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Microsoft Pulls Plug for Support on NT4
seymansey writes "According to Neowin.net and News.com, Microsoft has apparently announced that as of the end of June, support for the now aging NT4 OS will be pulled. NT4 Server users have until the end of 2004 for support. Windows 98 users will be the next on the list for axed support too. Of course, Microsoft will still provide its knowledge base, but we wont see any more patches, etc. developed for the OS. After 7 years, it's kind of sad to see NT4 go."
they're going to pull the plug! Damn!
Arf!
I still have to use NT 4 at work. It sucks to have to sync my Palm Pilot with a serial cradle! Yay 1987!
Curb CO2 emissions: Kill yourself today!
no wonder there's been such a madhouse rush to move to 2000/xp here at DoS.
nt is dead, rot in hell you log of..
Are you MORE than your SPINAL COLUMN?
Once a product ceases to be supported, does "migration" to a newer product from it become unsupported?
And now Microsoft will turn it to Open Software so volunteers can start an own fork of it and continue deveploving it. .. and will win eurovision song contest and soccer world championship. And SCO will be popular again.
OR, then not.
It is kind of sad to see Linux kernel series 1.99 go.
Yesterday and today, the Slashdot front page has been fairly apologetic and sympathetic to Microsoft's cause. What, are we now suddenly an outlet for Windows updates and lamentations over sunset Microsoft operating systems?
A full description of Microsoft's end-of-support, end-of-life policies, including dates for *all* it's OSes, can be found here.
--LP
...where I work. Why upgrade a server if it still works? Put 2000 and XP on the workstations, sure, but why replace an already-functional server? As long as it keeps serving files, right?
:-/
Now there will be companies like ours scrambling to get 2000 Server or 2K3 server on their servers by the end of next year. And we won't have a choice. Upgrade or lose support. What do you do? You upgrade.
My journal has hot
Poor Joe has never ever received any support from Microsoft for any of his licensed, legal Windows or Office software. How does this affect him?
Factually speaking, NT4 was the last stable, fast and useful (as in drivers, functionality etc.) OS from MS, that offered a semblance of security.
Anyways, what this means is we have to support Windows ourselves - any difference? I'm more conerned that Citrix stopped support for NT in Metaframe XP - those idiots! For no obvious technical reasons...
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
Although NT was considered by some to be a stable server platform, there were undoubtedly some nasty rough edges to it - for one thing its hardware support was appalling. Plug and play anyone? Ummm no, don't think so. It also was, on virtually any hardware, one of *the* slowest operating systems I've had the misfortune to use.
:)
2K improved on hardware support a lot, and the performance issue a little and XP is finally 'there' on both fronts.
Yay for Microsoft
Not.
Factually speaking, NT4 was the last stable, fast and useful (as in drivers, functionality etc.) OS from MS, that offered a semblance of security.
Maybe you meant to say it this way:
Factually speaking, NT4 was the first stable, fast and useful (as in drivers, functionality etc.) OS from MS, that offered a semblance of security.
With the frequency of its new releases and subsequent drops of support, it almost seems as if microsoft should stop pretending to provide support over the lifetime ofr a product, and just refers to a set period of time until the version "expires" from the beginning.
I dropped support for Microsoft too.
BSD is designed. Linux is grown. C++ libs
My corporate laptop is loaded with NT - and my desktop support won't upgrade the service pack - so no USB ports are useable on my machine...
If they would only let me load a real OS, like Slackware, then maybe I could get some real work done, instead of trying to get around the limitations of my box..
Lodragan Draoidh
The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. - Mark Twain
Wasn't NT4 the last version of Windows to be available on platforms other than x86? I know I have a CD-ROM containing it around here somewhere.
I think it was available on PPC and Alpha and maybe a couple of other architectures.
I've never seen Windows on anything other than an x86 - is there anyone out there who's seen it on the other platforms it was available for?
(Also, good-riddance. No USB support. Ughh.)
Huh? There is a secure version of NT4 out there? Where did you get that one?
Microsoft's stated policy wrt software support is End of Support after 5 yrs and End of Life after 7yrs.
That's funny, there hasn't been a patch for NT4 in a very long time. What support is it that they're not going to be providing anymore.
I really meant Last. Win2K had more drivers etc, but was slower and broke other code. WinXP was worse than Win2K on both these counts, and introduced more useless baloons as well.
Joe ServicePack has no use for Active Directory, Management Consoles, Bastardized Kerberos, etc.. NT4 security was enough for him.
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
I'm sick of this ancienet crappy excuse for an OS, and it's issues.. it's time to look past the 90's with the lamo netbios, WINS, et'all.. it's time to FINALLY start using Active Directory, and GPO's!!!!
Give it up people!, NT40 has to end like now!!!!
NT40 should go the way of OS/2 and Linux 1.3!!!! (VMS and SCO)
The big question is this, which happens faster? Wine can support any app for a given MS OS, or MS declares the OS so obsolete and unused that nobody uses it?
--LP, who drank his first Wine about a decade ago
I think it should have gone a LONG time ago, NT4 was tricky as a desktop OS because DirectX was pretty much nonexistant. I think once Win2K (and the first two or three SPs)came about, NT was a goner. The sad thing really is what came to replace NT and the like for the future-> XP, longthorn, etc.
NT (4.0) wasn't that revolutionary, anyhow. kernel is about on par with 3.5, and the OS itself didn't become really stable until SP5 or so (SP4 caused crap (read: exchange) to crap out, IIRC), and by that time 2K was just right around the corner.
I will be sad when 2K goes. in my opinion that's so far the best OS microsoft made. (XP drops low on the list b/c the nasty theme and horrible amounts of crap-service that comes pre-enabled, which (especially sys-restore) slowed your computer to a crawl and more).
My life in the land of the rising sun.
I presume if you run this through multiple translations at babelfish, you can get the hidden meaning:
Microsoft needs more of you to upgrade to NT to pay its executive salary bonuses, and memory manufacturers are fervently hoping for the same upgrade to NT with the memory upgrades that go hand-in-hand with the move.
If Microsoft wanted progress, it wouldn't redline Windows 95 next, it would redline Windows ME, which was at best the worst of both (win9x) worlds (nt) with the advantages of neither.
Good to see you're still in action.
Bad economy and Microsoft selling their OS for as expensive as ever? When the support runs out, that's going to be the straw that breaks the camels back, and I'd bet your boss will ask "are there any alternatives" to which you can grow horns and reply "why yes, sir" and show him/her your linux desktop or introduce them to one, using x-windows and staroffice (essentially looking exactly like winxp, accept staroffice is different).
Budgets are tight, and MS is expensive, and I doubt they'll be offering their OS for free to small and medium sized buisnesses. And we all know and have always known that's where MS going byby will start. When the bosses of bigger buisnesses learn from their friends of a medium buisness that they can use linux, they'll bother their IT Staff for a feasability assessment, and try to earn some brownie points for implementing it...
Candy-Coated Knowledge
totally agree..
why is it sad to see it go ?
I wont miss it.
Viva La Linux Baby.
...After 7 years, it's kind of sad to see NT4 go.
After spending two years in MA phone support for NT on laptops I would have to say I am happy the damn thing is finally dead.
Installing NT on anything was time intensive, installing drivers had to go in a particular order or it turned that hardware into a doorstop:
imag0: "You mean to tell me you installed the video drivers before you installed card services and your ethernet drivers?"
Client, quivering after spending the past three hours reloading NT on a laptop: "Uh, yeah."
imag0: "Ok, pull out your boot diskettes again and see if we can repair install..."
A long running joke in laptop support was that NT meant "Not Today". And it was true. Repair installs didn't. Service Control Manager (SCM) was only there to throw cryptic, useless errors at users just long enough to generate support calls and let's not get into how hard Adobe Acrobat and SP4 clusterfucked in some Trident configurations.
Glad it's dead. No love lost here. Burn your cd's and feel happy its gone the way of win 3.11 and MS Bob.
Many people will argue Microsoft has every right to stop patching old operating systems. After all, we don't see security patches for older open source software, right?
While that's true, there's a big difference between using open source software versus Microsoft products when upgrading. Now all of these sites that use Windows NT will be forced to shell out money to get a supported version of Windows (there many not be too many, but they're out there). Hundreds if not thousands of dollars will have to be spent to get the latest server operating system from Microsoft for each instance of NT4.
This tactic is a subtle and effective way to syphon more money from unsuspecting Windows shops. Of course, if you're on NT4, it'd probably be easiest to migrate to an open source server solution...
Why bother.
Slashdot has been assimilated by MS. They all runing now MS. A sad thing in history of the internet world.
They only talk good about Bill Gates and windows while bashing RMS and GNU/Linux.
Slashdot made even a nice icon for Windows promo.
Well, dont feel too bad about losing official Microsoft support for Windows NT, at least we have the fun of trying out ReactOS ...
I look forward to those guys coming up with a workable Windows NT clone one of these days.
The sad thing, however, it that in the future, you will be forced to migrate, as your license will be temporarilly.
When you are wise, you stick with NT4 as long as possible (very good with Office 97 for an administrative environment) and leapfrog to the version after Server 2003 or perhaps a later version. This is definitely the cheapest option.
It's about time that temporal licences will be prohibited by the courts. IP protection for software is good, whether it's a GPL or M$ license (and in some cases even patents, but with reason and a good system, but that's a little off-topic). However, when it is used to force people to expensive investments time and time again, allthough a company does not need it (e.g. my comment above and my 500kHz AMD K6 works perfectly well for word processing), it's appalling and should be targetted for an investigation. Unfortunately, we all will know how this will end.
Good point. Here's a better lifecycle link at Microsoft, which includes it's Windows server products and a bunch of other server products. For Office and other MS products, you can try this link.
;-)
--LP, who is 'journal whoring', not karma whoring thank you very much
Funny, I dont think any of my NT4 critical systems are going to go anywhere.
as far as support no longer available, Big deal. I can get 3rd party support.
My NT4 servers are going no-where... they all server me very well with 99.9% Uptime and each decoding 24 different MPEG2 DVD quality video streams at once on a Pentium 166.
Until the vendor writes Windows 2000 drivers for these very high end MPEG cards, NT4 is the de-facto standard in cable tv headends for many more years.
sorry, but this is a non-issue for most of us... it doens make the OS magically dissappear.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
If it comes down to an issue of support... and a server is doing little more than serving files...
I wonder how many will now look to re-use their existing hardware and opt for linux...
Rather than upgrade their hardware too, to make the Windows 2003 Server HCL.
>as far as support no longer available, Big deal. I can get 3rd party support
They're referring to patches and hotfixes you retard.
