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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."
Quick. Download the patch here
At least we will not have to continue reading stories counting down to when Microsoft finally ends support for it.
Karma: bad (mostly unaffected by funny mods)
We just make sure the MSFT's R&D Division (commonly known as 'Apple') stays in the game ...
- People who believe other people have no right to live, got no right to live ...
Does this mean NT4 is considered 'abandonware' now?
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.
who cares, i use Warp...
It will be interesting to see how many people take the Linux plunge and break from the swirling vortex of regular, forced product updates. 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.
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
I actually wonder if there are any respected company using it... Actually, since my professional life begun (circa 2000), I haven't seen a single server running it. Being lucky, I guess...
Mu
Though many years late, Windows XP is what WinNT4.0 should have been, much less NT3.51.
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?)
The upshot of this is that anyone still down in the dark ages with NT4 ought to seriously think about upgrading to XP. With an upgrade package, it will cost a whole lot less to deploy as all the devices in NT4 are already supported under XP, so there's no need to worry about hardware support like on other operating systems.
Also good news for Microsoft, they can finally pull some of those developers off that project and put them to work getting XP and Longhorn more bulletproof.
In news today, Microsoft delay the release of Longporn..... Are they going to delay the end of support for NT4? I doubt it, very much.
That's NT 4 Server. NT 4 Workstation was EOL'd over a year ago.
Let's exclude IBM Mainframes here -- despite the hardware changes and market drift over the last few decades, it's still IEBGENR & CORGZ under the skin. And they haven't dusted the o/s since the 70's...
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
You win a Custom Support Contract for Windows NT 4.0!!! :-)
Windows 2003 was released on Apr 24th, 2003.
A replacment to NT 4 was released, followed by a replacment to THAT, and NT 4 has still been getting support for a year+ after that. I'm a bit suprised that NT was still supported without needing those special contracts up untill now.
For reference, 2K will get "mainstream" support (cost-per-incidient, free hotfixes) untill Jun 30 of this year, and "extended" stupport (hourly cost, pay for hotfixes) untill Jun 30, 2010. Hotfixes are free for everyone untill '07. I can't find End-of-Life dates for Windows 2003.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
It will be interesting to see how many people take the Linux plunge and break from the swirling vortex of regular, forced product updates. 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.
The look & feel of mmc.exe is so much different than the old NT 4.0 admin utilities that it might take me a while to find my way around an NT 4.0 box - wonder how quickly it would come back to me?
Oh, and wasn't it cool how you could start windows from the command line in NT 3.51: win.exe!!! Bringing the window system inside the kernel was such a bummer.
We are still building new servers at work (a bank) to use NT4. By the time we are finished certifying Win2000 for internal use it will be 2007 at least. We still have a few dinosaurs running Solaris 2.1 (!!!) and no one wants to upgrade them because they run mission critical applications which don't allow for any downtime.
I guess I look in the closet/garage/trunk/any other weird place/ and see if I have a registered copy of NT that I really care about. You know.... I I cared about any of that crap I would know where it was.
Zoid.com
According to this: http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/support/lifec ycle/
Support Dates for Windows 2000 Server, Advanced Server, and Datacenter Server
Type of Support Availability
Mainstream
* Paid-per-incident support
* Free hotfix support
June 30, 2005
Extended
* Hourly support
* Paid hotfix support
June 30, 2010
Security hotfixes Free to all customers through March 31, 2007
Mu
Recently I was updating my Windows XP installation via windowsupdate.microsoft.com and found a rather surprising message that one should update his computer as soon as possible as support for Windows XP is coming to an end. What's next?!
Is almost 10 years of support after two differnt major updates have been released really a forced upgrade? Besides, if you still really want it, you can pay for support. Try getting profesional support for Linux kernel 2.0 (okay I might eat it for saying that when someone tells me its easy, oh well, I dont think MS is doing anything evil this time)
"January 1, 2007 Online support is no longer available."
What do they mean by this exactly? Does this mean they pull the website for Windows NT 4.0 and deny that it ever existed? I know a many companies still run Windows NT boxes stand alone (in a lot of industrial control systems), denying access to existing patches or online help for this OS doesn't make too much sense. I could see many Windows NT boxes still running for the next 10 years or so.
Just out of curiosity, what other major software vendors are still providing security (or other) hotfixes for platforms two or three generations back? Do Oracle, SAP etc. and other major commercial vendors do the same?
I know Linux does. The 2.0 development cycle has seen work from July 1996 to February 2004. Since the source is open and I'm sure there's some 2.0 folks still around, any security fixes, as rare as they come up in the kernel, could easily be backported.
Companies EOLing stuff after 9 - 10 years scares me. With the notion of pervasive computing and kernels showing up in a wide range of things, the concept of software lasting far longer than we thought is now nothing new. Consider Y2K-affected machines--engineers never thought their products would still be running 30 years later, but somehow, they were.
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.
Just think, do you really know when you're going to be replacing that server you've just setup?
"[T]he single essential element on which all discoveries will be dependent is human freedom." -- Barry Goldwater
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
What a tiny world you must live in, I know several medical organizations (with 10K+ employees) still running NT on their workstations.
Sun produces patches in support for Solaris two years after the last ship date, and ends support five years after the last ship date. That has them creating patches for Solaris 7 until next August and phase 2 support for Solaris 2.5.1 ending next September.
The "window system" is not inside the kernel. The *display system* (somewhat similar to X) runs in kernel *space* - a different thing.
