>They may work but NT does not allow direct access to the ports.

yes and no!!!! It depends on wether you are using Workstation or Server. =
It is definitely harder to talk directly to the hardware in Server than =
it is in Workstation. This caused me some hassle when trying to use a =
DOS based serial interface program that operated in a polled =
environment. The program worked satisfactorily on Workstation, but when =
the machine was converted to Server, with no hardware changes, the extra =
software handling inside NT Server caused no end of hassle with timeouts =
on the polled environment. We came to the conclusion that the hardware =
was more available under Workstation, possibly so Fax programs and the =
like could use Workstation as their server without incurring too much =
processing overhead.

You may well find that Workstation is not as secure as you think it is. =
I have had a minute play with using a Picstart Plus on NT Workstation =
without any problems using MPLAB 4.

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