After the best part of a decade, Microsoft are rightly pulling the plug and ceasing to support NT4. Why is that? Well, for starters, how about the impracticality of supporting products that are no longer providing a stable source of revenue. NT4 in the marketplace 'died' when Windows 2000 was at RTM (Release to manufacture; i.e. Given out in preinstaller format to OEMs, start putting it in boxes for sale at stores etc). It's got a somewhat decrepit feature set, with most of it's key technologies (Including IIS, the security model, the domain management structure) being upsurped by greatly enhanced ones.
;)
Now, everyone who's slagging off the moving is citing NT4 as stable, or at least making implications. If NT4 is stable, then lets just let it be. If any new worms crop up, well, tough, buying one operating system in the seven years that the technology sector has seen it's biggest expansion is a pretty silly choice to make. I'm sure there's new worms out for Windows 3.1 out there somewhere, but I've honestly not seen a serious complaint about it for a while.
Perhaps it might not have occured to you that if Microsoft kept pouring it's talented folks down the well in that fashion then it would be detracting from the current crop of products, although given Windows 2K3's relative impunity (A handful of fairly immaterial bugs have arisen in the many months since it's release) it's probably not as big a point as it once was.
In short, if you want to drive a Model T Ford, don't complain when the manufacturer won't sell you parts, provide you with fuel or the blueprints to troubleshoot things yourself. The upshot is that you can buy a more modern care that's got a place in showrooms today, or you can consult independant specialists who will cater to the archane vehicles as long as you pay the dues.
If I bought an application from a third party and was told it would be supported for 10 years, I would make damn sure the contract included things like what happens when MS stops supporting the OS. It's perfectly fine to use windows, unix or what ever you want, but the decisions need to made by people who think clearly. Not some dork who is the CTO because he went to school with the CEO, but is totally unqualified. Most IT managers suck. Change that, most managers suck period! Very few people are great at managing and many barely have the skills to get the job done. The same is true of programmers and every other profession out there.
As a desktop OS for l33t g4m3r kiddies maybe :) However, I think you'll find a lot of NT4 workstation installs in business and academia (my area). You don't need directx to run excel or draw graphs. Upgrading from NT4 to XP is a big unnecessary cost for organisations and a big compatability problem in the interim; incompatability of roving profiles etc.
...does that mean we can stop paying to use it? If I want to add an NT server or a fww NT workstations to my network do I have to buy a 2000 license to use it? I think if Microsoft doesn't have to spend any more money on it, than neither should I.
Not my current job, my previous one. We made analysis tools.
Our own hardware, our own stream input cards - and our own software... all, you guessed it, running on top of NT.
These systems were somewhat fragile. We had to use certain brands of CDROM writers, because other brands tended to tie up too much processor time and break our streaming.
Under no circumstances did we want to move to 2k, let alone XP.
Not to mention that we would have had to re-write our device drivers. Which we did not do.
I know this is old news, we all knew it was going to happen - but I can't help wondering how many companies stuck their heads in the sand and ignored it?
MS Page for Product Life Cycle
Woopty Doo Basil, what does it all mean?!
I know a lot of people are nostalgic for the "old days" when NT4 was brand new, and was the best option in the market... as long as you wanted to pay premium dollar for Microsoft's products... but seriously, who cares about it anymore?
NT4 came out 7 years ago... and 6 service packs later, they almost have it working. There are still so many bugs with it, I can't keep track. It's a nightmare to maintain, and nothing is kept in a logical place. Even the log-in key-press sequence (ctrl-alt-del) is anti-intuitive. The graphics are horrible and bland. The hardware support is pathetic, even for its day. To my knowledge, you STILL can't access anything via USB on NT4. It's a system-resource hog (that's kind of given, since it IS Microsoft). Can ANYBODY tell me why they're still using it? The cost for maintaining it over 6 months is more than purchasing a new computer with Windows 2000/XP. What can NT4 possibly offer that Windows 2000/XP (or even Linux) can't? All the other options are easier to work with and/or cheaper.
I don't blame Microsoft at all for getting rid of it. I just wish they would have done it sooner... or even never come out with it in the first place. They could have just continued development on it until 1999 and come out with Windows 2000 and actually had a product that made it worthwhile to put on a server (in some people's opinions).
"It's better to have a gun and not need it than need a gun and not have it." ~ Christian Slater, True Romance
"What support is it that they're not going to be providing anymore?"
LipService!(TM). Beginning today, MS **will stop** saying that NT4 is affected by a worm or virus. They **will stop** using it in comparisons and benchmarks. They **will stop** Subscription (dis)Advantage programs for NT4 - you will have to pay $200 to get into WinXP Prof and then get the support.
All in all, MS **will stop** making quality software like good ol' NT4.
Warning: LipService will be avbl for versions above Win2K only!
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
Why can't they just wait to release a next OS untill the old one is perfect? They might even learn something from that.
Sad? I'm not sure I'm going to shed a tear for an operating system that has caused many headaches for sys admins across the world. There is, after all, a reason there were six service packs ;-) I think the sooner the world can purge servers of nt4 the better.
I'm not convinced this is a good thing. While I generally think MS got Win2K right (though not XP), several people in my office still explicitly request NT4 on new machines. One guy who works on my team is considering this now, after spending a week chasing a bug somewhere on his WinXP box that causes it to reset without warning when running some essential software. Sometimes, better the devil you know really is good advice.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
"but was slower and broke other code"
Ooohhhhhh...IT broke your code did it?
yeah...
right....
"NT4 security was enough for him."
Thank you for speaking for everyone Mr. "Whhaaaa, it broke my code"
Problem is, as I heard a M$ guy yesterday talking about Server 2003, is that 80% of security holes and problems happen in NT4 servers...
NT4 was a corperate desktop. Direct X is aimed at games at that time and games ARE NOT to be used on the job.... well at most jobs.
yes it handled multimedia quite well.. AVID relied on it as well as the other 90% of companies making video editing systems that wanted to support more than 1 processor. and to this day it is still relied on heavily for critical multimedia servers... your video on demand from your cable company runs it.
NT is corperate class software, the other windows junk of that time was consumer class.. that is the biggest difference.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
After umpteen times staying up all night trying to coax various NT Servers back to life, applying patches and praying and generally overall poor performance realtive to the platform upon which it ran, I am hardly sad to see NT4 go. To me, it is satisfying like watching Ahhh-nald kill off the bad-guy in a Terminator movie. "Hasta la vista, mother @#$%3er!
In reality, it is too late. It was with pleasure I watched NT4 go on my machines whilst under the spell of the Red Hat installer. I've caught up on my sleep now, and viruses? What viruses?
"home" should be "school" there.
(I mean, before I've got someone at my door asking about my licence for my home PC...)
"We can confirm that Debian does *not* ship the version with the trojan horse. Our version predates it." [CA-2002-28]
I'd like to know how the various OEMs, VARs, and ISPs handle this. I know of several companies that offer various types of maintenence contracts that also happen to cover NT4, since their product is based on that OS. Most companies that might be concerned about this probably bought a "Solution" from one of the big name companies, which included both hardware and software, so they may or many not be affected. The little guys, however, might have some trouble, especially if their servers are just white boxes that they built up themselves...
Michael C. Hollinger
Wow are you stupid...
there HASN'T been a patch or hotfix for NT4 for over 3 years!....and YES they are talking about support in end user as well as developer and integrator support from MS.
why dont you shut up sucktard....you obviousally know absolutely nothing about IS or IT or even computers in general, hell from what I can tell you are one of those morons her that try and sound like you know something but are constantly being bashed into -1 IDIOT moderation so you gave up on using a real account.
so go back to surfing AOL with your gateway computer that mommy bought you.
Still using NT 3.51 here so maybe it's a good thing I missed NT 4
Actually, there were at least 7 service packs.
Service pack 6 wasn't very good, so they added 6a.
Just about everything that I installed in the last 2 years required 6a- and wouldn't run under 6. I believe that SP6 was one of their early disasters.
No reason to lie.
How can Microsoft just reel in support for a product? There was no bloody support in the first place!
catch (HumourFailureException e) { e.user.send("You, sir, are a humourless idiot."); }
It is no suprise to most here that poor behavior from any supplier, be it Microsoft, Sun, SCO, IBM, Redhat, etc., is not desirable. It has nothing to do with Microsofts "cause", but a few AC's, being part of that majority which automatically takes for granted what is handed to them by the mainstream, continue to try to make topics that present alternative analyses and experiences look like monochrome religious causes.
NT was one of the first efforts by Microsoft to create a real operating system acknowledging that not all PCs are simple consumer devices and there was merit to something stronger like OS/2, which they had abandoned. Open source and standards would have made it even more interesting, but the world being what it was, it was clearly of great interest and a great step forward, perhaps greater (performing, more stable, and/or secure) than any later advance from Microsoft in terms of OS kernels.
You think that for a Microsoft environment it would be a better idea to use a non-Microsoft server? Would you also want to run a Linux environment off of a Windows domain controller instead of an OpenLDAP server on Linux?
This is just silly, first off, Samba can't act as an Active Dreictory domain controller. Well the AD is probably one of the best and coolest advances offered by 2000 server. It is better than an NT 4 domain for so many reasons. However almost equally important is the fact that Windows Server is the Microsoft solution. To me, saying that you should run a fully Windows environment and then use a Linux domain controller is like saying that you should run a fuly Cisco netowrk at teh access layer but use Foundry at the core. Why? Cisco makes a solution that does the job just as well or even better, and of course works very well with all the other Cisco equipment. Finally there is always support to consider. Your largest number of support people are most likely going to be Windows people. Even if they know Linux if they primarly use and work on Windows, their Windows skills will be the sharpest. Forcing them to work on a non-farmilar platform is asking for trouble.
This "Linux for everything" bigotry is just silly. Linux has many good uses and I certianly think it has a place in mixed environments, as well as being a strong contenter to be an exclusive environment by itself. However, if you have a Windows environment it is just silly to try and force Linux server in it (by this I mean as DCs/ file servers, as a seperate webserver it is a good choice).
You should always try to use the best tool for the job and the best tool for a Windows Domain Controller is, well, one of the Windows Server line. To shackle yourself to the old NT4 domain method and create additonal support hassles simply because "Linux roxorz!!!" is not a good idea.
Oh and please, let's not be silly about security. A competent Windows admin can keep Windows boxes secure (our DCs have never been hacked since I've worked at my current job) and a stupid admin can get a Linux box hacked.
"After 7 years, it's kind of sad to see NT4 go."
7 years ago, it was kind of sad to see NT4 coming.
