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My Workstation: NT4 Workstation© Copyright Darrell Anderson. I have been using the same workstation operating system (OS) for close to nine years: Windows NT4 Workstation. Yup, go ahead—roll your eyes and howl! I’ll laugh right along with you and slap you on your back after you slap me on mine. The joke is on me so I buy the next round! However, notice the title of this essay is “My Workstation,” not “My Favorite Workstation.” Additionally, the emphasis is on the word workstation. Most of the people reading this essay are techies. You know—those cutting and bleeding edge types. Bells and whistles. Gadgetry. Gee whizzery. Of course, NT4 is none of that. I once was down that road, but through the years as middle-agedom won some arguments, I have been content with NT4. No, NT4 is not my dream system and is not my favorite operating system, but is my workhorse. NT4 always has been somewhat of a black sheep and outsider. Never popular with the multimedia and games crowd, that’s for sure. However, multimedia and computer games are not my cup of tea. No interest at all. My computer is primarily a word processor and research tool. I use Word 97, some occasional spreadsheets, Eudora 5.1 Pro, Firefox, and a handful of other utilities. Along with NT4, all of the packages I use “officially” are obsolete and no longer actively supported. Obsolete? According to whom? Those tools continue to meet my needs! Okay, so I don’t live on any cutting or bleeding edge. Nonetheless I am productive. I have provided technical writing services for many years and have focused on print medium rather than online help and HTML. Structured documents are my staple and I use templates, styles, and many macros to help me work efficiently. After many years of fine-tuning this environment, I have a writing workstation that hums every day. Thus, Word 97 still fits me like a glove. I have no need to change. I migrated from Windows for Workgroups (WFWG) 3.11 to NT4. In fact, for minor chuckles and posterity’s sake, I still maintain my original WFWG partition, fully functional with Microsoft Office 6 and Netscape 3 (ha!). Talk about fast on any post-486 system! Nonetheless, I joyfully bypassed all the misery experienced by many people who used Windows 95/98/ME. I always have had a stable system. I enjoy and tinker with GNU/Linux and please don’t flame me for this—but I have seen just as many seg faults as BSODs (Blue Screens of Death). No, I am not saying that NT4 is better than GNU/Linux. I am only saying that my system is stable. My NT4 system is rock-solid. I never have been required to reinstall NT4. Never! The primary reason? Probably that several years ago I learned how to completely strip Internet Explorer and Outlook from my system. No Active X or Visual Basic scripting engine is on my system either. I’ve depended upon the Kerio 2.1.5 firewall for many years (previously called Tiny long ago). I tend to download only software that helps my production, so I never have been infected with a virus, Trojan horse, spyware, or had my browser hijacked. Fast? NT4 is plenty fast for my needs. I use “ancient” mid-range hardware too—a 400 MHz K6-III+ and 256 MB of RAM. Most apps open quickly—except the two open source products installed, Firefox and OpenOffice. Hmm. Nonetheless, I have yet to learn how to type faster than this system can display or save my text! Has Microsoft been my buddy? Hardly! Nonetheless I have the last laugh because I still am as productive as I want to be with NT4. Sure, NT4 is not free software and never will be, but NT4 (and Office 97) were the last of a dead breed in the proprietary Microsoft world. Back when those products initially were released and compared to today’s standards, licensing was harmless and “phone home” had not yet invaded the Microsoft psyche. I never will experience the nonsense of modern Microsoft licensing and snooping, but as a classic workstation operating system, NT4 has served me well. If I wanted, I could use NT4 for several more years. Now, bear in mind that NT4 is getting long in the tooth, and that is why at the beginning of this essay I laughed right along with you! I started the process of moving to Slackware and KDE. Slowly but surely. Nonetheless, if choice truly matters then NT4 has done me well for many years and my choice all along has been to snub “upgrading” and the old falsehood that “newer is better.” My attitude for several years now has been “if it ain’t broke then don’t fix it!” Do I dare share with you that I know an individual who still uses a Commodore 64 to maintain his simple bookkeeping needs? Have I written this essay tongue-in-cheek? Well, perhaps I intended to humor just a wee bit, but no, I really do use NT4 daily. A few years ago the Microsoft people decided to chase the one ring to rule them all, but that does not mean that at one time they failed to produce some decent products. Yes, I’m looking forward to one day fully migrating to Slackware and KDE, but I have no complaints and no regrets. Nor am I embarrassed. NT4 has helped me be productive and has helped me improve my life. Isn’t that basically what computers are all about? Finis. |
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