"Windows NT 4.0 Service Pack 6a, the most recent service pack for Windows NT, was released in November of 1999. Since then, Microsoft has been supporting our customers with a series of hotfixes in response to specific concerns, including security vulnerabilities.

"Microsoft intends to continue supporting customers by making hotfixes available as they are needed. However, since the release of Service Pack 6a, the frequency of critical problems reported to Microsoft has declined significantly. Microsoft originally planned on releasing Service Pack 7 late last year, approximately 1 year after the release of SP6a.

"At the time, Microsoft had produced relatively few post-SP6a hotfixes, and decided to delay SP7 until Q3 of 2001. The frequency of hotfixes has continued to decline, and now, well over 1 year beyond the last SP, we still have made fewer fixes than were included with either SP5 or SP6.

"We discussed with a number of our customers their use of recent service packs, and their requirements for an additional service pack. From these discussions we learned that most customers are running a combination of Service Pack 5 and Service Pack 6; in some cases with 3-5 additional hotfixes. These customers told us that these service packs, particularly Service Pack 6a, have been very stable.

"There were three reasons we heard that customers were anticipating Service Pack 7: An easy mechanism for deploying the security fixes Microsoft has publicly released since SP6a. Availability of the Windows NT 4.0 Active Directory client, originally planned to be part of SP7 - now available for download at
http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/news/bulletins/adextension.asp
High Encryption for International versions of Windows NT which is now available through Internet Explorer and downloadable at:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/

"Based on discussions with our customers, we have come to the conclusion that Service Pack 7 is not needed, but that an easy way to deploy our publicly released security fixes would be appreciated by many of our customers. It is clear to us that our customers would rather have a smaller, lightweight, easily deployable way to secure their systems, rather than potentially disrupt their stable environments with another large service pack. Microsoft is therefore planning to release a comprehensive rollup of all Windows NT 4.0 security vulnerabilities as a single package in Q3 2001.

"Microsoft recognizes that some companies have been planning on a new service pack, especially since Microsoft had previously given indications that Service Pack 7 would be released. For customers who were planning on deploying Service Pack 7, we now encourage them to focus on completing rollouts of Service Pack 6a, in combination with the planned security pack. Microsoft will provide detailed instructions for deploying Service Pack 6a with the security pack.

"While Microsoft will not offer any further service packs for NT 4.0, we are committed to providing regular service packs for the currently released operating system, Windows 2000. Service Pack 2 for Windows 2000 will be released in the near future. As new versions of Microsoft operating systems are released, Microsoft will continue to evaluate the need for service packs based on our customer's requirements and feedback, and the stability of the operating system."