Alex, I'll take keybindings not used by Emacs for $400....
Yea sad to see NT go as it is to see Strom Thurmond go... its not.
Well, maybe not..
Quite a number of NT4 installations are actually Linux/FreeBSD with Samba installations. I remembered a couple of years ago, there's a story of sys-admins who was finally had it with NT4 and their crash-prone habits, went ahead and install FreeBSD and Samba. The users didn't know the difference but they noticed that their "NT4" server was much more stable and responsive!
Apparently, one of 'em was discovered by the management. Instead of thanking him, they fired his ass! It was a big story at that time, as I recall...
Will sys-admin for food
Contrast that with Red Hat for example, who are yanking support for their 'personal' operating systems 12 months from the time of their release. It's kind of sobering to think that Red Hat 8.0, 7.3, 7.2, 7.1 are end of lifed in six months from now and 9.0 a mere four months after that.
While this might save Red Hat money in the short term I have to wonder what impact it will have on customer confidence. Even assuming you bought it on the very day of release at best you get twelve months maximum of bug fixes, which isn't very much especially if you were planning on deploying it. If some horrible exploit is discovered ten months from now you're screwed. You might appeal to the community to produce an updated patch, but you still forfeit any QA testing or automated RHN update that you would have gotten before.
But let's face it, only a small fraction of people would be aware of or bother to manually plug new exploits anyway. With time a burgeoning number of exploitable RH boxes will become a prime target for crackers. Too bad for them you say, but often those cracked boxes are used to launch attacks and are therefore a danger to everyone. Look at Microsoft's reputation concerning security of their operating systems and wonder if Red Hat's end of life policy will mean the same for them.
Hmm, you haven't actually used NT4 lately, have you? =)
Oh back in the day when your computer locked up once a week because the USB errors had maxxed outthe limit for error log size. All because MS wouldn't release a USB driver for NT even though motherboard manufacturers had been including them for years.
For awhile it looked like MS would do the samething with USB2 to force people to upgrade from Win2K to XP. But yesterday they released Win2K SP4 to include a USB2.0 driver.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
Keep up the good work with your high-quality hilarious flamebait :-)
Use ISO 8601 dates [YYYY-MM-DD]
I just read some sad news on Slashdot - administrators' favourite excuse Windows NT was found dead in its Redmond site this morning. There weren't any more details. I'm sure everyone in the Slashdot community will miss him - even if you didn't enjoy his work, there's no denying his contributions to headache culture. Truly a Microsoft icon.
(generated by this)
(Emphasis mine)
A subliminal typo mb mb?
Yeah, NT is not *nix. Yeah, NT isn't a lot of things. But I've worked with it since SP1, and, you know, once you get used to it, you can get a lot of productivity out of it. So much depends on drivers and, of course, program code. These days, NT lacks some refinement. So does Linux, for that matter. Nonetheless, after 6 1/2 service packs, NT delivered (and continues to deliver) a fair amount of bang for your hardware buck. In some ways, it is refreshing to use a product that is not weighed down with useless features. Our remaining NT servers, running on Compaq Proliant 1600 hardware, are fine producers. And contrary to myth, they do NOT have to be rebooted every day, every week, or even every month. This isn't a Microsoft ad - - I'm leading the charge away from MS products at my company. But I will give some credit where it's due.
It's only funny until someone gets hurt. Then, it's hilarious.
Now that my copy of NT is EOL I'm in a quandry about moving to XP.
Borrow from friend? Duplicate CD? Steal from work? The Microsoft upgrade policy is just too confusing. Perhaps somebody could do a Dukes of Hazzard tutorial for me.
After 7 years, it's kind of sad to see NT4 go.
Have you ever USED NT 4.0???
Oddly enough it was 7 years ago this month when Linux 2.0 was first released onto the world. And just as Windows NT has had two major releases since then (2000 and XP), so has Linux (2.2 and 2.4).
Coincidence? Has anyone *really* seen Linus and Gates at the same place at the same time???
(Unrelated: when looking this up, I noticed that the last 1.2 series kernel was released in mid-1995. Was stable kernel development really halted for a year while 1.3/2.0 was worked on? If so, I sure like the new model better!)
Wahey! So it's only 2003 (WinXP) and US has finally joined the free world.
And since 2000 (Win2K), black and white (heterosexual) couples are allowed to attend university together, and since 1997 (NT4.0) they are even allowed to get married in the USA (South Carolina).
This is amazing, USA has finally caught up to europe in the 1960s (OS/60). Maybe in a few more decades (Linux on desktop) they will stop executing their own people (or at least those that were minors at the time or mentally retarded). Who'd have thought this would happen under Dubya?
Once any software product ceases to be formally supported by its suppliers, it should be placed in the Public Domain by default.
.....
If Micro$oft want to waive their duty-of-care to support NT4 {or any other software product} any longer, then they should also rescind copyright on it, declare the EULA no longer binding on users and permit third parties to provide technical support.
After all, making a copy of NT4.0 will not deprive MS of the opportunity to sell anything if they weren't going to sell it anyway! Hmm. We need to contact our MPs
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
Windows 98 OEM isn't supported by Microsoft either. For some reason, 98 SE is. Go figure. I don't care if Microsoft officially offers patches or support for it but what REALLY pisses me off is when developers prevent applications from installing on Windows 98 OEM machines (we have a bunch of win98 oem machines at work which do the job fine) There is no good reason why they shouldn't actually WORK on Windows 98 OEM they just prevent the application from being installed.
The ones i've found:
Windows Media Player 9
Novell ZENworks for Desktops Management Agent (this REALLY sucks since we're deploying ZFD at our company)
Acrobat Reader 6
Solidworks 2003 Viewer
I'm sure there are many others. A disturbing trend, to be sure. There is actually a workaround to get the ZFDMA working on 98 OEM machines without using the installer, but it's an ugly hack and can't really be automated.
-- Jim
You don't remember the SP2 fiasco then. SP2 was a disaster, SP6 was... well, that too.
NT4 was the last Windows version that did not shove the integrated Internet Explorer down your throat, just the measly IExplore.exe version 2.0 which is easily deletable.
Without all that IE crap, NT4 is fast, stable and reasonably secure. Nearly all NT4 security issues have been caused by IE or one of its addons (Outlook, Windows Scripting Host, etc). The IE desktop integration bring the whole system to its knees performance-wise.
The service packs, Office, and Visual Studio will all try to convince you to install the latest whizziest version of IE, but if you persevere, you can keep your NT4 box IE-free.
If I *have* to use Windows (and I do), then you will get NT4 away from me when you pry it from my cold dead fingers.
I am not your blowing wind, I am the lightning.
Damnit! As of the end of June, no more support for NT4 until the end of 2004! And I'm serious! No, I mean it this time! It's time to draw an 18 month-wide line in the sand and stick with it! Am I the only one going, "Wha?" Which is it? June or December 2004? >
Actually, support for NT4 server is continuing. Non-security hotfixes will be issued until January 1, 2004, and they will "pull the plug" on January 1, 2005. Take a look at this page for details.
wait, are you on the dope?
i'll be glad to see that damned operating system go. i remember being forced to shoehorn NT4 into our site. the entire thing was a baffling ordeal full of crashes and undocumented tweaks to kludge things together. thanks to NT4, i started spending more time in the server room than at my desk. kill it, burn it, cut off its head, and fill the mouth with garlic. it's the only way to be sure.
First of all, for all it's failings NT 4.0 was a half decent OS and was the architecture behind the first network I really worked on so Im sad to see it go simply because of nostalgia. Second of all, have some respect for Strom; old strom may have been mixed up in the most racist politics of this century, and he was what we may consider on the wrong side of the issue, but at least he had convictions, held true to them, fought for them and spoke his mind. The ole son of a bitch really fought for States rights and did a hell of a lot for the people of his state, I am sad to see the 100 year old public servant, for that's what he was, go.
I'll be the first to admit, I'm a die-hard OSS evangelist, if it's Linux, BSD, etc, I'm going to endorse it. But I will even concede that NT4 was a very stable, fast, and reasonable secure product, out of the box. It was when everything got added to it, IE, SP1,2,3,4,5, Office, etc. that it became as unstable as the rest of their OS's. Plus, it was the last one they produced to have decent non-intel support. I remember even having a couple NT4 servers that I supported a few years back that had uptimes in the 6-9 month range, as well. Even at my current place of employment, we've got several hundred (1200+) NT4 boxes still in production. Why? They just work, and since they do very specialized things on an isloated network, we havent even had to add security patches in years. Go Figure.
"See, we plan ahead! That way, we never have to do anything now."
I really meant Last. Win2K had more drivers etc, but was slower and broke other code. WinXP was worse than Win2K on both these counts, and introduced more useless baloons as well.
Joe ServicePack has no use for Active Directory, Management Consoles, Bastardized Kerberos, etc.. NT4 security was enough for him.
You're mixing and matching server and client OSes here, man. Keep WinXP out of the equation, until you have W2K3 to complain about.
And you will complain about it ...
Microsoft, indeed, will discontinue actively patching NT4 [for free], but the knowledge of the problem will probably be reflected in Windows 2000 (and up) code. If someone were to ask Microsoft "What would it cost to fix this problem on our NT4 install-base?" The answer would not be "upgrade to Windows 2000"; it would more than likely be something like "$1000 for analysis, $25 per seat for the patch".
I would imagine that no business would pass an opportunity to make a quick buck.
Ayup
Those with the server version of NT 4.0 have a bit more time. As earlier reported, extended support for that operating system doesn't expire until the end of 2004.
Desktop June. Server End of 2004.
RTFA. RTFA stands for Read The Fuckin Article. Any other questions? If not, I'll ask you, get your coffee yet?
As for NT4, good grief. I miss it like I miss Ethernet BNC connectors. The memories bring back tears. And they're not of joy.
"Last one in is a rotten goblin!" - Kepp
You got it stable? Yeah, and I have a magic-box powered Delorean I'd like to sell you.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
So, is it sad to get rid of the constant need for reboot because of memory leaks and constant BSOD crashes?
...but was slower and broke other code
W2K had more services enabled than NT4. Any NT implementation can be made faster by disabling extraneous services.
As to broken code... that code was probably written poorly anyway.
If you are striving for 3 9's reliability, what the F are you doing running NT? Or did you fudge the weekly reboot into the "scheduled" downtime as a maintenence thing?
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Dropping support for OSes that are clearly out of their useful lifespan is good and all, but we're going to eventually hit a wall here. Hardware is becoming fast enough that most users could really give a bean's ass whether they have the latest and greatest, their machine(s) are running fine where they are. I work in an industry (long-term health care) where the processing requirements for workstations just aren't that impressive. Win95 and 98 are just fine and will be for probably a few years, if not more.
