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Service Pack 6 or 6a?

Both SP6 and SP6a for NT came out quickly, seemingly one right after the other. Many admins aren't sure about how the two service packs differ and whether they both need to be applied. If for some reason you aren't entirely sure which service pack is currently installed, there's an easy way to find out. Simply open up a run command and type winver.

If the About Windows NT box reads as follows, the system is running SP6:

      Microsoft (R) Windows NT (R)
      Version 4.0 (Build 1381: Service Pack 6)
      Copyright (C) 1981-1996 Microsoft Corp

If SP6a is installed, the above information will be followed by this line:

      Revised Service Pack 6a

Now that you know which service pack is actually installed on your system, you may be wondering how SP6a differs from SP6. One difference is that Service Pack 6a includes an update to correct an SP6 problem with Lotus Notes and other Winsock-based applications. This problem prevents connecting to the server when the current user is not logged in with administrator rights. Also, for Y2K-compliance issues, SP6a has an update to the IIS 3.0 log converter utility, Convlog.

It's important to note that SP6a includes all of the updates contained in SP6. The list of SP6 fixes is in Microsoft Knowledge Base articles Q241211 and Q244690.

If you have SP6 installed, you don't need to download all of SP6a. For more information, including links to the hotfix, click here.