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End Of Support for Windows NT 4.0
IdleMindUI writes "This month is the last month that hotfixes for Windows NT 4.0 will be released. Security fixes will only be released to Microsoft customers with Custom Support Agreements. Custom Support Agreements are still available for customers that need them and can be obtained by contacting a Microsoft rep. More information is available on the NT 4.0 support lifecycle site."
That someone condemned it. Now if we can just get them to pull the plug on 2k and XP....
Of course they must be freeing-up resources for the GREAT LONGHORN RELEASE. Yes, that long-awaited piece of vapourware whose feature list is still a mystery. I rub my hands each time I hear "news" about Longhorn as I'm convinced it'll be the nail in Microsoft's coffin. Let's see, it'll probably be another 2 years before it's out the door and considering each OS release takes an exponentially longer time to attract upgraders I'd say it could be 2010 at the earliest before we see significant numbers. BUT, that's only if they keep their grubby DRM fingers from Fritzing it with Intel's co-operation and don't you know they just can't resist that one. However, once they tie the OS to DRM it'll be curtains for M$. So, go on Billy, make my day.
There's a huge difference between what a lot of other vendors do and what Microsoft does with Windows. Every version of Windows is an entirely new operating system with new incompatibilties and new ways of doing things. They'd might as well be different operating systems entirely: five separate operating systems, Microsoft has put out.
Solaris or AIX, on the other hand, are basically constant. Programs you wrote for AIX-1 (I haven't been around that long, so I don't know what it was called really) will run on today's AIX with very little modification. Fortran programs older than Microsoft can still be compiled and run, assuming the programmer adhered to a standard. Microsoft broke Windows XP in a totally random fashion with SP2. They can't get their shit together well enough to put out one good operating system, yet instead of building on what code they know works, they reinvent the OS every couple of years, breaking everyone's applications and introducing new bugs in the process, as well as sloughing off hundreds of unsupported installations. A smart sysadmin keeps test servers around for when Microsoft releases patches because they don't dare install them blindly on production machines, but sometimes patches will break one computer while working just fine on a machine that's been updated exactly like the broken one.
With Oracle or Sun or Ibm, you upgrade to get a new version of a product. With Microsoft, you get a new product in exchange for an old one, where history indicates that each newer product is more broken than the last.
[Offtopic rant] I mean shit. Part of the reason for Microsoft's success with Windows is that it's a complete Operating System and professional libraries for application designers. Whereas with QT, you have to obtain a license, you can just start writing applications for Windows. You can drop Activestate Perl onto a Win95a computer and start writing GUI applications native to that computer. Even given this, Microsoft often doesn't use their own libraries. Versions of Office use their own widget sets that aren't available outside of Microsoft at all. Microsoft created a homogeneous application platform, and then broke its regularity themselves. Their success really only indicates how large of a niche there was to be filled.