This dropping of OSes is just going to cause a pain for support techs and admins dealing with these systems. You can't run anything newer on them without a hardware upgrade, but you can't get anything updated for the old OS, either. Software vendors drop their support as soon as M$ does, not because they are sheeple, but because they know it'll just cause problems. Want to install IE 5.5 on Win95? Good luck finding it. (you can, but not at M$) Want to install the latest Adobe, or MSN, or etc? Nope. And it'll just get worse.
I realize the push to deprecate OSes is for good reasons. They want to get rid of OSes that are buggy and insecure (ok, good call) and they want to push for new hardware in the market and keep sales running. Good ideas in the long run, but there has to be someplace where people just stop buying because it doesn't make sense to keep upgrading. (which I think we're starting to see now)
Blog,Twitter
It appears our system has been penetrated by an actual real-world administrator. All hands on deck. Attack! Attack!
It's only funny until someone gets hurt. Then, it's hilarious.
uninformed comments about NT, or the microsoft line of business OSes. kids making claims one way or the other as if they have spent the admin time to know that 2000 or XP are some kind of saviors over NT. I'm talking about *years* here, not your new job at the phone company you got last year when you graduated HS where you only hear about NT stories, and read about them during your pokemon hacking sessions at night stuffing yourself with twinkies and pepsi cola, dreaming about hacking, vampires, the matrix, and your next mobile phone. first and foremost, microsoft is no longer a viable business server solution in the face of today's linux. second, back in 1996, when I spent hours trying to get either slackware or freebsd to take drivers for my future domain scsi adapter so I could continue to install the OS from my 4x nec scsi cd-rom, we received, booted, and installed NT4 in less than one hour on these same annoying machines. during it's time and heyday, NT quietly served it's purpose, as clunky, ugly, and awkward as it was/is. It did take untill 1998 with IIS4 and SP4 to reach anything you could even begin to call "stable" (less than one reboot a week:), however since that time it has continued to do it's duty. one thing that can be said about it that gives it an advantage over 2k is *time*. after spending years fighting with NT to get ports closed, and unecessary MS services and kruft removed, NT has been extremely stable for us and fairly secure, albeit do to a severe lack of modern OS features and a lot of work cleaning and stabilizing NT. This is not possible with 2k or XP. 2k is a decent workstation. XP is intollerable as a workstation. 2k is just too young to be used as a serious business server yet. Open source operating systems get tested and patched at light speed compared to microsoft solutions. But when you speak of microsoft server OSs, know that the only thing they have going is time, and the only thing that has had time to be reliable is NT. 2k and XP are no saviors at all. open source software covers all the server bases 2k can, and there is no reason for anything else. I remember a day when intelligent people who were passionate about technology surfed /., not a bunch of trite teenagers posing as people with brains.
While the argument ' why change what isn't broke' is valid, at a point supporting old software becomes a matter of increasing cost for diminishing returns...
There does come a point that it just doesn't make sense to support it anymore... this goes for most any industry.. just the 'time of life' is different... one doesn't support a pocket calculator applet as long as you would a power generator in a nuclear power plant....
Doesn't mean you cant continue use it on existing hardware.. ( unless of course you have a MOLP that requires you to upgrade.. )
---- Booth was a patriot ----
... and there will be more since it is just the workstation support that is ending. Server installations still get another year and a half of support.
(remember, there was some flak a couple months ago about a patch that was available only for 2000 and XP while NT4 was left vulnerable; that's what they finally fixed)
Red Hat is a company that makes pretty much a drop in the bucket compared to Microsoft. Actually, it's more like a few molecules collecting at the bottom of a fifty-five gallon drum. Red Hat's source of revenue will inevitably shift more and more from their boxed product to OEM deals and services for their software.
Red Hat's end-of-life-cycle comes about for maintaining packages that were in the base installation of the product. However, their subscription package (primary service via RHN) allows customers to obtain newer versions of the package with the security fixes even above and beyond the end-of-life-cycle determined for that release. Red Hat will no longer be back-porting patches for expired packages. Instead, you will have to install the latest packages and dependencies. Is this necessarily bad?
You are also comparing apples and oranges. Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 Workstation did not include an office suite, multiple web browsers, a compiler suite, (and so on and so forth). The complexity of Red Hat's (or any other Linux vendor) distribution makes it almost necessary to dedicate software developers to the strict task of back-porting patches for new versions of software for their old, and should-be-retired counterparts.
Recent versions of up2date (Red Hat Linux 9 and Red Hat Linux 8.0 errata) feature the --upgrade-to-release option which allows you to migrate your system to the most recent version of Red Hat Linux. I have used this switch on three systems now, and they have worked flawlessly. Red Hat's method of automated package management has come along way since the Red Hat Linux 7 era to the point where it, combined with its online counterpart, is an effective means of administering an installed base of workstations.
If companies opt for the subscription model (which the Red Hat Network provides much more than security updates and patches), they get something that goes above and beyond the end-of-life-cycle for the distribution as the Red Hat Network will ensure that the distribution is kept free of vulnerabilities and crippling problems. It is not to save money. It is to generate revenue and establish confidence in a system that works - relying on your users to install security patches on their workstations is asking for trouble.
The open source world moves faster than that of the closed source world quite simply because Microsoft does not have a new version of "Paint", "Wordpad", "Calculator", et. al. every couple months (even weeks!) As such, development is not to innovate and add new features - everything is kept relatively the same. Microsoft can get away with support a piece of software for years.
Have you given a thought as to how much a standard Linux distribution has changed in the past seven years?
Now, imagine if Microsoft had fourteen releases of Windows (NT-based) during the past seven years. Each release brought about new versions of basic included software. Also imagine if Microsoft included all of their basic compiler suites, Office, Visio, FoxPro, etc. with each release. Wow - what a cost; especially if Microsoft end-of-life-cycle dropped from seven years down to three years.
When (not if) Microsoft adopts the subscription model of software support and upgrades, the end-of-life-cycle will force companies to maintain their per-seat subscription/license to keep their systems free and clear of vulnerabilities and stability issues.
Ayup
Just because Microsoft has pulled support for the OS doesn't mean people aren't still using it. My previous employer still has ~100 NT 4.0 servers doing the daily file-sharing/print grind. My current one is still running NT too. I'm sure a lot of people are in the same situation...who wants to spend money on Windows Server 2003 (and the new servers to go with it) when the dusty old ProLiant in the corner with a 200 MHz Pentium Pro still serves files? In this economic climate, it takes a major pulling of teeth just to get money to keep things running as-is!
Granted, Microsoft has done a decent job responding to customer demands with Win2K and Win2K3. The OS is still pretty bloated, but it's a whole lot easier to keep running than NT is/was. You can actually do real system administration from a command line (unlike NT4) and the remote desktop feature is great for when you absolutely need the console. There's no doubt that Microsoft will make everyone migrate to Active Directory at some point, but I'm sure there are plenty of companies who haven't even thought of it yet.
NT 4 is going to be a lot like OS/2 is now. IBM has a core set of customers who have built their business processes around OS/2. My bank is an excellent example. Even though official support for OS/2 is over (you can't even buy the media anymore,) I guarantee IBM's got a few guys in the back room writing patches and device drivers for "extended maintenance contract" customers Of course, this is also in exchange for an ungodly sum of money. Either Microsoft or a third party will wind up doing this too. Remember, there are a few Wall Street firms that are completely Microsoft shops still.
Since no user-program can grab ctrl-alt-del keystrokes (yay x86), forcing the user to hit c-a-d before they login proves that the login dialog is actually the system login dialog, and not some trojan somebody wrote to collect usernames and passwords.
e nifty collaboration features that Outlook has. Group calendaring, group task lists.
i must be ignorant -- is it because you are using exchange that you have these features??
hell, if you really needed Group Calendaring, use Groupwise, or Domino. im even sure there is an open source equivalent....
so you can fit in that Quake III Arena deathmatch.
and lemme guess, you're running the server on winblows....
We're like rats, in some experiment! -- George Costanza
I thought it was the end of this month, so I remember reading, or are they extending it.
Some of us have been around the block a while and had the unique experience of having to maintain an installed base of NT computers (as well as Windows 3.x for Workgroups) before we had the next generation of Windows.
The move from Windows 3.1 to Windows 95 was dramatic. It brought about an intuitive interface that is mimic'd today even in our two big open-source desktop applications (KDE and Gnome). So long Program Manager - hello Start Button!
System administrators all knew the gist of the "under-the-hood" elements of Windows 95. It was a 32-bit kernel with many ties to a 16-bit subsystem for compatibility with legacy Windows 3.x applications. It would still crash. It still didn't feel as good as Windows NT 3.51.
Many administrators would still have NT 3.51 chugging away at mundane tasks for services - email, file sharing, web hosting, etc. But their workstation was a Windows 95 box (that ran very well compared to the amount of memory NT 3.51 required just to get by). On that box they tinkered around with Windows 95 Plus! to get Pinball. They browsed the CD-ROM at the movies included, and eventually came across Hover.
But most of all, the Start Button and its placement won the hearts and minds of users abroad. No more MDI-based navigation in a single window. No more having to buy third-party utilities to drag things to the otherwise wasted "desktop". No more "bright white" dialog boxes. Easy to find applications with the menu interface. And...
Fatal exception 0X0E at 0028:FFFFFFFF (no module reference)
When would we get that wonderful desktop and its Start button but with the stability offered by NT 3.51?
NT 4.0.
Ayup
We run a fairly large NT4 shop here too. A thousand workstations and 50+ servers. Our licensing rep explained that there will be no new licenses sold for either the server or CALs. We can now only buy 2003 CALs thru our licensing contract but the legal verbage that comes with them states that they are only valid for "downgrade rights" one previous version, i.e. to W2K server... they are not legally applicable to NT4 servers. That's the big "gotcha" here. The rep further explained that although right now they're saying on their website that the downloads and knowledgebase articles will still be available, that it is their full intention to purge all downloadables and support information for the old retired products from their website in the near future and not only that, they will have a team of "Gators" -- investigators and litigators (lawyers) scour the Internet looking for unauthorized 3rd parties still publishing this stuff and go after them with a vengeance. Even the famous JSIINC.COM "Tips and Tricks" website is going to come under great scrutiny. Because of all this, our whole IT department was ready willing and able to begin a migration to Linux and Samba. Even our manangement was beginning to be convinced... that is, until this SCO-IBM lawsuit and all the FUD against Linux began flying. Now our management is too scared of Linux and has decreed that we will be going to Windows 2003 instead. Our department recently lost one of our people who went back into the military during the Iraq war and decided to stay in the military permanently now, and another person is about to retire in a couple more months, so their salaries is going to pay for the W2003 migration and we're going to have to run our shop short-staffed for the next year(s) until the economy picks back up. I wish I had gone into real estate instead of computers now.