Windows NT 4.0 ran on 16 megs of RAM. I have seen installs that were only using 12 megs of ram while running.
Your Average Joe
The problem is not getting support for the 2.0 kernel, you might be able to do that. But try to get support for the linux distributions that were released with a 2.x kernel and you will be lost.
Microsoft commonly waits months before they fix a found announced vulnerability. In the past Microsoft has attempted to ignore vulnerabilities, forcing security heads to make public announcements.
Dont be fooled by the statistics, NT4 hasn't been supported for a while. When was the last service pack for NT4?
The difference between support on linux and support on windows is mostly statistical. Look at debian, gentoo, even freebsd. You can upgrade to stable packages (maybe not gentoo) dynamically without running a time wasting installer.
I personally dont like these automated tools, but I'd probably use them before windows update on a critical security network.
"And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the World"
1 John 4:14
Sales:
Support:
Quoth the submitter:
> This month is the last month that hotfixes for Windows NT 4.0 will be
> released.
Microsoft Sez:
> January 1, 2005 Beginning on this date, Pay-per-incident and
> Premier support are no longer available. This includes security
> hotfixes.
That means it is already toast. Next security bug is end of the road for NT unless you sign onto their 'special migration program' with undisclosed terms and conditions and that go through '06... almost certainly Jan 1, 06.
Still not exactly horrible for a lifespan though. Although as the sole source of errata it makes it suck more than when RedHat drops support for an old version since something like Fedora Legacy for NT would be illegal. Still, people who buy closed software know and accept the fact it is a dead end.
Democrat delenda est
First the pdp8e and now this! Who can we trust for longterm support anymore???
So you're saying that the firewall should be implemented in the IP stack.
No, he's saying that a proper IP stack will not respond to a request for service from a TCP/UDP port that has no service listening to it on that machine. I'm not 100% sure of the veracity of the statement, but I'm pretty sure XP does this as prescribed.
Whether the firewall is a separate service or whether it is built into the networking stack or whether it is a separate machine sitting at the root of the network, a firewall is needed.
Yes, for any external communications, a firewall (and encrypted links if you want to be picky) is a neccesity, and has been for quite some time. SP2 finally provided a firewall on by default, and gives the average user a fighting chance.
If you are cleaning out "mal|spy|ad-ware SP2 machines every day", you work with idiots. Or perhaps you are the idiot to continue working with them. Either way, I'm glad I don't work where you work.
I'm a BOFH. I work with lusers. Lusers are SpongeBob Squarepants without the personality. They are un-intelligent generally, but more so when it comes to computers. They don't know about computer security, nor do they care, since it's not thier job to administrate thier machine. The luser should be able to log on, go about it's business and not concern itself with what is in my prevue - making sure our comapnies data is safe.
Now, the problem XP, Win2K and NT present is that I, as an intelligent, responsible admin, do all that I can to prevent security issues and they still occur regularily, despite my best efforts. In order to be truly protected, I'd need to remove some of the machines functionality, which kinda removes the point of having the bloody PC there in the first place.
When I need to teach a luser how spyware gets on to thier XP SP2 machine - firewall and all - in order to try and prevent that event from happening is when I begin to question how much value XP really provides.
Soko
"Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm." - Anonymous
I'm not sure about you, but I see this as an opportunity to move on. No one says anything about eol novell (btw, i've got clients still running novell 3.11 and the biggest problem is finding those 2GB HDD replacements at reasonable costs!) NT4 has been patched so many times, I'm surprised no one calls it a patchy server (oops, pun may be intended) - I would think that since than, *most* applications would have been stabilised, for new stuff - well... 'nuf said.
Who cares, I use XP Pro.
Oracle generally support the RDBMS for 4 years or so after release, but support doesn't cease all at once. Like MS, they phase it out. For example, 8.1.7 was officially desupported as of December 31, 2004 - it was first released in 2000, I think - so most customers don't get bugs fixed any more, unless they pay for a higher support level. Even then, bug fixes stop at the end of 2006.
(Oracle used to provide a last-ditch "support" service for *very* old RDBMS versions, where they gave you the source code and told you to fix it yourself, but they don't do that these days.)
Just for giggles is anybody reading this currently using NT4?
Looks like it's time for anyone still running NT4 to give these guys a call if they need a HotFix.
"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."
There comes a time when you really have to move on. You know, a rolling stone gathers no moss and all.
Having said that, this is one area where FOSS outshines CSS. While new stuff is being released all the time older stuff is being supported by someone or at least support can be found for it (either for hire or other means). In either event, I see this as a good point to push for FOSS.
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.
Companies refusing to EOL stuff after 10 years scares me too. I visited a firm I'd worked for long ago on a presales junket and saw they were still running a piece of code I'd written in a couple of days to shut some people up about 15 years ago. They asked me a question about its code dependencies. Brrr!
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
...you can always hire someone to maintain it. Once you are sure a version is stable and conforms there is rarely anything you need to do beyond hardware failures. With Windows, you need much more because everything is out of your hands because they have all of the source.
I think NT4 was a fine Desktop system. NT4 Server turned out to be NT4 Desktop with a few DLLs changed around and turned out to be a fairly robust system as well. All systems have to pass into legacy.
"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.
Since the current kernel is 2.x, I think it'd be easy to get support for a distro released with it.
"Consider Y2K-affected machines--engineers never thought their products would still be running 30 years later, but somehow, they were."
