Slipstream Windows NT 4.0 SP6a into Installation Media

7 minutes to read

Microsoft has once released official Windows installation media with a service pack integrated, such as Windows Vista with SP1 and Windows XP with SP2. The process of integrating a service pack into the installation media is called slipstreaming. By using such a slipstreamed media, users need not install the slipstreamed service pack separately after they have installed Windows.

For Windows NT 4.0 Workstation, the latest slipstreamed official installation media that can be found online only have SP1, whereas the latest service pack for Windows NT 4.0 is SP6a. This is unlike Windows 2000, XP, Vista, or 7, all of which have official installation ISOs with the latest available service pack slipstreamed.

An unofficial Windows NT 4.0 Workstation installation ISO with SP6a slipstreamed created by an enthusiast does exist. However, some users might not prefer it:

  • Users who look for installing Windows NT 4.0 Server obviously cannot use the Workstation edition’s ISO.

  • Setup will report a “The file oleaccrc.dll was not copied correctly” message (as shown below). It seems that the message can be safely dismissed by pressing Esc, and the issue reported does not seem to affect the installed system. However, some users might prefer to have zero warning messages during Setup.

    The oleaccrc.dll Setup message

  • Some users might be relunctant to trust a modified Windows installation ISO made by an individual user online whom they do not know.

In response, this tutorial provides readers with instructions to build their own Windows NT 4.0 installation ISO with SP6a slipstreamed, and the slipstreamed ISO built with this method will not emit the oleaccrc.dll message during Setup.

Compatibility

Users will need to run some tools to slipstream a service pack into an installation ISO. The tools’ system requirements are:

  • To avoid the oleaccrc.dll Setup message, the latest Windows version on which the tools can run is Windows XP. Windows Vista and later versions are not compatible with the tool that fixes the oleaccrc.dll message.

    • The author has only verified this tool’s functionality on a 32-bit edition of Windows XP, not 64-bit.

  • Users who do not care about the oleaccrc.dll message can use Windows Vista or later versions, as well as Windows XP. The author has verified the other tools’ functionality on a 32-bit edition of Windows XP, a 32-bit edition of Windows Vista, and both a 32-bit edition and a 64-bit edition of Windows 10.

The slipstreaming tools support English versions of Windows NT 4.0. The tools do not support all languages: for example, the author has confirmed that they do not work for Simplified Chinese versions. Although the tools can generate an Simplified Chinese installation ISO, the system installed from the ISO does not actually have SP6a integrated. The tools might support more languages, but the author has not tested the tools on other languages.

The tools support both Workstation and Server editions of Windows NT 4.0 as per their documentation, and they support slipstreaming SP6 or SP6a. The author has verified that the tool can slipstream SP6a into the official Windows NT 4.0 Workstation with SP1 English installation media.

Known Limitations

Setup Will Lack Large Disk Support

Even after slipstreaming SP6a, Windows NT 4.0 Workstation Setup still might not recognize disk space beyond 8 GB. For a new disk larger than 8 GB, Setup might only show 8 GB of unpartitioned space, despite the fact that SP4 added support for disks larger than 8 GB.

Setup showing only 8033 MB unpartitioned space for an empty 16379 MB drive

According to Microsoft Knowledge Base article 197667, the correct solution to this issue is to let Setup separately load the updated IDE driver from SP4. After all, the slipstreaming process only applies the service pack to the installed system, not the minimal version of Windows that runs the text-mode portion of Setup. Attentive users may notice that, while the text-mode portion is starting, the build version string shown on the boot splash screen does not contain a service pack version.

AUTOCHK Before Conversion to NTFS

After the text-mode portion of Setup finishes and reboots the computer, and during the first reboot, if the user chose to format the Windows NT 4.0 partition using NTFS, the boot splash screen may show this message before converting the file system to NTFS:

WARNING!  Your drive may be corrupt.  Please let AUTOCHK run.
Skipping AUTOCHK on a volume may lead to an unmountable volume.
Skipping AUTOCHK on a system drive may lead to an unusable system.
Press any key in <X> seconds to abort AUTOCHK.

The “Your drive may be corrupt” warning on the boot splash screen

(Tip: Regardless of which file system the user chooses, Windows NT 4.0 Setup will always format the partition with FAT first; if the user chooses NTFS, Setup will convert the file system to NTFS upon the first reboot.)

The user can let AUTOCHK run and fix any file system issues by not doing anything when this message is displayed. Regardless of whether AUTOCHK is skipped, this warning does not seem to affect the installed system.