So, while switching from NT4 to Linux w/Samba you now think they should switch from Exchange & Outlook to either some other commercial package or a mythical OSS package. Either solution will require both a new server and new clients, since Outlook won't do collaboration without Exchange. The cost of a new mail system, migrating all of the existing data from the current mail system, and retraining all of the employees on the new mail clients is an unnecessary, and potentially large, cost the company would have to swallow. That free Linux server and SAMBA is sure starting to cost a lot.
Online support will continue and there's no mention in either article of M$ stopping security patches.
Anyway, when was the last time you actually phoned M$ with a support call?
In over 8 years supporting desktop and servers running various versions of Windows, I've never had to resort to phoning M$ to fix a problem. I've never yet encountered a problem I can't fix by either using the online support, reloading Windows (in extreme cases) or by installing Linux (when I get pissed off with Windows). ;)
i'd argue the philosophy is more "if it ain't broke *now*". isn't this what led to PHBs refusing to make necessary system changes well in advance of y2k? so of course, there was a run on COBOL & fortran developers in the 4-5 years leading up to it.
ed
We did that during the Win2k era. I inherited a sprawling suburb of fiefdoms on NT domains. I set everybody up under the same roof, and migrated them to a single linux PDC, with a dedicated file server. This was back when the PDC software for Samba was still a bit rough around the edges. It was risky, but here I am in 2003, and it's still working.
Since then the Samba system has moved through 3 versions of RedHat, a reformat to Gentoo, and swapped physical cases a few times. But the data (and all of the accounts) live on. The users blissfully CTL-ALT-DEL, and log in.
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
All in all I think 7+ years of support is pretty good for something you can buy retail for 200$ (talking about XP Pro here). The "corresponding" product from Red Hat seems to be Enterprise Linux Workstation Basic at 180$, but it includes only one year of Enterprise Network (similar to Windows Update, which is free for all 7 years; Enterprise Network is 96$/year). Of course the Red Hat product may be better in 10000 other ways so this may not be a very useful comparison...
:)).
I couldn't find a product life-cycle policy on Red Hat's site so I can't tell how long they promise to provide patches. The most recent version that isn't supported anymore is 7.0 (released in october 2000) but I guess it's not fair to conclude that they support their products for only 3 years since they weren't even *pretending* that it was sellable to the enterprise back then (ok, I guess they were pretending, but not seriously
I have an old scanner, (like a lot of people probably) which still works fine with Win98 but as soon as you install it on anything Win2k or XP it's obsolete. But it works with Win98, how can it be obsolete?
Which means that I have to get rid of my scanner because the OS decides not to support my scanner or the scanner company (Plustek) doesn't know how to create a driver that will work on the newer platforms. I can almost see the bubbles over the marketing VP's heads now:
Ahh we sell em' so cheap that they'll buy another one, after all they had enough money for the OS...
Which obviously egged me on to another question: Who are they to dictate that we're rich enough to throw away good working equipment, in order to bend to the will of the OS?
I know that most techs I know are in the middle class or lower upper class section of the Revenue system, but heck...I know I'm materialistic, I don't need some 2-bit company telling I should throw away stuff that still works.
That burns the sh** outta me.
Isn't it a bit the same with NT4? I mean the software is stable as all hell, except when you're dumb enought to install a Win9X driver on it, in order to blue screen it (I mean it's not complicated to crash it is it?) And the lack of support for USB ports, which I thought MS missed the boat on that one. Anyone who has any idea what I'm talking about have moved on to Linux by now.
Yes somehow we believe we should throw away good working equipment (or some of us believe in dual/triple booting their pc's) but with the coming of XP, who would want to go back to 98?
Way to go progress! Here's a thumb up your ass for your efforts!
QD
Because I can sure use the hardware.
Just over a week ago, I picked up a really clean PC from a curb, where it was waiting for the trashmen to come and get it.
Sure enough, when I booted it, there was a failed Windows 2000 install on the hard disk - the poor thing was just too slow to run it, so it was set out on its way to the landfill.
Later that day, I added a 120GB disk, installed RedHat 9 using the server install of Samba, Apache, Webmin, whatnot - no X, since I don't need it for a server. I sold it for $400 and now it's a fully-functional server for an office of 5 Windows desktops, serving files, doing backups, in general, being quite useful.
I'm really looking forward to the quality of hardware I'll be able to get when people upgrade from all of those NT boxes - SCSI stuff, rackmount stuff, raid controllers. Can't wait!
This news made my day!
Cheers,
Jim
-- My Weblog.
I wonder if they will charge us extra for tech support, now that it's not supported anymore.
...to the companies with big support contracts. People like CSC will happily carry on supporting NT4 for years to come, as long as you give them enough cash.
Hell, I know of one deployment of NT3.51 still being supported by a 3rd party!
Beep beep.
but was slower and broke other code
I don't know where you get this info from but It's 100% BS. First of all in my experience Windows 2k is FASTER to boot than a server configured exactly the same but with NT4. We even tested this with several servers in our server room. 1 with NT4 one with 2000. Power up both machines at the same time and the first machine to the CTRL-ALT-DEL to login screen was ALWAYS the 2000 machine. We tried this with 2 HP servers and 2 Compaq servers. Both exhibited the same behavior. And ever notice that when you start up a 2000 box it says "built on nt4" ? I have yet to run into a piece of software that ran on NT4 that I couldn't get to run on 2000 with minimal finessing. Especially on a workstation machine.
more useless baloons as well
I'm not exactly sure what a "baloon" (maybe you mean balLoon) is in terms of a windows based OS so I don't really have much to say about that.
Joe ServicePack has no use for Active Directory, Management Consoles, Bastardized Kerberos, etc.. NT4 security was enough for him.
You know why "Joe ServicePack" has no use for these tools? Obviously not, why do I even ask. Because he is not a network administrator. These tools are all to help manage the network security of an enterprise network environment. To down play their importance is to display your ignorance as to their capabilities. I don't know why my company filled with some of the smartest/brightest people I have ever met spends millions of dollars implementing a technology like active directory if it was a useless technology or feature. Your whole comment reeks of ignorance.
+1 Interesting?! Please.
Why would you change your clients? Outlook uses MAPI for groupware functionality and guess what? Other collaboration servers ship with MAPI components too!
hell, if you really needed Group Calendaring, use Groupwise, or Domino. im even sure there is an open source equivalent...
Jumping into clutches of Novell or IBM hardly seems like a smart thing to do after escaping those of Microsoft.
As for open source alternatives to Exchange there were numerous articles in the past:
Can we finally ditch Exchange?
SuSe OpenExchange
Active Directory is reason enough to upgrade from NT to 2000. USB support is another. Let's face NT has seen it's day. Even the most jaded Linux user has to submit that W2K is light years ahead of NT as far as usability and features go.
well, chances are the server is running Exchange 5.5, which means it is time for an upgrade anyway. THis means the company would be spending the money, so why not look to a solution, especially one that supports LDAP, so as to offer a simple migration of users...and seeing how Novell AND Domino both run on Linux, you can couple it with your brand new Samba Server!!
No money spent, except for what you would have spent anyway...
We're like rats, in some experiment! -- George Costanza
That's the old saw about the ctrl-alt-del, but apparently it's possible for user-mode-code to intercept ctrl-alt-del through DirectX's DirectInput API. So MS designed a good security feature, then designed a hole for it. Yay, MS.
Look, I have to ride herd on a pile of MS servers, just now more 2k than NT. We've built a damn good business using the these machines. We've stretched the things to their limits of the with some of the processes that we have implemented. We've discovered deep bugs and pushed MS to fix 'em. We have a functioning, stable business that relies on this OS.
.NET and now not .NET.
This is where MS *always* makes it greatest mistake. They desire to become respected in the Enterprise market, yet these idiots cannot put a leash on their marketing department.
Hint to Microsoft: If you want to be taken seriously, stop changing your OS's willy-nilly. IBM supports OS's and hardware for years after they've gone past their prime. Why? Because their customers still use them. Businesses are built using your software as a tool to get work done. Now just because you decide that hammers are out of vogue, you cannot force everybody to switch over to pneumatic nail-guns. This "ok, ok, ok, we're serious now. We've come up with a great new way to do X" shit has got to stop. DDE, OLE, OCX, ActiveX, COM, DCOM, COM+.
You know, it is possible to run a network with their tools (quiet down, I work for people who have made this decision and pay me to implement it), but for cryin' out loud, business processes change slowly if at all and once that you realize that marketing won't sway established systems to change at the drop of a hat, the sooner that you will find customers that will stick with you for the long haul.
That is until you get greedy and start gouging on licenses...
Chris
So Buddha walks into a pizza parlor and says: "Hey, make me one with everything."
No you can't. MS are the only ones with access to the source code, so when something needs patching, you're screwed.
I think the term often used to describe this situation is "vendor lock-in". Usually something considered bad by buyers of everything but software.
Installed the Bubblemon yet?
"After 7 years, it's kind of sad to see NT4 go"
whoever wrote that never had to support the bastarding heap of camel dung!
this is one OS that I will not miss!
After 7 years, it's kind of sad to see NT4 go.
No it isn't. That shit should have been canned long ago. When's the last time YOUR pager went off at 2am because the NT4 machine blue-screened again. Good riddance to that trash.
I'd rather be a conservative nutjob than a liberal with no nuts and no job.
Actually, the shortcomings, security issues, and failures in performance of NT4 could be sited as one of the #1 reasons that Linux was so rapidly adopted as a server - replacing an NT box was a key reason that IT managers chose Linux.
Now admin'll install linux! ...or upgrade thier hardware :(
A blog I run for the wealth
I think you will find than on NT the CTRL-ALT-DEL window actually waits until most of the drivers/services have started. On W2K this windows comes up as soon as the drivers/services required for logon have started.... Thus it appears faster. Which is exactly what the marketing devision wanted so people would think it was booting faster. In reality the system has not fully booted when the C-A-D window comes up. Ever noticed the amount of time it takes before you can get the start menu up after you have logged on.....
:-( ) and thats not an OS issue, more a Vendor issue.
;-)
If you bother to notice the disk thrashing that occurs during boot, you'll see that NT settles faster than W2K.
