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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!
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.
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....
I dropped support for Microsoft too.
BSD is designed. Linux is grown. C++ libs
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 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.
Well, they acutally do provide lifetime support for their products. The only problem is that they define when the lifetime of the product is over.
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
...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.
That, or, /. is just posting more tech related news than just Linux/OSS news.
Some of us actually have to administer a Windows Network, or at the very least know whats going on in the Windows world.
Altp.
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.
See this KB article: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb; en-us;196661
It's summary says: Windows NT 4.0 does not support Universal Serial Bus (USB) host controllers. There are no plans to provide USB support in Windows NT 4.0 in a future service pack.
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.
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....
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.
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
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.
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.
"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....
PPC, Alpha, x86, MIPS
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
Because using linux as a pdc avoids a lot of licensing expenses, and works quite well?
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
This "Linux for everything" bigotry is just silly
... "Microsoft for everything" isn't? Interesting.
So "Linux for everything" is "bigotry"... but...
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.
"Backups are for wimps. Real men upload their data to an FTP site and have everyone else mirror it." -- Linus Torvalds
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.
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
Reminds me of company that I worked for, but instead it was for the desktop PC. But then again it was one of those companies that forced everyone to use outlook and explorer. Knowing that I had a perfectly good portable, which was of a better config, at home with Win2K I asked them if I could use it at work. They told me yes, but I wouldn't get any support or have the machine authenticated for the Windows network. So I brought it in and found myself more comfortable doing my work. I really didn't miss not being able to access the windows network, since nobody really shared anything anyhow.
One other thing to mention is that I copied over the development environment, and in any case the support team didn't even support it on their 'supported' machines.
In some companies the support guys support my intiative, but due to company policy have their hand tied when it comes to doing it themselves.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
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.
> Samba can't act as an Active Dreictory domain controller
Neither can NT4, which is what you're replacing....
25% Funny, 25% Insightful, 25% Informative, 25% Troll
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
... 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.
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). ;)
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.
Extended hotfix support (and No-charge assisted support ) for this product will end on 30-Jun-2003. After 16-Jan-2004, this product will be obsolete and assisted support will no longer be available from Microsoft. Online self-help support will continue to be available until at least 30-Jun-2006.
Roman
...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.
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
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
This isn't insightful. 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. It also mentioned that if your network is largely Linux, then you're better off with a Linux directory server. That's not advocating "Microsoft for everything", it's advocating homogeneous networks. Which is sound advice.
-j
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."
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.
Dirty little secret: some of those major, KNOWN security holes also exist in 2K, XP and Server 2K3. They are kernel-level and fundamental to the NT5 security model and would require moving Windows off of the NT kernel and onto something else.
Good that you are migrating away from Windows. People are going to have to face up to the fundamental flaws within sooner or later. And the way Microsoft is moving to "fix" it (Palladium, etc.) is only going to make matters worse.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
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.
it's advocating homogeneous networks. Which is sound advice.
Down with those homos! Heterogeny forever!
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
You need a pet.
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.
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.