We had a bunch of BIOS's here at work made in 94 that failed to reboot with the correct date after y2k. That's only 6 years of useful life from a PC. And yes, we had people using those pc's for a while longer running "net time" after every reboot.
09F91102 no, 455FE104 nope, F190A1E8 uh-uh, 7A5F8A09 that's not it, C87294CE no. Ah! 452F6E403CDF10714E41DFAA257D313F.
... my poor customers who can't enter into any kind of support agreement other than me keeping their systems running?
There is software that won't run on 2k or XP. Some small companies can't afford to upgrade their software, with the economy the way it is.
At least we have Ghost to take working snapshots...
Kenny P.
Visualize Whirled P.'s
Read the article. Microsoft will continue support on all embeded versions of NT
Which would you choose?
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
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.
I however managed to get 1 linux box into production running some web services such as a frontend to our call logging database and an inventory management program, both of which i wrote myself.
All of the windows servers have a scheduled job to restart them weekly in the early hours of the morning so they work properly, and my box has an uptime of around 120 days ATM. It would be more too, except the power to the room is a bit average, even though it has 2 huge UPSs and 2 seperate power feeds.
No beer, no TV make Lifthrasir something something
At my primary school, the servers were all NT4, although that wouldn't really be considered a "respected company". At my high school everything runs on Win2k, except for a content filter, which runs some sort of UNIX, Linux I assume.
"Hello, Microsoft NT Technical Support, how may I help you?"
"Yes hello, what used version of NT do I need to buy off E-bay to qualify for the upgrade price on XP Professional?"
"That would be NT Workstation, sir."
"Great! Last thing. . .We're a big company, maybe 500 workstations in all, so do I get the 'no activation' crack from you, or do you need to transfer me to XP support?"
The only acceptable defense of scientific results is to say that they were the product of the Scientific Method.
I propose that after a company/vendor ceases ALL support for a specific piece of software, they are legally considered to have deemed the software obsolete. Thus, they are no longer legally liable for the software, and more importantly, cede all rights in relation to the software. Additionally, I propose that the company retains rights to the software as long as they are providing updates and support to keep the software useful , current, and relevant.
I figure that this makes sense, but others may have other insights.
My NT4 machines are the cleanest running machines - no spyware malware etc. No more support means no more hackers trying to get in.
My father is currently using a cast-off K6-200 I build in 1999-ish. NT4 has been rock solid for him, for what he does. I patched it up to all of the latest security patches over Christmas, but it's time to get him a new computer, I think.
I think this is it.
Microsoft does support NT 4 -- if you have a custom support agreement. There just isn't any more free fixes.
There are military deployments where NT 4 will be running until 2015 at the earliest.
On the flip side, consider also that there is plenty of Sun kit running SunOS 4 laying about as well.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
Novell was pretty darn stable, and as it was a dedicated back-end server product, wasn't really seen by its normal users.
The workstations can be upgraded all the time, and still share files/printers with an old Netware 3 or 4 server - and to the users, everything's brand new after each update.
NT 4, on the other hand, was known for crashing on its own, over time, due to memory leaks by a plethora of 3rd. party apps you were likely to run on it. (Yeah, it could be pretty stable if you only used what came with the OS itself, but how many people really did that? You couldn't even so much as manage disk quotas on user accounts without 3rd. party add-ons.)
Furthermore, lots of the NT 4 installs were on *workstations*, not just servers... So lack of features quickly becomes obvious to people in that environment. (Try installing something like a new network card in NT 4. Forget plug and play... Better pick the right driver on the first try too, or you're likely to get an instant blue screen of death you can only recover from with a full NT reinstall!)
Support possibilities are so much more tenuous when the system is closed. With an open system, in many senses support is perpetually available.
you had me at #!
Is it a "security problem" in your software if it's a bug which could lead to fisionable material detonating a trillion-dollar warship and incite a world war?
Just askin'
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
I can also think of at least one service industry corporation that built their CRM and ERP frontend from the ground up on NT 4.0. Literally tens of thousands of terminals would have to be migrated to something else.
Um, and what archiving utilities did NT 4 come with? And as to configuration editing, I much prefer the plain-text files of *nix and the .ini files of older versions of Windows to the Win32 registry, and yes, there are a number of configuration changes that require editing of the registry, even as late as Win2k. If you don't believe me, boot up a Win2k machine and try to find the GUI utility to change W32Time to getting the time from an NTP server.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
There goes the US Military!
I think you are talking about NT 3.x, not 4.x
-- Microsoft is the most expensive commodity operating system and office suite vendor in the marketplace.
In my experience, NT 4.0 will 'find' and install a new network card pretty easily. It won't` mind you, pop up a 'plug and play' dialogue during a boot, potentially throwing the whole system into a loop, like some other OS versions.
You appear to be dabbling in warmed-up old FUD anecdotes. Perhaps you should be careful. There are a lot of people here who know better. Your credibility may suffer.
"What's the frequency Kenneth?"
There is nothing in the world so self-defeating as to bring an attitude like this into the workplace. Everyone picks up on it and you will be at war from the day you arrive.
Well, they did port NT4 to Alpha, MIPS, and PPC, didn't they?
All's true that is mistrusted
It is a bit unfortunate that MS offered more support for NT than RH would for RH 5.0 and try getting suppor for Mandrake distros before 9.x--prety thin on thr ground I'd guess. To be fair MS is huge and sitting on a few billion so I thing they can foot the bill for the support. I do tend to cut Mandrake some slack being they had to pull themselves out of bancruptcy protection and all.