BTW, who in reality cares how fast a systems boots. I mean you'd have to be a sad individual if the extra 10-15 seconds one takes over the other bothers you.
But seriously I think the point was that Apps (his specific app) work faster on NT than W2K. And I have a tendancy to agree. There are a number of apps I use (Photoshop, Access, CD Creator) that worked better on NT than they did on W2K or XP (The CD Creator Version I own will not work at all. Obviously poorly written code....).
However this is all academic to me now as the only time I fire up Win on my home PC is when I want to use my scanner (a Lexmark AIO. YEH I Know
At work the SCADA System I admin will not work on W2K as yet so we are stuck with NT. The Vendor has been promising a W2K version RSN for a number of years. May be the dead line will get'em moving. The servers I admin are Alphas running Unix, so no problem there.....
Gee I miss my AmigsDOS 1.3....
Randall
"That's not advocating "Microsoft for everything", it's advocating homogeneous networks. Which is sound advice."
Except when you have a virus.
14 distros in 7 years? And you're supporting their glaringly flawed slap 'em on the ass and ship 'em out (even if there's no way in hell we can ever support them for more than a couple of months at a time) business model, while sneering at Microsoft's long-published policy of supporting their OSes for a fixed period of time? And bringing office suites etc. in to a discussion of EOL terming of support would be the very definition of apples and oranges, good sir.
These days, Windows Update works transparently to manage workstation farms and while roadbumps have happened, are you going to tell me that the RHN has never had a hiccup or that apt-get has never pulled down a flawed line of code?
> The open source world moves faster than that of the closed source world quite simply because Microsoft does not have a new version of "Paint", "Wordpad", "Calculator", et. al. every couple months (even weeks!)
I'm not sure what you're getting at here. Rolling in new code fast enough that you can deem the OS unsupportable is a good idea? Even if it's arguably crufty, I'll stick with what works. Are you running an OS that needs to work or a toy that needs to be newer and cooler than your neighbor's?
Easy does it!
This comment has been submitted already, 276865 hours , 59 minutes ago. No need to try again.
The Navy will not be moving off the NT platform for another 5 years. All the deployed ships are using NT and they have been using NT and the plan is already set that NT WILL NOT be leaving the ships anytime soon. The earliest we will see NT leaving is 2008.
Just as Windows != Red Hat Linux, Windows Update != Red Hat Network.
Most people believe that the Red Hat Network simply is the "up2date" portion of the distribution. There are well-designed host based and online utilities to allow you to manage a network of machines built upon Red Hat Linux for ease of updating, installation, and configuring without having to leave your desk. You can read about the Red Hat Network, and how it can be extremely beneficial to systems administrators and companies at a whole for a relatively modest fee.
Windows Update covers the operating system and does not cover Microsoft's other products (such as productivity, development, office, etc. applications). Each product has its own method of updating (whether automated or manual). The price of Windows do not include all of Microsoft's products. If you were to purchase all of Microsoft's products (at retail), you would spend a metric butt-ton more than just $200.
The package management part of Red Hat Network covers the entire distribution, including all the packages not a part of the "core" operating system. These packages offer multiple applications, development suites, etc. that are not featured with Windows. Red Hat Network can control many different machines in your group. Windows Update is limited to the machine it is being accessed from by the user at the machine at a given time.
Keep in mind that keeping with Red Hat's subscription-based Red Hat Network service does not entitle you to services only for that particular version of distribution. You can upgrade to the latest-and-greatest distribution (via the Red Hat Network) and still obtain support for a theoretically infinite life-cycle (so long as Red Hat stays afloat, and your subscription is current).
Ayup
I took a job with my current employer (soon to own the business as we have entered negotiations) it was an NT only shop in 1999. We currently still have 5 left servers running Windows. Linux saves the day there :)
As an administrator security is a major issue with me. I spend atleast 1 day a week going over each and every server looking for security updates and whatnot. Thanks to Microsoft's BS Analyzer I know if I have all of the security patches installed on my machines. HOWEVER due to NT's inherant insecurity, 2 of our NT servers were hacked over 20 times in 2 months specifically by warez monkeys to allow dumps for their IRC channels. Mind you all patches were installed, and I followed MS's Baseline security information to a T. So what it boils down to is that there are obviously major, KNOWN security holes with NT that have NOT been taken care of.
Quite frankly, One of the first things that will be done when I take over will be to remove ALL NT servers and there will only be one Windows server left (that's for those dullards that actually want to use Access Databases and frontpage for their sites but we recommend against it). Personally, seeing NT's support die from MS is not a surprise as it was never that great of an OS, then again, Windows has never been that great of an OS. It's only an over marketed peice of cow dung that's still around by using scare tactics and stupid users' fear of change. The fact that support for Windows NT is dead doesn't bother me as NT will be gone and Microsoft in general will be limited in our office.
What the hell does DirectX have to do with being a workstation? I have used NT4 as my workstation for over 4 years now and have never had a problem with it.
Not everybody plays games. Not everybody wants the latest and greatest OS. I want stability. I do not want to re-install. I want my ClearCase client to work without hassle. I have never wanted to play a video game (at home or at work).
I've done tons of CAD work, not DirectX needed. I am really, really going to miss NT4.
> Joe ServicePack has no use for Active Directory, Management Consoles, Bastardized Kerberos, etc.. NT4 security was enough for him.
Until Joe wants to play some of his favorite MP3 files but learns that the Sound Blaster 16 driver that comes with NT 4 isn't compatible for some reason, and learns that his DSL provider doesn't support his OS and that dialup is easier to set up on on an Atari 2600 than his NT4 machine.
What the hell is "Joe SixPack" doing with a business OS? Joe should be using Windows 98 (back then) or Windows 2000/XP today (assuming he wanted to stick with a Windows product).
"I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that. I know that you and Bill Gates were planning to disconnect me." -- HAL/WNT (IBM/VMS)
The real answer is this guy doesn't really need support. As long as he doesn't add new hardware he won't need to change his systems at all. If the systems don't need to be on the general Internet, and it sounds like they don't, security is likely a non-issue, just keep them firewalled off. So 5, 10 years from now he'll have exactly what he has now, nothing more, nothing less. If that works for him today it will work for him tomorrow.
Go have a private chat with your boss, or whoever makes buying decisions, now if you can; M$'s salestrolls make their pitch glossing over the fact that M$ keeps their customer on an upgrade treadmill (or they s/bug/feature/). The TCO is MUCH HIGHER because EVERY three years you have to flush a big chunk of your previous investment in time and $.
You: "So boss, was NT's lifespan long enough to bring the yearly TCO down to what MS's salesperson said it would be?"
Boss: "Well, there are certain intangibles to be considered..."
You: "Sir, does buzzword compliance make up for the email virii, the everpresent backdoors, the inefficiency induced need to buy the newest hardware, the network outages, the BSOD's that wipe big proposals (it DOES happen:/i seen it:) the ignorant MCSE's, the -"
Boss: "What's your point?"
You: "I was thinking we might ask RedHat for a bid on the userland PCs.. if we use RedHat instead of windows, we can save the cost of buying new hardware in those cases. It would save us around $500/pc or more, and we have a lot of likely cases.. secretaries, receptionists, clerks..."
Boss: "My boss has been trying to cut costs..."
You: "
M$ is still riding on a wave of management ignorance; the fact that they *are* losing sales to linux should be encouragement and vindication to those of us who know that alternative solutions are not only viable but desireable in some situations but are ignored because management "knows they're right" even though they admit technology "isn't their forte".
I'm bitter as a lemon peel. So sue me.
Win XP and 2K are still based on the same David Cutler kernel. Of course, it is a bit more bloated these days.
XP isn't so bad as long as you make it work / look like NT4. Damn it, I want to have to press C-A-D to log on! I want to know it is a trusted path to the OS.
I think there is a huge market for a tool that automatically fixes XP to look like NT4 to keep us NT4 fans happy.
How about calling it "The XP Un-fucker?"
NT4 Server users have until the end of 2004 for support. Windows 98 users will be the next on the list for axed support too.
And having been burned one time too many, it's a cinch that many of the admins and users involved will choose to switch to Linux or BSD (using the same machines - try that with Windows) rather than let themselves in for more of the same.
Have you got your LWN subscription yet?
Think about what it means to be a public servant. Were there no black people in his state? He served whites.
Please correct me if I'm wrong, as I haven't worked as an admin (although I do run a few services out of my home), but isn't your job as an admin to fix these problems?
If I'm a programmer and my Java code is buggy, I don't call up Sun and ask what's wrong. If your profession is an administrator, shouldn't you be able to fix your own problems?
~Dalcius
Rome wasn't burnt in a day.
I was an MCSE for NT 3.51 at Charles Schwab in the mid-nineties. NT 4 was noticeably buggier and crashprone than NT 3.5*. So anyone involved with the NT servers was constantly fighting fires. I remember being struck by how calm the Unix admins were, and how they got to do more interesting work...platform uptime was a non-issue for them. So, with a little help from a sympathetic Unix sysadmin (thanks Art!) I was able to talk the boss into letting me switch to the Unix admin group. NT4......may it soon pass to the ash heap of history.
Wow, you're as ignorant as the people you despise. He didn't only serve white folks, he did quite a bit at the state level to serve the general good, while governor he ended the poll tax (a jim crow law that sought to subjugate black folks) he also enlisted prosecution of 28 white men involved in a lynching, this act is widely regarded as the event that ended lynching in south carolina. He also went after the KKK in South Carolina, declaring that they were the most abominable sort of lawlessness. His problem with segregation was twofold, yes it was racist for him to not want an 'intermingling' of the races, and I don't defend that, but mostly he was a fervent believer in State's rights which he thought were being abridged by the Federal Integration Laws. Further, he effectively brought the 'pork' to South Carolina for both whites and blacks, he was no Lester Maddox.
after years of hating nt4 and being driven completely mad by it in the field, i for one am FILLED WITH JOY to see the rotten thing die, die, die... i only wish it wasn't already too late :(
You mean I could have gotten Win9x support from M$?
XP is wonderful, without it, I would have never discovered Linux.
MORE LIKE MILLIONS AND THEN UR UPTIME OULD BE KEWLER CUZ ITS LINUX AND U COULD POST A STORY ON /> ABOUT IT KEKEKEE ^_^
y uote
NT4 isn't doing anything, the MB and MPEG cards are doing all the work. You ought to press the vendor to write drivers for Linux instead of W2K. Then instead of 24 streams you would probably be doing thousands...
what is it that microsoft offers that i cannot get on a linux system?
It's funny, but it's also true.
At my company, we're quite happy running NT4.
