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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."
Once a product ceases to be supported, does "migration" to a newer product from it become unsupported?
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....
Those are for desktop operating systems only. BTW, the extensions were announced and heavily covered in the media back in February. "Apparently" announced? Where have you people been?
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....
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.
We have some Samba servers on Red Hat, actually. But we have certain applications that absolutely *require* Windows servers (for one, we use Outlook for mail :( ), plus some of our contracts with our customers actually specify what kind of server and what operating system(s) are to be used to house their data.
My journal has hot
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...
You've had the operating system for 7 years so far, and you don't want to (you don't feel like?) upgrade, yet you're worried about reliability and stability? You'd think that if something was to go wrong, you'd have figured out how to fix it in the past 7 years, and through the myriad books out there about the subject. Maybe you should re-evaluate your options...
"It's better to have a gun and not need it than need a gun and not have it." ~ Christian Slater, True Romance
A few months ago, i compiled and ran a program called "SMBDie" on my linux computer, to see if it would reboot my Windows XP machine remotely. It worked. When I tried it on a Debian Linux Server running Samba, SMBDie cursed at me, and said the target machine wasn't vulnerable.
dochood
I think it's completely irresponsible, of course. Most meaningful systems have an ROI measured in years. Once the thing starts paying for itself, it sucks to have to yank it because it can't be repaired anymore.
Hell, what's the average lifespan of unix terminal, or a Mini? How about a Mainframe? These things would live for YEARS. We had a System 36 that operated our finance department from 1982 to 1999. That was replaced by an AS/400 that we are probably going to get another 10-15 years out of.
People, business is business. We are not put on this earth to keep the unscrupulous and wasteful fat and happy.
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
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
We upgraded from 98SE to XP because I wanted an OS that could walk and chew gum at the same time. Let me tell you, mistake, mistake, mistake. Anything that uses the 3d accelleration crashes the system randomly. Which defeats the purpose of having an athlon-XP to work on computer animation now doesn't it?
It's always dual booted, and I have finally gotten the Linux side so stable, my wife only boots into Windows to use M$ office. I have open office on the system, but she keeps mumbling something about layout. She like it because it boots from power switch to login, to KDE finished loading in 30 seconds. I'm digressing...
I never thought I would see the day, but I actually have better driver support under Linux than XP for my machine. I have the firewire card working, with software to OPERATE the firewire card. My printers work without having to reboot to clear a printer-error condition. (A bug in the USB driver for XP.) My DVD playback and surround sound are perfect.
And all this without having to drop another dime on hardware.
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
Unfortunately, in a small company like ours, that simple isn't financially viable. Even if it were, not all of our PCs are used for the same purposes, so we wouldn't want them all to be the same, or even necessarily run the same basic software.
By the way, we develop software that ships on more than a dozen different platforms, including several flavours of Windows, several *nix variations, older non-UNIX'd MacOS versions and more. We're well aware of the strengths and limitations of these platforms relative to one another.
Several of my colleagues would disagree with you, from direct personal experience. For standard networked Dell boxes running Windows+Office and nothing else, sure. From personal experience, Win2K is generally more stable and the one they got right. But certainly for some machines, particularly those with any "unusual" hardware, it's quite common for NT4 to be more stable than 2000.
I'm sorry, you misunderstand me. There is no blue screen. The system either locks up or resets, immediately. This is rare with the better Windows versions, but quite possible technically, and happening with monotonous regularity on this particular system. Or did you think that highly privileged code was immune from bugs that screw up the state of the floating point unit, and device drivers never set threads to run at the dangerously high priorities allowed by the Windows API? ;-)
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
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.
- It gets the job done
- The cost of maintaining it over six months is LESS than purchasing a new computer with W2K/XP...which would have its own, roughly equivalent support cost making this a MOOT POINT
- Ever since we stopped running that God-forsaken Pervasive SQL on it, it's been humming along needing no attention, no reboots, nada. Then, even when we were running that POS database, when it locked up (daily, was it?) all we had to do was restart the services.
- We have not mandated an enterprise-class directory service...but even if we did, it would not be AD. More likely, it would be NDS, which will run perfectly well on NT4 (and our Linux servers too, for that matter)
- As a server, it has no need for any USB device...there is no keyboard or mouse connected to it, no monitor, no external anything except the network. Internally, it's a SCSI RAID. Why does a server need USB again?
- Who gives a rat's ass about graphics? It's a SERVER. It doesn't even have a monitor. It could be freaking CGA for all I care. As long as file/print, etc. works.
- It supports every bit of hardware we've ever thrown at it...
- We don't want to give Microsoft the money for upgrading
- If you know what you're doing, it is a breeze to maintain and it is not a resource hog.
Now, all that being said...I would not run NT4 on a desktop any longer. If Microsoft must be the platform, Windows 2000 seems like the best choice. I'm just not comfortable with XP Pro yet, although I hear if the first thing you do is turn off that new UI crap and make it look just like 2K it is just as good...maybe better...but IMHO, the verdict is still out on that one.*require* Windows servers (for one, we use Outlook for mail :(
what does using Outlook have to do with having Windows as a Server?
AFAIK you can use Outlook with any MTA....and Sendmail is relatively easy to setup, compared with Exchange...
We're like rats, in some experiment! -- George Costanza
This occurred at a place where I worked for old SunOS and HW support. Vult... I mean vendors will always be there scavenging parts and outdated technicians to make larger profit margins than support for current stuff. They like to charge a premium since the perception is that if you have this old stuff, and official support is dropped, everyone is on the new stuff, and you'd be lucky that anyone knows anything about your old stuff. It's all in the negotiation.
Advice: On no conditions do you tell them you have applications that absolutely must remain on the old OS. Just make it obvious to them that there is still an outstanding cost analysis between keeping the old or migrating to the new. After they inform you their service prices, cut these numbers and tell them your costs to migrate will be slightly lower.
"Last one in is a rotten goblin!" - Kepp
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.
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). ;)
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.
...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.
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
But a Service can send a fake Ctrl-Alt-Del to dismiss the dialog. VNC can do it. I don't think it would actually be that difficult to put up a window that looks like the login screen and collect passwords.
Random is the New Order.
A few of people seem to be disagreeing with you, but I think the actual truth lies in what field you're in. In a lot of fields, say manufacturing, needs don't change as quickly as operating system revisions, and in that case upgrading the OS would be a waste of time. Thus yes, a lot of people would feel that if a server serves its primary purpose, why upgrade? But I think main point that you should have addressed is that in business today, 7 years is a VERY, VERY long time to not restructure your needs and the needs of everyone your department answers to. Some servers, like someone said, file servers can easily be backed up on an existing os, as long as it works, will not need to be changed, as their purpose has not. Some however, will need to be updated for new features, support new infrastructures, etc.
I do agree greatly though, that running an NT4 network is not going to help you in trying to find a job after you've been displaced and the rest of the world is two server OSes (or more) past you.
--- What
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.