Instructions

  1. Click here to download the NT 4 Alive slipstream script, the main tool for slipstreaming.

  2. Extract the downloaded Zip file into a folder, and open this folder.

    Contents of the extracted folder

  3. Run the script NT4Alive_080310b.cmd. In the script’s window, press Enter.

    The script’s window

    Upon the first run, the script will immediately exit after creating some new folders under the folder it is in, including PACKAGES, SOURCE, and TOOLS. In the subsequent steps, readers will copy different types of files into these folders.

    New folders created by the script

  4. For readers who would like to avoid the oleaccrc.dll Setup message, click here to download a Zip file that contains modifype.exe, a tool that NT 4 Alive needs to fix oleaccrc.dll, as indicated by NT 4 Alive’s _readme.txt file. This tool is not easy to find online; the best source that the author identified was this page.

    Readers who do not care about the oleaccrc.dll Setup message can skip downloading this file.

  5. For those who downloaded the Zip file, extract modifype.exe in it to the TOOLS folder that the NT 4 Alive script created.

  6. Click here to download a Zip file that contains CDIMAGE.EXE, a tool that NT 4 Alive can use to create bootable slipstreamed ISOs. This tool is also not easy to find online; the best source that the author identified was this Internet Archive item.

  7. Extract CDIMAGE.EXE in the downloaded Zip file to the TOOLS folder that the NT 4 Alive script created.

  8. Copy the SETTINGS.INI configuration settings file of NT 4 Alive, which is under the same folder where NT4Alive_080310b.cmd is, to the TOOLS folder.

  9. Edit the new SETTINGS.INI in the TOOLS folder, and make these changes to it:

    • Append YES after CREATE_ISO=
    • Append CDIMAGE after ISO_TOOL=

    The resulting content of SETTINGS.INI will be:

    ; SKIPINTRO, FULLAUTO or nothing
RUNMODE=

; ISO
CREATE_ISO=YES
ISO_TOOL=CDIMAGE
ISO_FILE_NAME=NT40_SP6.iso
ISO_VOLUME_LABEL=NT40_SP6
CDIMAGE_SWITCHES=-h -j1 -m -o
MKISOFS_SWITCHES=-relaxed-filenames -d -D -N -J -no-emul-boot -no-iso-translate -boot-load-size 4

    The resulting content of SETTINGS.INI

  10. Download and install 7-Zip if it is not installed. It will be used to extract files as well as boot information from an ISO.

  11. Use 7-Zip to open an original Windows NT 4.0 installation ISO, enter the [BOOT] folder, and extract the file Boot-NoEmul.img to the TOOLS folder that the NT 4 Alive script created. This file contains the ISO’s boot information, which CDIMAGE.EXE will need to create a bootable slipstreamed ISO.

    The [BOOT] folder shown in 7-Zip

    The Boot-NoEmul.img file shown in 7-Zip

  12. Rename Boot-NoEmul.img to boot.bin, which is the file name that NT 4 Alive expects. Ensure the file’s extension is changed to .bin. If necessary, let Windows Explorer show extensions for known file types.

    The “Properties” box of file boot.bin, showing the type of file as “BIN File”

  13. The TOOLS folder created by the NT 4 Alive script should now contain the following files. Before proceeding to the next step, confirm that all these files exist.

    • boot.bin
    • CDIMAGE.EXE
    • modifype.exe (optional; only needed when the oleaccrc.dll Setup message should be avoided)
    • SETTINGS.INI

    Correct contents of the TOOLS folder

  14. Use 7-Zip to open the original Windows NT 4.0 installation ISO, then extract all files and folders except the [BOOT] folder to the SOURCE folder that the NT 4 Alive script created.

    Everything except The [BOOT] folder shown in 7-Zip

  15. Put the EXE file for Windows NT 4.0 SP6 or SP6a into the PACKAGES folder that the NT 4 Alive script created, and rename the file to sp6i386.exe. Either SP6 or SP6a can be used. In the case of SP6a, also use the sp6i386.exe file name.

  16. Run NT4Alive_080310b.cmd again, and press Enter in the script’s window. If all the required files have been copied to their correct folders, the script will now start to slipstream the service pack and create the slipstreamed ISO.

    NT 4 Alive slipstreaming service pack

  17. If CDIMAGE.EXE, SETTINGS.INI, and boot.bin have been prepared properly, then when the script finishes, the slipstreamed ISO can be found as NT40_SP6.iso under the same folder where NT4Alive_080310b.cmd is. The script will print a message saying “NT40_SP6.iso was created too.”

    NT 4 Alive reports successful ISO creation

    The ISO file created by NT 4 Alive