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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."
If only we could expect a Linux company to support their distribution as long as Microsoft supported NT 4.
Custom Support Agreements are still available for customers that need them and can be obtained by contacting a Microsoft rep.
That's like buying a betamax, no? If you're running NT 4, you could be running something else.
right now is THE time to move in on all those businesses still running NT 4 and sell Linux/SAMBA boxes.
Use the line:
It'll be an even better domain controller, and if a user comes in with an exploited laptop you can be safe knowing that your PDC isn't hosed by it.
I've been using SAMBA as a windows PDC for several years now, I had one setup that was so sucessful that I started charging them for all the months I didn't come and fix it (it was so reliable I had to switch from a charge-to-fix to a service contract).
"Sometimes, I think Trent just needs a cup of hot chocolate and a blankie." -Tori Amos on Nine Inch Nails
Fully featured, responsive, and with the new security built into SP2, practically invulnerable to virii or hacker intrusion. (God help you if you want to run with the firewall down, but that goes for anything, don't it?)
I'm still cleaning out tons of mal|spy|ad-ware laden SP2 machines every day. They still seem to get viruses too.
As for running with no firewall, proper behavior for ANY IP stack is to reject ALL connections unless there's a service up-and-running waiting for a connection. The problem is that on Windows, default users have the ability to open privileged ports. Firewalls add a layer of complexity and frustration to everyone, admins, users, and hackers alike. Properly implementing an OS that defaults to security settings that reflect the mean intelligence of your user base are what Windows needs, not more bubble-gum and shoelace to hold a bad thing together.
"Sometimes, I think Trent just needs a cup of hot chocolate and a blankie." -Tori Amos on Nine Inch Nails
It seems to me that anyone still running Windows NT 4.0 in 2005 is pretty successfully avoiding the particular "swirling vortex" you mention.
Actually, this is an opportunity for everyone who isn't Microsoft, not just Linux.
-- Microsoft is the most expensive commodity operating system and office suite vendor in the marketplace.
I know the obligitory jokes and MS bashing will now commence - but IMHO this platform represented a major breakthrough for MS. It was the first truely "ready for prime time" platform from Redmond.
NT4 Workstation was state of the art at the time - NT Server 4.0 was pretty damn stable and was the first really big Novell killer.
Sure it wasn't perfect - Sure it wasn't secure - but give it its props - this was a decent platform
---- "Logoff! That cookie shit makes me nervous!" - A. Soprano
It will be interesting to see how many people take the Linux plunge and break from the swirling vortex of regular, forced product updates.
Swirling vortex? This is how you define an end to a product cycle which has been around over a decade? If you are running NT4 and have not upgraded since the start, then why start now? How is this nonsense insightful? Oh yes, it is a M$ bash. Duh.
I am betting very few, unfortunately. It's just too much of a leap for most people...when Windows XP/20XX offers such a warm fuzzy UI feeling.
Most admins remote desktop into a minimal interface and don't care about anything fuzzy. Personally, I use the old interface, no animation, 256 color icons, and no backgrounds regardless of whether it is NT4 or XP.
Face it, the reason why these boxes are running NT4 isn't because the admins wanted to run it that way. It was also not held back due to a licensing cost issue. They are likely running some 3rd party applications designed and supported only with NT4 in mind.
Don't forget the fact that just because M$ quit supporting it, they HAVE to upgrade. If the system is performing well, then why rush out to change anything? Do you really think a system you installed 11 years ago is going to run into any new problems requiring a call to M$ technical support? I highly doubt it.
"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."
This is just prudent administration even in FOSS. You never change a stable production environment unless you are 100% sure the changes won't trash your stable environment. That is what the word "stable" means. I have seen FOSS patches that trashed the program it was supposed to patch. Of course, they issued another "oops" patch the next day but still.
B.
This is a sig. This is only a sig. Had this been an actual sig you would have been informed where to tune for more sigs.
Comments like these modded up leave me wondering what the average age on /. is. I think it's gradually decreasing and I am willing to guess currently it's at 14.
.Net small business/data center/whatever edition.
Are you talking about Windows NT 4.0 server here? Or workstation? Because you cannot be seriously comparing the NT 4 server to an XP workstation, especially recommending the upgrade path like that. Windows XP is limited to not provide many server-like functionalities so you have to purchase a more expensive Windows 2003
In either case whatever you are comparing, have you tried running Windows XP on a 266 Mhz, 2GB HD, 32 MB RAM box? Good luck with that. Moreover, unlike Windows XP, Windows NT was never meant to be a home consumer OS - MS had Windows 95 and 98 for that purpose.
Laugh as you may, Microsoft's number one competitor is itself with people hanging on to old software and systems.
Prime target for the penguin.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
Read the article. Microsoft will continue support on all embeded versions of NT
Prime target for the penguin.
Or since most of the consultants brought in would probably be MCSE's (or equivalent), they now have more power to grab a bigger pay-cheque from those companies with huge upgrade and maintenance costs.
It's not that they necessarily have to perenially support old software. The problem is, they are essentially trying to force the user into buying new software. It is as if you have an old car, and, say, Ford says, "We will no longer carry parts for this car or fix it, even when there is an undiscovered flaw, and there is no where else you can go to get it fixed. If they intend to stop supporting something, there should be some way to go to a third party for patches and whatnot. A poster on a different thread suggested that once they end support, MS or whoever should have to open that code up so that a third party or the user him/herself can produce patches. That's my nickel for the day
My other computer is a Jacquard loom.
Do you realize how long some IBM systems have been supported. They still support systems from the late 80's. On top of that there were several WinNT systems for Alpha, and there are NO replacements for those.