Ultimately, we don't need to expect a Linux vendor to have as long a support cycle. One thing that is different is that the Linux distro companies is that they do not control the source code, and that code is publicly available to anyone forever (the Linux kernel right back to the first 0.whatever release is available). Not only that, the Linux kernel support team DOES support old kernels--a lot of relevant patches are still backported to the 2.0.x kernels (which are as old as NT4). That is one of closed sources disadvantages-the vendor has to either open the source or offer indefinite support or the project is 100% guaranteed to become extinct.
Honestly, if your system is SO critical that you cannot change the core of your OS once every eight years then you either have the skills to deal with the lack of vendor-specific support for the old distro, or you more likely you made the wrong platform choice. If you needed a system that could be locked away and continuously run ontouched--with no mainteneance and upgrading--for THAT LONG, then you wouldn't use a PC-based server, you'd have gotten an IBM 390/Z-series/AS400 or a DEC/Compaq/HP VMS system and paid the boatloads of money to the vendor for support (REAL support, which MS has never been known to provide).
Interestingly enough, even today MS Windows platform is not an option on REAL "big iron" (well, anyways your choices are severely limited), while today linux is a valid choice. And downtime due to upgrades is not a concern on these big Linux systems, because you can stage the upgrade on another partition on the same hardware and just switch over when everything is set up. totoal downtime would be measured in milliseconds.
Stuff in Solaris dosen't change often...
/tmp in a RAM disk and journaled filesystems and improved threading and improved scheduling, etc., but it'll still run older binaries with no problem.
The _external_interfaces_ don't change often, but a lot can change under the hood in Solaris. Solaris 9 has
-- Microsoft is the most expensive commodity operating system and office suite vendor in the marketplace.
The GNU toolchain, including TAR and all the 'usual suspects' had been available on NT almost since the beginning. A lot of console-oriented UNIX heads grabbed hold of NT right away. It was so much better than anything else, at the time, that would run on crummy PeeCee hardware.
"What's the frequency Kenneth?"
I am running a dual-boot laptop with Debian (2.4 kernel, KDE,) and NT4SP6. The NT partition is only for running Office and VB for work-related items (offline,) and as a backup in case I screw up the Debian partition. I've been too cheap and lazy to upgrade to anything else, since I haven't really been able to find a reason to upgrade given my needs.
Now everyone can, thanks to Microsoft.
Suse dropping support for a previous version (if that is even true) isn't the same thing as Microsoft dropping support for a previous product of theirs. There is a huge difference (two words actually) Open Source. You can upgrade and/or patch your kernel, you can upgrade and/or patch your applications. You can't do it yourself with Microsoft's products; you have to wait on their staff to create "fixes" or spend more money on third party "solutions".
Don't laugh... I still have to deal with NT4, Novell, and Os/2 Warp systems at work. Our Windows servers run every Windows from NT4 to Server 2k3, except ME. We just expanded into a new office, and now our users in the new office can't access stuff off the OS/2 server. Unfortunately, nobody currently with the company has ever done anything with OS/2, so we aren't 100% sure how to fix it...
Please, don't give me pity. give me a swift boot to the head.
I'm a BOFH. I work with lusers....
Uh, you're an IT janitor. Making all the usual assumptions about the other people in the building who don't repect your high-tech broom cart.
"What's the frequency Kenneth?"
...VirtualPC on a Mini Mac may perform just about as well with the same program!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Too late. I've never bsod'd a box installing NICs on NT4, ever, and I have done many. His credibility is going, going... ... gone.
help me i've cloned myself and can't remember which one I am
At Time Doctor Dot Org, we've already upgraded to the latest service pack of windows xp home, and services for unix for our web server and mail server. The Aliens Versus Predator server is next from Windows NT.
Check out ioquake3.org for a great, free, First-Person Shooter engine!
Go watch the movie Office Space if you dont get the joke :)
Isn't this a bit like a car company coming out with a release that their car has some serious defect, but since they took so long to find it, they now get to make a profit on the recall?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't Ford be in just a bit of trouble if they came out every five years and said "Our 1998 model vehicles have serious flaws, but have been EOLed, so please purchase a recall contract, or buy a new high quality Ford vehicle".
I can understand charging people for a new version of software, but with hotfixes, we are talking about making the software DO WHAT THEY SAID IT WOULD DO when you bought it in the first place. And since they are resorting to this strategy, obviously a large number of people felt that a new version of the software with its attendant features had nothing to offer... if that wasn't the case they wouldn't use EOL as a tool to force upgrades.
Someone needs to call MS on this -- software, after all, does not wear out... if it did it's job five years ago, it should continue to do so. In this case, the only reason that it has stopped working is that it was defective in the first place (and yes, a major security exploit is a defect in the product.)
What we really need is a ten day waiting period and a background check before you can buy a congressman.
LRC, the best-read libertarian site on the web
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.
...my good man: EMULATION SCENE
There have been options for classic system owners for awhile now. Our family owned a Coleco ADAM that we used for more than just games (no really!). Still have it in fact (just don't use it). In the late 80s ADAM enthusiasts were starting to connect their ADAMS to IBMs with something called "ADAMServer"---basically a null-modem connection that let the PCs fixed and floppy disk drives appear as local devices do you could make disk and tape images of your software. Furthermore, although the directory structure was different, the Coleco floppy was a fairly common format used on many CP/M systems and the original IBM PC (160K single sided) so for awhile you could use one of those machines to read the disks at a block level on one of those systems. Most data files were ASCII-readable, and by the mid 90s there was Windows/Linux/Mac emulator so you could run aplications and still use your SmartFiler database or ADAMCalc spreadsheets if they were that important to you.
