Author: Blue Horizon
Completed: September 26, 2024
Just to bring up something I didn't mention earlier; since build 1729 when they fully changed the setup wizard interface (1723 had the new wizard layout, but lacked some steps from the aforementioned build), the time zone settings now default to Pacific Time rather than whatever Greenwich time zone NT 4.0 was defaulting to.
This is the first known build of NT to refer to "minimal services boot" introduced back in build 1738 as Safe Mode and its variants (although is still referred to as such within the mode) in the boot menu. Other options have also been renamed or moved, and VGA Mode is gone here as it is already on the main selection screen itself.
The main menu screen with Safe Mode enabled.
It is still called it's former name during the boot sequence.
An absolutely HUGE Ctrl + Alt + Del dialog in all of its glory. For 640x480, anyway.
Looking at it now, I can notice that they don't use the usual Microsoft Windows text template they use for their logo splashes and box art, but rather the regular old unmodified Franklin Gothic font that was slightly altered for the logo's text when 95 came about, namely the dot of the "i" being shorter and matching heights with the uppercase "W" alongside the lowercase "d".
Normally, this dialog isn't enabled by default, and there was no visible option in the control panel to enable it at this stage. I had to manually enable it through the registry by going to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon and setting the DWORD value of DisableCAD from 1 to 0.
The login dialog has a graphical banner now, and would subsequently be used later on in Windows NT 4.0 Terminal Server Edition. The gradient also animates when loading!
A nice little logo in the corner when logging in. It makes me wonder if the idea of watermarks appearing during logins would've been too distracting for users, hence why it never caught on.
Alongside the introduction of fading menus, task manager has its own fading animation when launching it. I would guess that particular program was used as a basis to test the fade animation properties before applying it throughout the interface.