That could be an issue, as the .254 IP is usually reserved for MiSTer cores with PPP support.
If that is the case, then you should add a static entry for your MiSTer on router (like 192.168.1.25 for example) then modify also the ppp_options last line:

Code: Select all

# You may explicitly define local and remote IPs for PPP link.
# new MiSTer releases don't require it anymore.
# IPs entered here will override automatically assigned IPs.
#192.168.1.1:192.168.1.10

So in your case last line would become like:

Code: Select all

92.168.1.25:192.168.1.35

That would override automatically assigned IPs and the core IP would be the .35 instead of default .254

Hope it helps You can also get on MiSTer Discord, #computer-core-testing channel, for a faster response/ideas.

[netbeui]

Thank you thera34 for putting this guide together, hoping you can help me as I followed all your steps but DNS doesn't seem to be working for me. I can successfully ping my router at 192.168.1.254 but when I try to ping google.com it fails. I tried setting the Primary DNS in my TCP/IP settings to 192.168.1.254 and the Secondary DNS to 8.8.8.8. Also tried setting only the primary to .254 or .8 but no go. I also tried un-commenting the lines in the ppp_options file.

Do those lines in the ppp_options file need to be un-commented AND also have the DNS set in NT4's TCP/IP settings? Or is it supposed to be one OR the other? I also made sure my UART mode in the core settings is correctly configured as PPP and regular 115200 baud.

If you have any ideas on what I should check or any other suggestions please let me know!

Hello netbeui
You can just edit the ppp_options and uncomment those lines, there is no need to further declare it static on NT's settings.
However, from your post, if I understand right, your router is 192.168.1.254. That could be an issue, as the .254 IP is usually reserved for MiSTer cores with PPP support.
If that is the case, then you should add a static entry for your MiSTer on router (like 192.168.1.25 for example) then modify also the ppp_options last line:

Code: Select all

# You may explicitly define local and remote IPs for PPP link.
# new MiSTer releases don't require it anymore.
# IPs entered here will override automatically assigned IPs.
#192.168.1.1:192.168.1.10

So in your case last line would become like:

Code: Select all

92.168.1.25:192.168.1.35

That would override automatically assigned IPs and the core IP would be the .35 instead of default .254

Hope it helps You can also get on MiSTer Discord, #computer-core-testing channel, for a faster response/ideas.

Thanks thera34 this really helped! I put my TCP/IP settings back to default in NT, made the changes to the ppp_options file but it didn't work at first, then I reset the UART connection and voila! Thank you!

[bootsector]

On step 9, after selecting the "Alter Group Universal ATA Driver", I get the error:

"The SCSI adapter, CD-ROM drive, or special disk controller you specified is not installed in your computer."

And I can't proceed. Any clues?

Edit: Solved! It was a corrupt/empty UNIATA.SYS file that has been copied to the AO486/SHARED folder!

Edit 2: HDD doesn't seem bootable after initial install reboot.

Edit 3: All good! I was probably using a corrupt VHD file. Created one with dd and it's all good now! Thanks for the great tutorial!