That is for a short-lived, relatively uncommon system. Apple IIs, Commodores, TRS80s and Atari 8-bits were much longer lived and more numerous, so when the writing was on the wall there were likely far more options. Heck, if you have old Apple II, Comodore and TRS80 cassette tapes you can back them up by putting them in any old cassette recorder, connecting it to the line-in on your computer and recording the sqeals. the programs out there to convert these audio streams to binary images are probably more reliable than the circuitry in the original systems anyways.
Yes, the business world is all about "if it aint broke why fix it", but running PCs for over 10 years with no upgrades at all seems to take that to the extreme. I'd think that when the local computer shop said it was going to stop stocking 8-inch floppies soon that it would be a clue-in that you'd better start migrating. Besides that, there is something called *innovation*. Yes, for too long MS has upgraded windows and office in a pretty blatant move to prop up its revenue stream, but some innovations are pretty fundamental...like colour graphics, sound, high-density disks, laser printers.
Surely your dad's friend had to see that it was hurting his bottom line long before the mid 90s. What kind of impression does it make on your clients when you send correspondence printed on dot matrix and daisywheel printers or you spend all night futzing over a Visicalc spreadsheet or an ancient Peachtree system to balance the books? Most businesses upgrade or replace SOME equipment (even non-IT related equipment) more often than that. I find it baffling that a business could be successful otherwise, but I guess it happens--I remember a Dell contest about old PCs still being used where a lawyer who was an early PC enthusiast bought an Altair in th 70s with an eye on using it to run his firm--and did so continuously until he won the Dell contest 23 years later. Astonishing, but even that guy had continually upgraded the Altair and has ways to get his data out of that system.
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?
Killing NTW was a kick in the stomach, to make the forced upgrade "hit home". They wouldn't be able to do it with NTS, however - consider that I had a quirked out UPS in one rack, and it took almost a week to create an opportunity to swap it out (you can't just dump a full 8-foot rack for an hour).
So, that's why. The NTS patches can easily be made to patch NTW as you suggest. Microsoft's artificially dumping NTW would act as a scare-tactic leverage, giving adequate time to start the ball rolling with the various budget processes. And remember, the bulk of NTS upgrades will carry 6 and 7 digit pricetags.
help me i've cloned myself and can't remember which one I am
All of the things you mentioned could be solved by external devices (especially storage) connected via firewire.
However, of course you'd probably only be replacing light duty servers that were probably running some old crufty crucial app with these boxes. If you just need a PDC or some raw storage, a newer Linux box would work much better - or any one of a thousand other soultions. I am just thinking of the case where you have a key app that needs NT to keep breathing, kind of like old legacy mainframe apps.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
...do you? Get out of your little bubble man! As if Linux systems are all PCs!
Msec?? Really??. When is the last time your linux system booted within 10 seconds?
My email, web and firewall servers? Never. The handheld, wireless Linux terminals that had Linux in flash rom? They always booted up way faster than 10 seconds.
These are not your basic beige Intel boxesI was talking about, these are $250K z-series workhorses. And a "partition" isn't just a little piece of an ATA hard drive--it is a completely self-contained virtual system within the hardware. You can reboot any partitions you want to your hearts content so long as you leave the production systems up. When you are done staging an upgrade (install, configure, regression testing etc etc) you just boot it up (however long that takes) then "throw the switch" when it is up and ready to go. Until that time, the prodution system hums away undisturbed on another partition.
Result? Service disruption that is LITERALLY milliseconds. That's my point--if a solution is SO critical that it MUST stay on 24/7 for THAT long, you don't just throw any old commodity hardware at it running Windows. If you didn't have to pay six-figures for the hardware and software that is acutally scalable then upgrading once or twice a decade to maintain reliable support isn't a problem for you--it is something you are just whining about. Windows serves the small and midrange market fine but it is not and never will be a contender in the very-large-enterprise market where such extended support is required--period.
The nice thing is the custom app could live on a fixed (and non-modfyable, or at least easily refreshable) disc image while data was written to a Mac area to keep clean.
:-)
Thank you for the clever Voltaire reference.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
NT4 was one of the least screwed up systems from Microsoft. :)
Actually typing this away from a NT4 system running some custom software driving some custom hardware. (of course Mozilla+Gimp+Cygwin as my life support too
Eh, if Microsoft released NT4 as open source, now that would be something!
Anagram("United States of America") == "Dine out, taste a Mac, fries"
The graphics subsystem was moved into kernel space in 3.51, IIRC.
I connect my linux box to the DMZ port on my router. Haven't had any trouble. Why should I? The only port with anything listening on it is 80 with apache, which I'd have to put a hole in my firewall for anyway. If I don't have any other open ports than the ones I'm actually using, I don't need to firewall them off. Why doesn't windows work the same way?
I am trolling
FINALLY I have an excuse to get rid of the aging NT4 desktops that we have.
Now... Windows 2000 (I think XP is a bit optimistic for the spec involved) or a Linux trial...
$250 dollars a support call, and move a good chunk of that to low paid overseas outsourcers, I bet you'll see them supporting their products for a long time. Until then, I guess you'll just have to upgrade to Fedora if you're on the cheap. Or White Hat Linux if you want stability.
Oh, and for the record, NT4 -> WinXP is not a supported upgrade path.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
2000 is a fine OS to stay with, as it has some nice improvements over NT4 (USB, power management, etc). I think ending 2000 support will prove tougher than NT4 has been.
