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yodasbrotherFlag for United States of America

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Windows NT4 video driver will not stay installed after reboot

Client has machine that uses a proprietary program to run it and the operating system is NT4 Service Pack 6. They are using a different video card now  because the old card died on them. Now, the resolution is too small and they cannot see the whole screen. It is using the Windows compatible vga driver and you can only choose 16 colors and either 480x640 or 600x800 as the resolution, which is too small. The new card (used actually) is an ATI Rage IIC 3D card which has the driver on the internet and I downloaded it from driverguide.com. When I install the new driver it says that it has been "installed successfully and I need to reboot" so it seems that all is well. When it is rebooted, it comes back up and everything is still the same. When you go to the adapter type it says it is still the "vga compatible adapter" as if the new driver was never installed. Am I missing an NT4 trick of some kind? We are logged in as the administrator which is in the administrators group on the computer. No windows domain here. I looked for a Policy editor to see if we are locked out but not sure what the nt4 policy editor is. Support for this machine or a new machine costs $4000 and that is why we are attempting this.
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rindi
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Possibly you didn't get the correct driver for that card. Usually the best option is to go the card's manufacturer's site and try getting the driver from there (not from AMD, as the manufacturer's often adapt their drivers).
It is possible the card is too new for NT4. NT4 is very, very old, long out of support and really not all that flexible. I do not see anyone making any driver level software for it.

So in addition, and before it is too late, you might consider making a virtual machine out of your NT 4 install. I have such an NT4 VM and the VMware Video driver for NT4 works just fine. I get 1024x768 resolution. Such a setup will last a very long time because it is a virual machine (disk file on a host computer).

... Thinkpads_User
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ATI does not post an NT4 driver for the RAGE IIC AGP card and maybe that is the issue. I found the driver on driverguide and the attached instructions are geared toward windows nt 4, so I am thinking it would work. The install goes without an issue.

I don't think we can virtualize as it depends on a large pci card that is attached to the machine. Not sure the virtual would see the machine. Good idea though.
Readme.txt
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rindi
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If the PCI card is the video card, you do not need it. VMware provides its own video. If it is a different kind of card, it depends. VMware can see network cards and USB cards. You would have to try with your setup. Also the PCI card, if not Video, has to go on the host machine.

... Thinkpads_User
Is this the driver?

http://members.driverguide.com/driver/detail.php?driverid=25992

"The install appeared to go well, but the driver did not take. Platform was CPQ Deskpro EN running Win NT 4.0 Wkstn SP6 RU.
"
Are you using English version?
The one I used was for the Compaq Presario 5283 (see attached). If I start over and download a different driver, where is the card manufacturer identified on it? I assumed it was ATI as the chip had that on it, don't remember if there was another place where there was writing on the card itself.
Screenshot-of-driver-list-when-d.pdf
There are often further part numbers or other markings on the card that provide more details. ATI (now AMD) was just the chip manufacturer, there were many video card manufacturers that then used those chips on their cards.

But I agree with thinkpads, this OS is ancient and you will find very little that still supports it. Apart from that even during it's life-time it was often hard to get working drivers for it. Things got better with win 2k. It is time for you to invest and have the thing replaced.
I have not actually fixed the issue, but the customer has decided to go in a different direction. I decided to award the points to rindi as I think his solution would have worked if I had time to implementy it. Sorry for the wait. Thanks everyone for trying to help.