My evaluation period has expired on my NT installation, why?

A. You may have not used an evaluation CD but if you used setupdisks that were created with an evaluation CD then the NT installation willexpire after 120 days.

You will get one hours notice with the following

Click here to view image

and then one hour later a blue screen of death:

END_OF_NT_EVALUATION_PERIOD (0x98)
Your NT System is an evaluation unit with an expiration date. The trial periodis over.

KeBugCheckEx parameters:

You would then have to restart the computer and would be able to run it foranother hour before it crashed again.

To fix this will you need to "upgrade" your installation using afull retail copy of NT, not the upgrade version as it will not"upgrade" NT 4.0 to 4.0. Before performing this upgrade you mustensure you have uninstalled Service Pack 2 or above. If Service Pack 3 or above wasinstalled you must make sure that the following files are not replaced:

To ensure the three files above are not replaced copy them from the servicepack to your NT installation directory (I386) to the hard disk andexpand the files above to the directory.

Microsoft do not supply a utility to tell you if your installation willexpire or not, however I have written a utility and for more info see Q. How can I tell if my NT installation is a120 day evaluation or full?