You think? Please, I hope so.
The University I'm transferring to (Woodbury University, Burbank, CA US) requires its students to have three pieces of software on an x86 computer (they'd like you to have a laptop but a desktop is fine if that's all you've got) which are:
Windows 98/98SE/ME/2000/XP
MS Office 2000 or XP (they don't seem to like the new versions and will tolerate 97)
SPSS
OK, so I have a ThinkPad 600e 400MHz (PII). I have a 40GB hard drive with a 7GB Windows 2000 partition and the rest with Debian Sarge/Sid. The W2K partition has Office 2K already. SPSS will have to wait until I'm actually there.
To be blunt, I would rather have everything running on Linux and be done with it. OpenOffice.Org can do anything that Office 2K can in a collegiate environment unless you are running complex financial crap that requires pivot tables and macros and stuff like that which a college student will never see unless they are an accounting major.
The big tough nut to crack has been SPSS. Neither Wine nor Cedega nor Codeweavers has been able to get that puppy to run. So yeah, it looks like the "dark side" partition is here to stay for a while.
I refuse to run XP. It is bloated for no reason other than to trowel on the eye candy. Windows 2000 does everything that XP can, without the increase in overhead.
According to reports, there will be no Windows 2000 SP5. Apparently MS will be doing a monolithic "Post SP4 Security Rollup" but then that will be it for major security upgrades. The takehome message seems to be "XP: like it or lump it."
The only OS upgrade I'm gonna do after W2K is Linux on everything, fuck Microsoft. However, the small detail that puts a fly into the ointment is that SPSS isn't available there. If there will be no more security patches, then I'm going to have to completely run it in a bubble. No more connecting to the Internet with it. No more connecting to an untrusted network, period. And I will not consider Woodbury a trusted network. Too many random factors involved.
What I would really like to do is run the W2K shit in a virtual machine under Linux. However VMWare is just too damn rich for my blood.
If the talk of "no more security updates for Windows 2000" is just that, talk, and the real story is that there will be updates up until 2007, (when if I'm lucky I've graduated already and maybe I'm moving on to a more Linux-friendly school for the school counseling credentialling process) then I can exhale.
If not, I have to start looking at alternative ways of dealing with my SPSS problem. Yes, I know there's the R Project and other SPSS-like packages for Linux. But I have no idea whether R Project or any of the others will do what my profs are expecting me to do with SPSS. And I'm certainly not expert enough in stats (I'm barely swimming in Algebra right now) to know on my own.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
Dear NT4 user,
You paid us for NT4 (you DID pay us for NT4, didn't you?) some time ago. We know it still works fine, we just want more money from you. So we'll stop supporting it and you'll get in trouble from your PHB unless you upgrade to the new, wonderful, Windows (insert current version here).
We don't think in terms of long term reliability, we just want you to keep our cashflow healthy by buying new versions every couple of years. If your applications break with the new version, we don't care! You'll buy our new development tools, we think. If you have to buy new hardware, well, too bad. We don't care if our new version is more bloated than the last version, just so long as it's new and improved! And you think you just have to keep buying your OS and applications from us!
Yours,
A Microsoft sales resource.
!@$%^"!$%mphh. What happened? Did I "go off" again? What did I write this time?
Well, here I am at work, using an NT 4 box and writing this.
The company I work for is a LARGE multi-national utility company (electric / gas / water), So it seems they do.
Sure hate flash ads and over page ads as they flicker really bad under these nt4 machines.
+----------------- | What is the question!
The company I work for just finished migrating a large UK government dept from NT 3.51 to W2k.
We had to upgrade them we were having problems getting printer drivers!!
Although with mainstream support for W2k going out the window this year they'll be looking at doing it all over again soon. What a great way to waste taxpayers money.
I've been doing tech support for non-profits for just a couple months and already ran into a lot of NT systems. When budget is a big consideration (as with these organizations) the last thing they want to do is spend money on new software if the existing stuff still works. Computers are not their primary focus, so as long as the job gets done upgrades remain a low priority.
Then, of course, there are the servers -- often old installations are left in place because the benefits of an upgrade are outweighed by the risk of downtime and other hassles resulting from unforeseen incompatibilities, driver issues, and other problems.
Why won't you die NT4? You should have left so long ago but you keep showing up in this world. I refuse support and yet you keep popping up in my datacenters. You know the law! A program can either choose to hide in the Matrix, or return to The Source. Return to the Source! Return and play havoc on the Architech.
Did you know people sell Windows software to run Power Stations?
So that the admins can from their INSECURE INTERNET CONNECTION at home - manage and regulate electricity flow?
Am I spreading FUD?
Do your own fukkin research!
I aint kidding - I refused to represent an American company that sold such kits.
It won't be long till we are struck with a real catastrophe through terrorist hacking.
You would assume they have a SUN support contract if theyre critical systems... SUN will still support SunOS 4.x (Solaris 1.x) if you pay them to. As for breaking down, sun hardware and solaris is a very reliable combination, far moreso than any x86 hardware running any version of windows.
And finally, solaris has a very good compatibility between releases, the software running on solaris 2.1 will almost certainly run without problems on solaris 10 or anything in between, just that upgrading would almost certainly involve replacing the hardware too, and some downtime which they don't want. If the hardware failed i'm sure they could get it back up and running on solaris 10 on modern hardware just as quickly as if they replaced the existing hardware and restarted solaris 2.1
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
Back in the day, I was charged with getting data off a CP/M system running dBase with 8" floppies. I ended up connecting a null modem cable to the serial port and printing the database into a PC running PROCOM.
