Date:         Thu, 30 Jan 1997 17:43:43 -0700
From:         Hans Klarenbeek <hansie@wantree.com.au>
Subject:      Comments.....

My First Painful experience with Windows NT 4.0

I suppose it was foolish for me to believe that there wouldn't be any pain in learning to 'run' Windows NT 4.0. I used the word run as opposed use since using windows NT 4.0 is only very slighly different to using Windows 95. Running an OS as opposed to using it ivolves knowing how to fix it when it screws up..... If you are a Windows 95 user who believes that knowing how to fix a problem with Windows 95 gives you the ability to 'fix' problem in NT4.0 THINK AGAIN!... My painful first exposure to NT4.0 came in the form of RAS... Whatever I would do I could NOT dial into the internet.... I installed and uninstalled and reinstalled everything to no avail.... now I was aware of the problem people had with RAS/TCPIP stuff after service pack 2 so I figured that by installing SP2 it may fix it right??? - Well it didn't so then I applied Hot Fix for Ras.... No joy...... I said to myself bugger this I will just remove all RAS related stuff and start again..... Next thing Blue Screen of Death!!! (BSOD) yes it did this even in VGA mode.....

Now the problem in this instance isn't so much that it has died in the aarse as in what do I do about it? So were in Windows 95 I would be able to use do to recontruct or recopy missing files etc but no such joy with NT4.0 .... Its dead dead..... Hmmm reinstall time fine I left the install directory on another partition (the CD is at work for real work stuff and real paying clients not NT wannabe gurus like yours truly) and I find that MS have put some kind of primitive (CD Bootable) protection on NT which forces you to have the CD handy.... Great I think my MS-Select clients must love that especially if their server goes down on a weekend..... (since many don't get to keep the media). So I borrow the CD format the partition and reinstall so here is the word of advise.......

Think and think again when you do your install - the questions NT asks you at the start are IMPORTANT ... if you are a hacker/lamer like me using NT Server to play with please tell the installer that you want to configure for a stand alone server....!!!!!!! Installing with one of the other options might sound cool but you are going to be very unhappy......

So:

One: - Tell the setup programme that you wish to configure as a standalone server

Two: When it asks you to give the machine and IP range give a safe but nonesensical IP range such as 10.1.1.1 to 10.100.100.100 this apparently keeps NT happy (please E-mail me if you know why exactly)

The second time I tried to set up RAS point click and done.... (don't you hate that)