Windows 2000 - Nine Months to Live

HeUnique writes "According the this story at The Register, Microsoft is planning to retire Windows 2000 as far as OEMs concerned. MS has asked OEMs to stop immediately the shipment dual-boot systems running Win2k/WinXP, so your choice now is either to upgrade to XP or else." Only if you're ordering systems running Microsoft Windows, though.

Comments

Windows fragmentation?

[RenQuanta]

Here where I work, we've still not completed the rollover from NT to 2000, and I have yet to see a single XP system installed, even in a development lab. Even in the UNIX world, we're just now getting rid of the last of our Solaris 2.6 (*perhaps* by the end of the calendar year...)

Does anyone else see massive fragmentation of Windows like this, just due to the extreme upgrade lag of production shops? If it is widely spread, what do people think this mean for Windows in the corporate world?

In addition, is this just a product being retired, or is this a move by Microsoft to start boostrapping Palladium?

Re:Windows fragmentation?

[platypus]

One critical problem with mandatory upgrades is that Microsoft will be imposing risk on its customers.

Indeed. And there's another point to that.
I'm sure MS would *love* to get to a rental scheme. But, and this is a very big but, where I come from, and I assume it's that way in most contries, rental is a completely different form of contract than buying a license.

From the law of my country it's quite clear that under a rental scheme, MS would be in big trouble, because they had to guarantee the functionality of the item in question. Just like you could cut on your rental fee of your appartment if e.g. the heating is out of order, the same could happen to microsoft.
Also, IIRC, warranty issues would arise when a virus hits or stuff.
Oh, and it's _not_ up to MS to decide when a contract constitutes rental, so they may well get into that situation just because a judge looks at their license and decides it is rental. Take for instance mandatory upgrades (really mandatory, not just upgrades driven by discounts).

Server vs. Professional

[gripdamage]

Since M$ doesn't even have a replacement server product one can assume this is either false, or the reporter is talking about Windows 2000 Pro only (not Server) and failed to get his facts straight.

Disturbing

[MrBlack]

As a Microsoft developer I find this very disturbing. I think Windows 2000 is a very capable operating system for desktop use and small servers. My brief experiences with XP are that it is a little flakey(er?) than 2K, and all that WPA-invasion-of-privacy Gestapo crap makes me feel sick in the pit of my stomach. I use both Win2K and Linux at home (primarily Win2K) but I can see the day where the devide between my "home" computing life and my "work" computing life (which is all M$) will become like night and day. What about Win2K server? .NET server hasn't even hit the shelves yet AFAIK (or if it has it is still VERY new and unproved). Time to learn Java.

What can we do?

[oyenstikker]

It used to be, when my [non-geek] friends asked me what kind of computer to buy, I told them to play around with Windows 95/98/2k and MacOS, and go with whatever they feel more comfortable with. (Yeah, I know this post will get modded down because I don't push *n?x, but they wouldn't be able to or want to use it.) If the only Microsoft option is Windows XP I'll just tell them to go buy and iMac or iBook. Microsoft isn't going to change its practices unless people STOP BUYING THEIR PRODUCTS.

Re:You're all looking at this the wrong way.

[mccalli]

Migrating off Windows 2000 workstation should be something you're already doing

Why?

The company I'm contracting for at the moment is a large multinational financial organisation. It uses NT4, with a smattering of W2K.

Why should they dump NT4? It does everything their typical users need. W2K is being used on some desktops and servers due to the deployment of .Net apps, and eventually a full firmwide W2K rollout will take place. But W2K. Not the untried, untested XP.

I use XP Pro my machines at home. It has features that I want - faster boot times (useful on the laptop), user switching and remote desktop built in. So for me it's useful. None of those features are required on a corporate desktop. NT4 will run Excel, Powerpoint and Word (in that order of priority for most people) quite well enough. The rest of the apps are usually either custom or web-based anyway.

Why upgrade? Why force users to learn a new desktop for no extra benefit? Why junk perfectly good hardware to get more powerful stuff just to run XP? What, in short, is the point?

All the above is practical of course. I know the actual point, that MS doesn't want you to do it and so won't support or license it. However, this 'do as I say or else' attitude is just ludicrous. There's a huge installed base of NT4 in the corporate world, a tiny installed base of W2K and absolutely zero base of XP. MS should support its paying customers.

Cheers,
Ian

Spooky prediction

[Rogerborg]

1. Dozens of posts saying "This will be the straw that finally makes Linux on the desktop a reality!"
2. Angry anecdotes from a few IT guys saying that they are pushing their employers to consider ditching Microsoft.
3. In the real world, the guys who actually make the decisions are suffering from fear, incompetence, laziness, tardiness or just good old fashioned inertia.
4. Absolutely nothing changes other than that Microsoft gets a tighter choke hold on their customers.

Seriously. Anyone still buying Microsoft today is doing so because they have to, because they're counting down the years until retirement and don't want to take a risk (nobody ever got sacked for buying Microsoft), or because they really are just too dumb to see that if they don't bail out before Palladium arrives, they'll never get out. I pity those people, but I don't expect any of them to suffer an attack of clue in the near future.

Re:windows XP in my company

[A_Non_Moose]

Anyone else taking care of a network of more than a couple dozen PCs does think like me?

Bingo.

I run a GIS lab, and quite frankly most of the apps are geared for NT and are just now being moved to Win2k.

Yeah, they say it *should* work (esri?) but don't gurantee it. You see there is something about GIS that requires you be able to run for days and in some cases bend to the OS of choice to gurantee stability. Strangly enuf, moved from Solaris to NT before I got here and now *thinking* about 2000.

See, the point is: Microsoft is killing off its own profit (potential/actual/otherwise) because most of us Sys Admin types are just now warming to the use of 2000. ( I know I am just now getting there )

I offer myself and another admin as an example:
I've got a few dozen boxes to maintain and the other admin (with a pfy) has 2 labs with a few more than me.

Ok, I'm testing, re-creating a SAMBA PDC before I even touch my server and anything beyond 2 trial boxes (NT to 2k migration).
Issues: Need to upgrade SAMBA (a given) or just perform a couple of manual steps (for each account, ugh) to get win2k to connect to my PDC.
Upgrade goes smoothly, everyone is happy...if something bombs out or goes wrong, I have 2 "outs" at the least.

The other admin went from 98 to XP directly...migrated over the weekend, ran into massive compatability issue, network issue, viral infection issues (new or existing is not clear... prolly both from the users POV) main file server crashed to boot (or not to boot, in this case) and guess what? No backup, naturally.

Instead of rolling back to "the way it was", well, he pressed on and is still having problems.
I wonder why.

I'd asked his co-hort/pfy if they'd considerd moving back until things could be tested further.

Nope.

GAH....

I'd never thought I'd repeat/rephrase this from the military (related to drugs/XP), but;
Not on My Machines,
Not on My Network,
Not on MY WATCH!

.