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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.
MS has asked OEMs to stop immediately the shipment dual-boot systems running Win2k/WinXP
--What you say?
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?
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.
No way I'm going to run XP within my company. It's an OS that I don't trust, and haven't had the chance to learn well (and don't want to).
So either I'm going to buy a couple dozen licenses of win2k soon,
OR
I'm going to use the existing licenses and don't care at all about licensing (call it non-violent resistance, whatever)
OR
I'm going to start spreading linux on desktop OSes.
Plus, I don't want to upgrade to the Software Assurance thing, 'cause it's going to cost much more and it's not worthed (office 2000 is WAY better than office XP, and I don't want to upgrade - same for win2k/winXP) if you don't want to upgrade.
In any way, Microsoft will lose one of its customers. And I think I won't be the only one.
Anyone else taking care of a network of more than a couple dozen PCs does think like me?
-- There are two kind of sysadmins: Paranoids and Losers. (adapted from D. Bach)
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.
We get a lot of compaq desktops where I work with a "dual boot" on startup, but its not a dual boot in the same way that a linux/win2k dual boot syustem works. What happens is that you choose which OS you want to run the first time you start the computer, and the system then deletes the other one. The computer comes with a license for XP that can be downgraded to use with 2000, but not licenses for both. I believe some other OEMS do a similar dual boot, which seems to be what this is referring to. Disallowing this practice would mean that the consumer would be forced to load 2k themselves, rather then having it come preconfigured.
- Or else they're going to give you some cement overshoes?
And ofcourse the winning answer:Or else they'll kill this puppy?
Or else the penguin on your tv will explode?
Or else you'll switch to Linux?
Don't read this!
Windows 2000 has been given nine months to live, as far as OEMs are concerned, and Microsoft is pressuring the PC companies to stop offering dual install Win2k/WinXP systems immediately.
.NET Server is at beta 3.
There are 2 statements there: he says they are stopping OEM shipments altogether in 9 months, and pressuring PC companies to stop shipping dual-boot systems right now.
So hot to spit your comment out that you didn't read the article?
2k is still by far the superior 'service running' machine... and it's not going anywhere anytime soon...
Especially since they don't even have any other OS for server-use yet. But
Thank you for your interest in Windows Update
Windows Update is the online extension of Windows that helps you get the most out of your computer.
The latest version of Windows Update is only available on computers that are running Microsoft Windows 2000 or Windows XP.
I'm running Win98 and IE6 at work (web dev for clients that mainly use IE).
Where I work, we are still on NT4 and (thankfully) Office97 so there is no WPA in the system yet.
The thing is, even if I went to my supervisor (which I already have) about such issues, the highest brass don't want advice even from their more technically oriented underlings. They just don't care or know enough to realise that they are getting hosed.
Only in 5 years they will feel the noose tightening around their neck and by that point, it will be VERY hard to switch to other platforms, even though I expect that Linux will be very advanced by that time in comparison to today.
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.
The masses are the crack whores of religion.
This has very little to do with the death of w2k.
This has everything to do with MS's scheduled death of Win2k. They've realized that it is a great operating system and could likely support most businesses for the next decade or even more. What happens when everyone on the planet gets a Win2k license? No more money for Microsoft.
With WinXP, they've got this shifty licensing program that will likely confuse consumers into purchasing multiple copies when they don't need to. Steady revenue for Microsoft.
The gov't needs to intervene here - MS had better not drop support for the OS as long as it is viable, damnit. We bought it so we will use it for as long as we need to. We *had to* upgrade from Win95 when they played that card (they offered to support it but each incident was going to be $150k up front).
Life is the leading cause of death in America.
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
They are not dropping support nor are they saying that support is being axed, as they have said for NT4/95. They are simply saying 9 months from now OEMs will have to ship XP and only XP. They are not forcing companies to migrate their infrastructure, they probably aren't even stopping the retail versions of XP. They are simply saying the OEM pricing of 2000 will go away. No biggie, and in this particular case their monopolistic crap is little more than a red herring. This is like any other company discontinuing production of a product, except their monopoly forces many more people to be impacted by such a decision. Even if there was a level playing ground, this would still happen.
This is objectional because XP is too intrusive and the licensing is going over the line versus 2k, and while we may lament the passing of 2k, it also is a MS product, not competition being driven out. Personally, I think wine is approaching being a valid solution for running most windows applications now when necessary, and running windows applications is becoming less and less necessary (except for games) as other viable options appear. For office applications, there is openoffice and koffice, multimedia playback and encoding has at least caught up with Windows, if not passed it (though authoring still has a way to go). For CAD apps ProE is on the way, for 3D rendering there is blender (if the engine goes open source, interfaces may be made that cater to users of other applications). Everything for getting work done is coming in one form or another.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
And yet another "UNIX killer" falls off the end of the upgrade treadmill.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
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.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Ok People I have a couple of comments and something to think about:
1. What about 3rd party applications? I work for an integrator that does IP telephony and traditional phone systems as well as networks.
We have not even been able to transition to Win2K from 98SE for our field techs because many of the 3rd party maintenance packages only run under 98. Add to that new "web interfaces" for IP based products that only run under IE 5.01 with a specific version of the JVM. Not to mention the legacy products we support that require DOS based maintenance access programs!
2. The main issue that many of the people posting here are missing is MONEY. I work on the pre-sales side of my firm and the number one issue with deploying ANY new technology into any client is always money. I have had $100,000 plus deals fall apart because they required a couple of $3000.00 routers to be added to the client's ageing network infrastructure.
So when people start talking about how the costs of upgrading to XP from the software side, and how we should all be on proper "product lifecycles" and such, I have one question, do you realize the state most businesses are in right now? Many of my clients are canceling all IT upgrades and initaves for the remainder of the year.
