You need an actual PS/2 keyboard. NT 3.1 does not support USB input. The best ISO for real hardware is one you burn to a CD-R at slow speed (4x), and you must create physical floppy disks using WinImage.
This is the minefield. Search engines show many shady "retro software" sites that bundle toolbars or cryptominers with ISO downloads. Here are the three safest sources: windows nt 31 iso best
| Feature | Description | |---------|-------------| | Original NT 3.1 build | Based on final RTM (October 1993) – no modded UI or tampered files | | Bootable ISO | Supports CD-ROM boot for both real hardware and virtual machines | | Multiple disk set included | 3.5″ 1.44MB floppy images inside ISO (if needed for install) | | Pre-integrated drivers | AMD PCNet, Intel e1000 (VMware/VirtualBox), IDE, standard VGA | | File system support | FAT16, HPFS (read-only in NT 3.1), no NTFS yet (NTFS came in NT 3.51) | | Service pack included | Option to include SP3 for NT 3.1 (latest available) | | Hotfixes & updates | Y2K fix, large disk support, FAT32 awareness (unofficial) | You need an actual PS/2 keyboard
| Emulator / Hardware | Works with good ISO? | Notes |
|---------------------|----------------------|-------|
| 86Box / PCem | ✅ Best | Emulates Intel 486 or Pentium – perfect for NT 3.1 |
| VirtualBox | ⚠️ Tricky | Needs IDE controller, disable ACPI, set chipset to PIIX3 |
| VMware Workstation | ✅ Good | Use "Other" → "NT 4.0" profile, then reduce RAM to 64MB |
| QEMU | ✅ Good | qemu-system-i386 -m 64 -hda nt31.img -cdrom nt31.iso -soundhw sb16 |
| Real hardware | ✅ Only if | 486 or early Pentium with < 512MB RAM, IDE or SCSI CD-ROM | | Emulator / Hardware | Works with good ISO