There has got to be a way to get data off a TRS-80. Heck, you don't even need to worry about EBCDIC conversion.
OpenBSD's default install is with the firewall disabled, and you can feel comfortable deploying it in a hostile environment.
Microsoft should open-source everything that opens server ports in Windows (especially ports 137-139). XP wouldn't need a firewall if they did this.
Of course, running on an architecture that helps out with security (NX) will also reduce intrusions.
Especially NT4 server.
And you get a full GUI environment, on anything from 486 on up. Linux advocates carry on about Linux leveraging older hardware, but I can think of any linux distro that gives me a fast and complete GUI on 486.
To say it's only received security patches for the past ten years is nonsense. It's gone from version 6 to version 8 in that timeframe, and VMS version revs are none-trivial. Just go to the website and read the "new features" document.
Why, now it supports IDE out of the box!
(There's also a pile of other stuff to do with filesystems, system partitioning and other boring stuff, too)
Peter
Ultimately, we don't need to expect a Linux vendor to have as long a support cycle. One thing that is different is that the Linux distro companies is that they do not control the source code, and that code is publicly available to anyone forever (the Linux kernel right back to the first 0.whatever release is available). Not only that, the Linux kernel support team DOES support old kernels--a lot of relevant patches are still backported to the 2.0.x kernels (which are as old as NT4). That is one of closed sources disadvantages-the vendor has to either open the source or offer indefinite support or the project is 100% guaranteed to become extinct.
You're right of course but you're not comparing like with like. Linux is just the kernel, NT is the OS. Can you still find all the programs and utilities that make your system useable back to an equivalent level of the 2.0.x kernel? What about the ones the distro customized and/or provided their own updates for - are those old packages still available with source?
As to spending hours cleaning Spyware/AdAware/Crap off people's systems, seems like you have some people doing things they shouldn't be. I recently ran SpyWare/AdAware against my home Win2k box and I didn't have a single piece of SpyWare/AdAware on it. After a complete update of the detection files and rules, after all the last time I checked was August of '04, nothing was found. Makes you wonder what people are doing and where they are going on the web. Oh and my wife uses the computer 90% of the time browsing her chat boards.
Oracle certainly does. Keep in mind, however, that Oracle would not be moving customers to some "extended support" option that they have to pay extra for after 10 years or something. The whole support period is "extended support," and they pay for it throughout.
Now before I get modded down, I be to remind whoever might read this that what I am saying is FACT. - bogaboga
My local library has VT100s. And no, that was NOT a joke.
I don't know what they're connected to. I really don't want to know...
Good... it's finally gone (or going at least). Software that was released in 1996 can be considered extinct in IT terms. Microsoft released an upgrade to NT in 1999, called Windows 2000. In 2003 they updated that with Windows 2003. There's absolutely no reason to still use NT!
Hats off to Microsoft though, yes it had its problems but NT 4.0 was a vast improvement over NT 3.51 and the only other desktop OS offering at the time was Windows 95. Ewww.
On a system that old, I imagine keeping glibc and whatever userland you're using up to date is a lot harder than the kernel.
Now before I get modded down, I be to remind whoever might read this that what I am saying is FACT. - bogaboga
Here's a quick test. Grab 5 or 10 of them and sit them down in front of a Linux box. If they can't be bothered to learn some basic common sense security practices when using Windows, an operating system they are already familiar with, then I'd love to see how quickly they can and/or are willing to learn Linux and the brand spanking new set of applications that they will have to use on the platform.
After your done hearing them bitch and moan about how things are different and don't work the way they are "supposed to", then you'll understand the innate value in sitting the user down in front of an OS and a series of applications that they are familiar with. Say what you will about Windows and some other Microsoft products, but there is some value in having an OS and series of applications that don't require serious retraining of your users. Especially if you have a lot of users, and the majority are apathetic and unwilling to learn.
As horrible as Windows can be sometimes from an admin's perspective, there can be real value in sticking with the platform on the client end (and in some rare occasions, the server end) depending on your user base and company requirements.
If you've got a smart user base who's generally willing to learn new things, then by all means get them to Linux if it's possible. If, however, you have a bunch of apathetic idiots, moving them all to a new platform can end up being more trouble than it's worth.
So its not really end of life, if you want to pony up the cash to be on the special program.
Sort of sux for those that have to keep NT a while.. but its their product.. they can isolate whom ever they like.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Uh... no. It is as if you were getting parts for the car for free, and suddenly you have to pay for them.
The horror!
You don't even need to do that. You just need to pay them.
The horror!
Or... you could just pay Microsoft for the patches.
The horror!
Now before I get modded down, I be to remind whoever might read this that what I am saying is FACT. - bogaboga
That is their way out, get to the point that everything is leased, and you are forced to upgrading and continually paying..
Much as most of the Microsoft MOLP agreements are like. You get a grace period, but must upgrade to current versions eventually.
And if you decline to renew, then your current licenses go poof..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
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...
For Windows OS and for general products.
In fact, because I'm such a nice guy:
Business Solutions
Consumer/Hardware/Multimedia
Developer Tools
Macintosh Products
Office
Servers
Windows
Windows Embedded
I had a friend who worked for tivoli for a while (back in 2000). He mentioned that IBM was still supporting OS2 and that they would until support contracts that were signed a long time ago ran out.