Comment #2
Now I may be trolled out for this one, but I due to the reasons above the IT guys in my firm can't move to Linux on the desktop even if we wanted to. Why? Legacy 3rd party applications, tools supplied by vendors built on Microsoft technology.
Ok so even if I got all the issues with ease-of-use, support, document compatibility and user training. I still can't move to linux because we have major line-of-business applications that only run on windows. For example, our accounting package (>$100000 invested in the last 3 years, so don't even talk about scraping it), our customer service ACD monitoring package ( a whole market that has next to no presence on Linux) and our remote monitoring and alarming system for client sites. All run on windows back-ends and have only windows clients. Even the newer ACD package which can be setup totally web based requires IE. So we're stuck.
What I (and I am sure many others also) need to move to Linux is an inexspensive and 100% compatible Windows API Layer for Linux, then I could slowly move my clients to Linux.
Now don't get me wrong, I am using Linux as our web proxy, I use sendmail for our marketing newsletter mail-outs. I am going to place an e-smith server in front of our exchange servers for the virus scanning service offered and to help filter SPAM. (Plus I can toss Mcafee and ITS high fees) I am even looking to replace our old Access97 based service database with a Linux/Apache/PHP/MySQL based web app. And THAT one is solely to avoid having to upgrade my Access licences.
So I put it back to the community of Slashdotters, how can one cut the ties to windows, when so much of thier business processes are tied to it and with shrinking IT bugets?
Obi-Wan
According to the Microsoft MCSE FAQ, they are planning to retire the MCSE 2000 concurrently with the retirement of MSCE XP/.NET and not before.
This makes sense because they haven't even gotten some of their own study materials out for MCSA 2000 until recently, let alone MCSA/MCSE XP/.NET exams are still being introduced. God I hope so, I've just started investing into a MCSA cert (which I hope to have this month) that I plan to upgrade to a full MCSE within a month after that.
But you never know when a vendor moves to "push product." And that's the #1 motivation behind for-profit vendor certifications.
-- Bryan "TheBS" Smith
Independent Author, Consultant and Trainer
I'd like to agree with Ian on this one, both on the blindingly cynical real reason for the upgrade (more beans for Microsoft), and on the even more compelling user-centric counter view to this.
The only thing I'd like to add in this favour is that any competent organisation ought to be able to fight this push to upgrade with a really simple economic argument: Software solutions tend to get sold on a Return-On-Investment basis - If I buy an MS-Office based environment, my ROI over a period of time is given by:
(increased productivity measured using appropriate methods) - (cost of software AND cost of hardware AND cost of supporting solution)
(naturally, estimating the increase in productivity is where a lot of companies fall down, but you'd be amazed how many can't even estimate the second term in the above equation either)
My point here, though, is dead simple: theres an implicit time term in the above equation such that the costs are amortized over a period of time. Modulo normal accounting depreciation etc, this implies that an organisation gets better ROI if they can keep the same solution for as long as possible. This directly conflicts with MSFT's desire to force regular upgrades (which increases the costs element of the solution whilst only marginally - if at all - increasing the productivity improvement size).
As a good little corporate drone, it astounds me that more organisations haven't caught on to this and had a feedback effect on the IT industry as a whole - large corporate entities, especially financial institutions, should be cautious as all get-out when it comes to adopting new technologies or solutions. And yet we all blindly tread on the Shiny Thing treadmill, haemorraging money in a continual game of replacement and upgrade, fix and debug, for little gain.
Bah. We should have stayed on those green-screen thingies with nice reliable mainframes behind them
This has been an Old Phart Rant Courtesy of the letters M,S,F and T, and the day Monday
--
I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy
mine it's more than "I don't like it and don't even want to try it". I had enough bad times trying to make all our win2k work together and I was lucky because I didn't have to tweak EVERY SINGLE installation of win2k I did. ...like regular win2k boxen. So why bother? win2k is more than enough.
.xls spreadsheet. Works perfectly in office2000. Doesn't work AT ALL in office XP. Office XP is not fully compatible with office 2000.
:)
I know that I can manage something by using active directory to tweak at a registry-level every machine that logs into the domain, BUT
- doing that requires a lot of time to plan, try, test and develop the tweaking
- after the tweaking, basically all the xp machines will
1. look
2. be more ore less
PLUS: office XP is REALLY bad. I mean, we have an application (SAP) that is CERTIFIED to give back some results as an
So why bother, again? I'm more than happy with win2k. I don't have time, resource AND enough interest to TRY to LEARN windows XP, not even for myself. I've had enough of that crap, and I realized that if I had spent that same much time that I've wasted on microsoft product on Linux instead, we all in our company would have linux desktops with openoffice working smoothly. And I wouldn't be writing those angry slashdot posts
-- There are two kind of sysadmins: Paranoids and Losers. (adapted from D. Bach)
Ok I've got karma to burn...
Bullshit... NT4.0 and Office 97 can carry any business today and for the next 5-10 years. You dont need office 2000 or XP to make money, or make more money, or any of the other lies MCSE's and Microsoft shovel's down everyone's throats.
Dont get me wrong, I HATE NT4.0, it is the bane of my existance (Although I still support a fleet of NT3.5 servers...I have to as the pripetary(SP) software/hardware WILL NOT RUN ON 4.0 or higher) and I do love all my 2000 desktops compared to the NT4 destops I used to have here.
Microsoft started Dying back in 1997.. they have yet to release anything that is needed by businesses cince then... and you can run a very sucessful business with all 1997 software/hardware without suffering from any ill effects if your sysadmins and netadmins + IT/IS staff are competent (read as NON MCSE's)
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.