The fact is, it's way too soon. NT4 is solid and in critical applications you need solid systems. VMS hasn't had an update in over 10 years except for security patches. That's the type of system you want to read of sensor data in a nuclear reactor.
Win 2000 won't be ready for that state for at least another three to five years with new IE flaws being found every month!
You obviously aren't an engeneer if you think NT4 is actually ready for retirement.
Well, if you are still running NT4 it is because you have software on that system that you have not needed (or wanted (or been able to)) upgrade.
My guess is that if you can get it to run on a Mac you should have switched years ago.
I use it exclusively on the back-end I built back in '99. Paying out 1.1 mil for what is in truth just new icon rendering lib and a folder view .dll is downright stupid, especially when there will be *no* change in actual performance or function. Yep, walk the dependancies on why stuff won't run on NTS4 and "requires" 2K+ - 99 times out of 100, it's shell UI crap. 1.1 mil for... exactly what I have, but now with new color schemes and stupid, obfuscating, irrelevent wizards... on rackmounted iron who's KVMs aren't touched but twice a year to see if they work. Thank God 2k3 comes preloaded with AOL, MSN, WMP and Solitare. All of that trash is extremely appropriate in a real production, really.
So yeah, I still use NT4. I don't upgrade my toaster because a new one comes out, I don't upgrade my car stereo when a new one comes out, I don't upgrade my lawnmower when a new one comes out, I don't upgrade my lightbulbs when a new one comes out, and I don't upgrade a server just because a "new" one comes out.
Call me crazy, but I only trash these things when doing so will accomplish a measureable objective. I'm also one of the few retards who dares to run NTS4 without a firewall - I've got one that's a quad-homed box, hosting two T1s and a DS3. No firewalls, just straight from the NICs into Adtrans etc. I put it on the line back in mid '99, and to date it has yet to be compromised or faulted, despite hosting both IIS4 and Exch55, and running some rather unique and complex software in each. Why the f*** would I want to swap that out... well, a Linux solution aside, why *else* would I want to swap that out... no "current" MS product is going to do any better than what I've got now, and in fact will probably do worse. Much worse.
I don't repaint my car every year, I don't replace the doors on my house every year, I don't buy a new bed every f*ing year, and I don't toss a solution that will continue working perfectly unless there's a damned good reason. "New screensavers" and "wizards" doesn't cut it.
help me i've cloned myself and can't remember which one I am
Yeah, those Mac mini things are really great for file/print sharing with all of their available hard drive space and legacy connections, as well as the spacious room to upgrade. I've also heard that the dual Ethernet ports work well when it is used as a router/NAT box. Oh wait...
When you look at the state of the world, how can you not become a radical, liberal anarchist?
They released an update to NT years ago. Right around 2000. They called it windows something. Based on the same portable code of NT. IT lives on, saying its the only one that was designed to be portible is just ignorant. Strictly speaking nt4.0 wasn't designed to be portable, NT was the first version of which was 3.5. So 4.0 is an upgrade to the only os desinged to be portable, just like 2k, xp, and longhorn. Maybe you're confused because it was the only one that was marketed for other non x86 processors. But the new server 2003 version is availiable for Itanium, they are releasing a new version for the AMD_64 instruction set, and a modified version of windows will power the power pc based Xbox 2. So basically , in no sense what-so-ever are you correct.
Sorry to be so nitpickingly correct, but I've got to get my slashdot fix while I can at this point. And basically that means reminding myself how unaware of being ignorant intelligent people can be. It makes you stop and think about other subjects that we don't even claim to be experts in. Many of which are far more important and consequential to the world than anything you will ever read here.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
You'd think that as big a company as Microsoft is, they'd support old crufty stuff ad infinitum to give their own products that lasting aura of strength and integrity. Of course, there's no money to be made in releasing patches for 10 year old stuff, but the simple notion that all customers could have access to them could be a major competitive advantage.
Isn't one of MS's major arguments against Linux the fact that it could fork, it could die off, etc and you, as the customer, will be left holding the bag (and by their logic completely screwed) because there's no longer a big company behind Linux? So they do the same with NT and it's fine? Sure you can pay for extra support for NT, just like you can pay for a programmer to come an maintain your Linux code...
Am I crazy or does this sound like typical MS double-speak?
``NT 4.0 is too old and poorly maintained to be safe.''
There's another side to this argument. NT4 is (getting) too old to be attacked. I see many more exploits for current software (2k, XP, Linux) than for NT4. Do you see any exploits coming out for DOS or Mac OS (pre-X)? Being a small target does help.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
The other problem is the long list of other companies who are doing the same thing which tends to make everything snowball.
At work we often have big expensive machines which are controlled by computers (insert your own scenario here - manufacutring robot, high-tech scientific instrument, hospital device, extremely-complex-server, whatever). Said device controller software ran on NT4. Device vendor decides that they won't upgrade the software to run on XP (yes, it must be lousy software to not just run on the newer OS, but when you have two vendors for a given type of equipment and they both have these kinds of problems, you're up the creek). Of course, the vendor wants you to spend an extra $100k on another big machine.
So, now your OS upgrade problem just turned into a $100k machine upgrade problem. When the machine was bought, the justification was probably that it will save $x per year for the next 20 years and so we should buy it. Now you're tossing it after maybe 7 years (they wouldn't have made the software for NT4 if it had just come out). That changes the math considerably.
Of course, said machine vendor should be supporting their customers better - otherwise nobody will buy expensive machines unless they can afford to toss them every 5 years.
Note that this isn't purely MS's fault - just an illustration of the problems that dependance on vendor support lead to, and that when you depend on multiple vendors you are now subject to weakest-link issues. One vendor might tie you to a specific product, and if that product becomes unsupported you get two different vendors pointing fingers at each other...