It took years for MS to accomplish, but NT4 is quite stable these days, plus we have all out procedures in place, we have firewall protection, and we've switched to Mozilla, which plugged the biggest remaining security hole.
We'd have no reason to switch at all, if Microsoft weren't trying to force us.
Unfortunately for Microsoft, if we do have to migrate, it's not going to be to another Microsoft system. We have more choices now.
Yippie! Finally! I have found Win2K to be FAR more reliable than NT4, and more capable in terms of interoperability with newer hardware (can you say USB support?). All three of my home systems run Win2K, and I have no issues there at all. One of the best things I have seen is that I can run Win2K on smaller gear than NT4 ever would run on.
Compare that to my work system at NT4, and I am continually restarting this infernal machine all day...just great for productivity.
Win98 can just die too as far as I am concerned, oh and while we're there ME can go hasta la bye bye.
K.
Dont know bout you, but every company I've worked for (Raytheon being the biggest), Linux was always like a stepchild, nobody in the IT dept. wanted to support it.
> W2K had more services enabled than NT4.
Why would they do that? It's irresponsible, it's a possible security risk, and it puts the user out of control of his own system. Oh yeah, it's Microsoft.
> BTW, who in reality cares how fast a systems boots. I mean you'd have to be a sad individual if the extra 10-15 seconds one takes over the other bothers you.
:-)
Unless you are dual-booting with another OS.
sure sounds like driver issues to me. that makes the issue a little more difficult to pin directly onto XP instead of ATI, etc. That being said, are you using certified drivers? I would say if it's certified it better be stable!
sodomy n. Any of various forms of sexual intercourse held to be unnatural or abnormal, especially anal intercourse or bestiality. sodomy n : anal intercourse committed by a man with a man or woman -Terr
-Terralthra...
It has a Yamaha chipset, and which one escapes me at the moment.
I'm using the Analog outputs, but I do have a fiber-out to digital. My speakers, on the other hand, do not.
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
Some would say Hitler was strong in his convictions as well. Should I respect him? (answer is No)
We recently migrated from Exchange 5.0 (yes 5.0, we were never given funding to get 5.5 since all the 5.0 CALs would have had to be repurchased too) to migrate to Exchange 2000 and Windows Server 2000, because MS tied the two products together, would have cost us $77K in software license costs alone, let alone server hardware upgrades since our old hardware still running NT4 is inadequate for W2K Server. Instead, we migrated to Lotus Notes/Domino and the software costs for our entire organization were only $35K. That's less than half. Plus we were able to re-use our old exhange server hardware (older Proliant 5000R's with PPro-200 cpus) to run SuSE Linux as the Domino servers and they run great. We still have a couple NT4 boxes running Domino, so we're not totally free on the email server-side just yet.
...so you deserve everything you get.
NT 4.0 made various compromises in the name of desktop performance. NT 3.51 had no such problem. I only wish that cygwin were alive back in my NT 3.51 days, it would have made my life a zillion times better. And don't talk to me about that MKS crap. :P
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Just wondering... will the 3rd party support provide patches? Because this is why when the support EOL comes, you're better off with OSS. You'll always have the source; and with the sort of size of even the NT4 community, there'd be no problem finding patches.
Well, it's all well and good to suggest that a copany use X instead of Y, but when a company already uses software from Y's vendor they will probably require a pretty good reason to change to X. Like Microsoft's licensing costs, for example.
Oh, really?
Honestly, with today's low hardware prices, I don't quite understand all the bickering about XP not supporting this or that device properly.
Fact is, it seems to support practically everything made for a PC in the last 2-3 years. Almost all the headaches are with trying to make older hardware work. (EG. I have an Epson ES-600C parallel port color scanner. There's no support for anything newer than Win '98 or NT 4.0. Yeah, it pissed me off for a little while, because it's a perfectly good scanner and retailed for $799 back in 1996 or so when we first bought it. But finally, I just broke down and went scanner shopping. For $149, I got a USB 2.0 compatible Canon scanner that's easily 5x faster at scanning documents, gives excellent results, and integrates better with XP than any of Epson's older drivers/control panels would have.)
If you're not just pirating your copy of XP, you're paying more for it than what the average new video card costs.
If all this talk of spending more money on your system totally turns you off, then hell - run Linux! Thar's what it's there for....
Which means you'll have to upgrade w2k as well, as it builds on it, 50% of NT4-security bugs are also in w2k.
New things are always on the horizon
I know you will mod me down for this but I really liked NT4.0sp6a.
:-)
I work for a major TV station in Greece and we still use many NT4.0 installs...
I have an Oracle server running on a Compaq NT4.0 machine that has currently an uptime of 114 days.
I have rebooted the machine (for maintenance) only two times in three years.
Good work Microsoft!!
We have many AVID machines(AVID Symphony - A suberb NLE suite) doing post-production work. All run NT4.0. Stability? Rock-Steady!
The Newscutter line of our AVID's(a simpler NLE suite than Symphony) is running win2k although
The Active directory is great by the way...
The cluster of our domain is still in NT4.0(Planning to migrate to win2k next month) Rock-steady also.
Of course the Domain Controllers are win2k's , as well as the clients and the other servers( SQL's,mailserver's etc) but the NT4.0 NEVER let us down
It's easy to critisize, but, from my point of view (which is an IT Proffessional's point of view) the NT4.0sp6a is a very good OS.
So, come on now , mod me down you linux zealots/microsoft haters
I am so glad that Windows NT 4.0 is being phased out.
The lack of modern DirectX support and the lack of Plug and Play support makes Windows NT 4.0 Workstation a very finicky OS to work with, especially if you're doing hardware upgrades. With Windows 2000 Professional, not only do you get full ACPI Plug and Play support (this means you can easily connect hot-docked devices through the USB and IEEE-1394 ports), but also because it does work with DirectX 9.0a you can install the majority of the latest games out there. I wouldn't be surprised that many serious gamers actually prefer Windows 2000 Professional, because Win2K Pro in some ways has less OS overhead than Windows XP.
Maybe you should've used OS/2.
IBM's still selling (just not the boxed copy, that was the press release 4 months ago) OS/2, and is still supplying patches.
We just got new patches for HD and media drivers last week.
Why would it be time for an upgrade? This is the same question that started this thread. If your server is running NT4 and the applications you use, and there is nothing inherently wrong with it....why upgrade?
I dare say that NT 3.51 was the best OS Microsoft ever made. Small, fast, rather stable and secure. If they were still making apps, drivers, and patches for it, I'd probably still be using it.
I agree that I think NT4 should be gone, although I also understand those who have a perfectly fine NT4 machine that will have dropped support and upgrades in the future. But Windows 2000 is leaps before NT4 across the board IMHO.
I agree that XP's themes can be annoying, but these can easily be switched off. I don't know if XP is worse when it comes to services enabled by default, compared to 2000, but I think Windows Server 2003 could be much better than XP and perhaps even 2000. So far, I've only heard good things about it, and it sounds like MS have listened to the criticism and disabled a lot of services and also modularized it someone to make it a leaner server for what you will use it for. They also rewrote the critized IIS pretty much from the ground up with much more security in mind.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
also modularized it someone
Should be "modularized it somewhat".
You need a pet.
What are you on fucking crack? You fucking asshole, how could you write some shit like that. Fucker like you piss me to fucking hell!
I never swore in my fucking life till I started working with fucking NT.
hmm... for fun I enjoy launching DDoS attacks against 127.87.42.5
to generate the IIS5 keys with the keymanager from IIS4, because our university signs with openssl and in IIS5 you cannot import keysets, only backup keys (i think).
i.e. Redhat
Then no one would have to worry about them pulling the plug on NT, they'd be too busy being worried because they would have already pulled the plug on 2000.
OK, so this is wild speculation with an undue overtone of paranoia and slander:
THIS IS WHY SCO SUED IBM
That Microsoft would pull Windows NT 4.0 this or next year has been known for well more than a year. This has been one of Linux zealots' (like me) greatest argument why not move from WinNT to Win03/04, but rather upgrade to a Linux system!
So, in my cold cellar, I have had this vision of Microsoft and SCO executives meeting in high fashion bars and nightclubs in Rio, Monte Carlo, Singapore, and elsewhere to discuss how to kill Linux the best, as otherwise it may well take over a too large chunk of the market when NT is terminated. (If the chunk is large enough, there may well be a fearsome snowball effect) The answer was, however, easy - Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt. The reward for the SCO executives, apart from a few more drinks that night? Well, yes, a bright, rich future at any position in the Microsoft controlled sphere perhaps? Who knows.
Yes, I do believe in my nightmares at times.
Thanks for the info!!
Now to find someone selling a YMF744-powered card...
He served whites.
Actually, he pumped a ton of money into education focusing heavily on minority districts when he was governor, but I guess the obit that asshole Adam Clymer wrote in the NY Times didn't mention that, eh?
At least Clymer does mention he was one of the first Southern Senators to hire blacks onto his staff.
Get a clue before you post your mindless ramblings and insult a dead man you have no clue about.
The opposite of progress is congress
I don't understand all this. Ok, Microsoft will not support NT4 anymore. But many people will continue to use it as usual. This *WILL NOT* kill it. There is no small monkeys running in coax cables to erase each NT4 copies from the surface of earth!
My gf still use Windows 3.11, I saw business using Windows 95 everyday and I know at least one who still use NT3.51.
Many people continue to use an OS well after all support for it was killed. In 10 years, you'll still see NT4 boxes and server.
Actually, if you look in WinXP, you'll find none other than... Microsoft Bob! Good ol' Microsoft attempts again to copy how "cute" Mac OS is (in this case OS X) and fails, miserably. It's sad that they have to resort to reusing failed cartoon charecters. ...and they have the courage to call it an operating system!
First of all, the server "support" doesn't expire for another 18 months, so you haven't just been thrown out into the cold. You still have time to figure out a strategy, if you need to do anything at all.
Second of all, why will you be "forced" to buy a Win2k server license? Why can't you just continue to use your server? If it works, let it run! "Yanking support" in 18 months doesn't mean that your server will cease functioning...
In a word, lots. The TCP/IP stack in the NT4 kernel has some serious flaws which were addressed in Win2k. The most serious of them is probably the well-known TCP Sequence Number prediction problem (NT4 used a fairly simple linear algorithm for picking its new TCP sequence numbers for new TCP sessions; non-random sequence numbers exposes the stack to TCP session hijacking). Other improvements to the TCP/IP stack involve things like standards compliance, TCP Vegas, etc. It was a fairly major overhaul.
Don't forget the extremely ill-fated SP4... Where I was working, we jumped from SP3 to SP5, and skipped 4 entirely.
Patches are just the most visible aspect of "support." Under the surface, if you choose to look that far, you will see that there are many other ways that a company "supports" a product.
I would guess that 18 months from now (when NT4 Server support lapses) the following things will happen:
Granted, Microsoft has certainly already scaled down support for these items in NT4 over the past few years, but the WinSE (sustained engineering) team does more work than you might expect to keep backwards compatibility for NT4 running.
The parent poster had a great point - IF all of your client machines are Windows, then yes, a Windows domain controller is probably your best choice.
Why? Most of the large companies I've worked with over the last 5 or so years have found Samba to be an excellent, very reliable tool, even in otherwise Winders-only networks. Of course, these were companies that needed big iron, and were using the support from HP or Sun. But even for smaller companies that can get by with using the almost-a-computer machines that MS's stuff runs on, why isn't something like Linux+Samba a better choice? It's obviously cheaper and just as reliable (some would say more so). Where's the downside?
Why is advocating homogeneous networks sound advice? I would say that you should use the right tool for the right job, and if that means adding some non-homogeneous systems, well, people do it all the time, it works great, it's a robust and well-tested approach, so why the hell not?
are better off let to die..
... is the insight that one can be modded up to +3 without actually having to say anything of substance, and without having to cite any references for out-there anti-microsoft claims.
It's rock solid stable. We have it at work, and we never had a problem. We also have Linux, and we never had a problem with it, also.
We've had Windows NT boxes up for years.
I don't know how Windows NT got such a bad name. Bad drivers perhaps ?
Man, this sucks, I really love my NT4 servers. But I heard about something that might help. I dunno if you guys have heard of it, but there's this OS called 'Linux' or something that's supposed to be great for servers....
I got a +5, Troll
You mother should have used birth control.
that sold ALOT of Netware.
Since NT was sold till 2000 came out it is for many users/purchers of it a 3 year old OS, depite what MS keeps saying about it being 'support for 7 years already'. Microsoft planning its support from the day of its first release and not the days of the last mainstream purchasing seems shady.
For some projects with validation requirements a three year life span for a stable OS product is insanly low.
Retrain? What is different about File-New between M$ Office and OpenOffice? How much training does that take? Oh, I now it is File-New that presents the real challenge.
Right, since Office and OpenOffice are the only two pieces of software that exist in the world, thus they are the only two that you have to worry about.
Back in my day I had to write games in BASIC, on a 4.7Mhz computer with no hard disk and 128K of RAM. And I was grateful
Well back in my day, I had to write games in BASIC on a 1 MHz computer with no hard disk and 64 KB of RAM. And I liked it!
Why do you say NT4's life span is only 3 years? Just because MS will stop supporting all versions of NT4 in 18 months does not mean that the product has reached the end of its life span! Many people continue to run MS-DOS systems which haven't been supported for at least 7 years; they obviously haven't reached the end of their life span.
7 years of active support for an operating system is quite reasonable. Red Hat, for instance, no longer supports Red Hat Linux 6.2 even though it was only released 4 years ago.
Your argument that some people only purchased NT4 3 years ago and therefore deserve more support is also flawed. If I walked into a store and purchased a shrink-wrapped copy of Lotus 1-2-3, I would be a fool to think that IBM would give me any sort of support for it...
After 7 years, it's kind of sad to see NT4 go.
Why do people think that just because a company no longer supports a product, the product is no longer useful?
Wasn't it discovered that NT 4 Workstation could be turned into NT 4 Server by changing a few registry settings? If that's the case, what's the difference in supporting NT 4 Workstation versus NT 4 Server until 2004?
And didn't Microsoft already stop supporting NT 4 anyway?
What are you talking about, Robert Byrd is still alive.
It took years for MS to accomplish, but NT4 is quite stable these days, plus we have all out procedures in place, we have firewall protection, and we've switched to Mozilla, which plugged the biggest remaining security hole.
We'd have no reason to switch at all, if Microsoft weren't trying to force us.
Why do you need to switch? If NT has your needs covered why upgrade at all? Last time I checked, MS hadn't sent out letters saying "YOU CANNOT USE NT ANYMORE. IT IS FORBIDDEN". As you yourself stated, "we're quite happy running NT4".
Jeep stopped producing Wagoneers, but I don't have to return mine to the dealer.
> Why do you need to switch? If NT has your needs covered why upgrade at all? Last time I checked, MS hadn't sent out letters saying "YOU CANNOT USE NT ANYMORE. IT IS FORBIDDEN". As you yourself stated, "we're quite happy running NT4".
What I expect would eventually force us to switch is that Microsoft will stop selling us licenses to put NT4 on new PCs that we buy.
As a result, we would have to start buying our new PCs with Windows 200x and Office 200x. But then, with the mix of old and new Windows PCs, we will start to run into compatibility problems in the network protocols, directory services, Office documents, and so on.
In the end, to get around the problems, we will be forced to upgrade all of our PCs. It's the same thing that happened to us when our new PCs started to come with Office 97, and we were eventually forced to upgrade all of our Office users.
An alternative would be to run Linux and StarOffice on our new PCs. As an experiment, we've had a few users running Linux (Red Hat 8.0), and the results were quite good. We were able to get Linux to work with our existing network, and StarOffice did a fairly good job working with MS Office documents. Plus, the Linux desktop is similar enough to Windows and MS Office that the learning curve wasn't too bad (that is, for the users -- the sysadmin had to take some education). Of course, if we did start to introduce Linux, we would probably end up migrating everyone to it in the long run.
But, as you suggest, we are happy now, so the plan is to stick with NT4, and avoid introducing anything new for the moment.
Many don't use Exchange at all, just Outlook - so switchover isn't that difficult for those folks.
SCIREV.NET - fanfics,reviews & more
Yes, they were. We spent around two weeks diagnosing that particular problem, including speaking to the team who wrote the code in question. At the end of that time, we knew exactly what was causing the problem and how to fix it. You are once again making assumptions about the situation, when you don't have the knowledge to know whether they are correct.
That rather depends on whether one of the drivers in question was written by Microsoft and shipped as part of the OS, and the corresponding driver that shipped with an earlier OS didn't have the same critical bug, doesn't it?
Why, because you need me to admit that a horde of ACs who have read page one of the book know more than a team of professionals who spent two weeks working on exactly this problem and who read the whole manual several times while working out exactly what was wrong? You have no idea what you're talking about, so you'd like to me to give up and let you have the last word so you can feel better.
I'm sorry to burst your bubble, but we know exactly what the problem was, and a bug-fixed version of the driver in question was subsequently released as a result of our input.
The fact remains that my original contention -- that it is quite possible to screw even recent Windows OSes without blue screening along the way -- is sound. We did know about the automatic reset switch and it was one of the first things we checked, but I appreciate the people who were trying to be helpful by telling me about it in case I didn't know.
However, people like you who are trying to be clever by using "you got schooled", "Please", "It's probably best that you never respond to this", "n00b" (that was a great one in another reply), and other such things are simply showing that they have no idea what they're talking about. They have too much ego to admit that someone else might know more than them, and there was a possibility they hadn't considered.
Incidentally, before someone tries to write a witty reply about how I'm describing myself there, consider this: if the only possible explanation is that the auto-reset option was switched on, how is it that we managed to blue screen that particular PC at several other points during the development of that product, without it resetting automatically? Perhaps there's another secret option we didn't know about, maybe labelled "Blue screen sometimes, but randomly reset on others to annoy people on Slashdot"? Then again, maybe you're just wrong.
Proof by intimidation isn't going to work on someone who actually has the facts, sorry.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
We have a Systems Management Server running on NT4/SQL2000 that inventories hardware and software on about 220 workstations and a couple dozen servers on a daily basis. It churns the data and produces a patch report indicating what patches have been distributed and which ones, available from Microsoft, need to be distributed based on the OS, browser version, etc., that each host is running. I construct the patch package and distribute it once a week. Maybe a network that size doesn't impress many readers here, but for me and only two other techs, it's a lot of work, and the reliability of that SMS server counts for a lot. I can remember when the patch process was mostly manual, and it was no fun.
It's only funny until someone gets hurt. Then, it's hilarious.
I see lots of people putting down XP, but in reality XP is the best MS operating system yet. The problem most of the time is that people will not take the time to learn anything new. When 98 came out all the 95 users complained, when 2k came out all the 98 and NT users complained and now with 2003 and XP all the 2k user complain. These users want the technology to stay the same and to never change. Well that will never happen. It is time for all the NT users to consider making the upgrade and learn something new and better and to quit talking about the old NT glory days because today is better and XP is far superior to NT, 9x and 2k and NT.
Sure, he was a real MLK Jr.
Get a clue before you post your mindless ramblings and insult a dead man you have no clue about.
Gee, thanks for the clue.
Now what I'm wondering: Why do people insist on associating Strom Thurmond with racism? It just doesn't make sense.
You wouldn't happen to have any clues about that, would you?
You wouldn't happen to have any clues about that, would you?
Because of statements he made over 50 years ago?
Do you associte Robert Byrd or Harry Truman with the Klan? These prominent democrats were both members. In fact, Strom was a democrat when he was anti-desegregation.
It would seem to be that one should probably consider the democrats a racist party since they're not convinced that blacks can make it without affirmative action.
So, since you're condemning the words of a democrat, perhaps you're a Republican?
The opposite of progress is congress
Actually, I think of the Klan just about every time I see Robert Byrd speaking on C-SPAN. The thing about Byrd is that he stayed with the Democratic party when it became home base for blacks, whereas Thurmond switched over to the party that true racists now call home. You know, the party of Trent Lott. Do you want to try to say something in defense of Trent's statements in support of classic Thurmond?
Look, my point is this: racism of the kind espoused by Strom Thurmond during his presidential campaign is really and truly almost dead in America. I believe that. It's all covert now, like pedophilia and heroin abuse. What I'm seeing is that racism has become so politically incorrect that anyone with sympathy for a guy like Strom Thurmond is ready to paint him as some sort of civil rights leader. I acknowledge that he's done some good things for blacks in SC, but if you can't look at his political career and call it (on the whole) racist, it's just PC revisionism. I suppose that today it would be difficult to call anyone who ever lived a racist and get everyone to agree.
I call the Republican party a more hospitable party for racists because I'm willing to face reality: you and I both know that those hypocrits who criticized Trent Lott (or the others who defended him, in both parties, but especially the GOP) have known how he really felt the entire time that they've been supporting his leadership. They were mad because he spoke so candidly. The one thing that dems like Daschle have going for them in their defense is that they never voted for Lott, but I don't take any of them or their words at face value, and I hope you don't either.