-- john
In an ideal world you should be OK, but you're open to a few avenues of attack:
1. By having all your ports accessible to the outside world at the very least your IP shows up on a portscan directed at any port. Now, if you have port 80 open that is pretty-much inevitable, but if you only open port 8574 for some odd service, then you get some security-by-obscurity simply by forcing port-scanners to pick that port to check. If a hacker knows your IP exists, they might give it more attention.
2. By not firewalling unneeded ports at an outside point, you run the risk of inadvertently starting up some server which listens on an outside interface. By having a firewall you don't need to worry about stuff like that, since you have to explictly enable outside connections.
3. By opening up all ports you are potentially vulterable to obscure kernel bugs in your TCP stack. These come up only on very rare occassions, but you could be away at work and the annoucement might come out that any linux box with port 17 exposed to the outside world can be remotely exploited due to some flaw in the TCP stack. If you had everything but port 80 blocked you wouldn't have to call home to the wife and tell her to power the thing off until you get home and patch it. This is an unlikely scenario, but why leave unneeded ports open?
One advantage of a firewall is that it is an independant network guardian. If somebody finds a way to hack a linksys router I'm fine since they'd only get as far as my linux box on the other end, which I keep up to date with patches. If somebody finds a flaw in linux I'm safe since they'd have to get past the router first. I've forced an attacker to exploit two zero-day flaws at once, which is much less likely. If you run only a software firewall, or if you run the same OS on your firewall and production box, you lose this protection.
Can you get by without a firewall - sure. If you've already paid for one should you use it - probably.
Thanks unfirewalled-NT 4.0!
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
This is actually the seventh time Slashdot has cried WOLF on this. I don't believe them anymore. I wll be glad to see NT go, but slashdot hasn't any credibility in this area for me any more. I can point to 7 different articles in the last 3 years where slashdot articles were posted saying MS was dropping support for NT. They were all obviously wrong as it has not yet happened to date.
We have several NT 4 servers in use. Looking for patches for the one I'm in charge of, I found this... http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?fa milyid=4604400A-287E-48CC-91B1-BEE44EEA588C&displa ylang=en
I'm confused. Does that not qualify as a "hot fix"?
O_o
BS.
Software wears out when the inputs presented to it no longer conform to the assumptions made when it was being written. For example, a JPEG codec written in 1993 might not have been designed with the expectation that people would be using it to compress 10"x14"x1200dpi scanned images, but may work perfectly well with the kinds of files floating around in the mid '90s. That's not necessarily a flaw, particularly if replacing the smaller, bounded algorithms with infinitely-scalable routines would have cost a lot of money with little return, and made the end product run like crap on the processors available at the time.
Furthermore, you can't always blame ancient security vulnerabilities on bad code by the standards present when it was written. New exploits and vectors pop up all the time, and it's hard to fault someone for opening a hole in their code written ten years ago that wasn't even dreamed up until last week. I absolutely guarantee you that ten years from now, we'll be looking at the stuff we consider to be relatively secure today with disgust that we could have been so naive.
I am hardly a Microsoft apologist, but it's not necessarily reasonable to evaluate their ancient code against current best practices. Do you really want to hold RedHat 4 accountable to those standards?
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
> net time /setsntp:pool.ntp.org
That doesn't look like a GUI either.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
2. Partly, but servers on privilidged ports have to be started by root and I'm only root when installing software. As long as I keep my kernel (well, and anything setuid, but that's very few programs) up to date, the worst that can happen is letting someone access a user account by exploiting a vulnerability in one of the small number of servers which run on high ports. Wheras with a firewall, it's a kerfuffle when I deliberately start a new service, and doubly so if it's something that uses a number of ports e.g. bittorrent. I feel that I'm more likely to start services intentionally than accidentally.
3. Yes, this is the one real risk. But most tcp stack bugs would work on any port, so as long as I have at least one port open I don't gain very much by firewalling. And people with no open ports should be denied IP addresses.
I am trolling
The real patch is here.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
It must be pretty close.
Wish I had mod points, because your post was very good.
The bottom line is this: the only IT jobs that are going to be left in this country in a few years are going to be the ones where you deal directly with people. Most of the "geek locked behind the server room door" jobs are going overseas (programming) or are being relegated to lower-paid maintenance jobs (local sysadmin for an outsourcer.)
Unless you're the _one guy_ who keeps your entire company's core business up and running, no one is exempt from the people skills requirement in IT anymore. That used to be the case, but no longer. The insurance company I used to work for had some pretty anti-social mainframe programmer types...I don't think they'll survive the next wave of outsourcing.
I agree totatly that you have to have people skills in order to be an IT guy. The last IT related job we had open for our company was a glorified helpdesk person. We had all kinds of people applying just because it was an IT job. Some guy w/ only experience on Macs was applying for a Microsoft shop. Go figure. We had an applicant come in who was the picture perfect computer person. Wearing the only suit he owned and looked like he crawled out of his mother's basement. Everyone here could tell he was there for the "IT job". He didn't have the people skills needed for the job.
THe best advice I ever received was "When you are talking on the phone, try to listen to yourself. If you can't understand what you are saying, chances are they can't." This advice has served me well, I have had an IT job since graduating from college and have increased my skills and responsibility.
IF you don't want to loose your job to some dude in India, then work on your people skills and find some place they can't offshore, or don't want to.
Umm.... I've done *many* myself over the years, and I assure you, I've seen quite a few cards BSOD an NT 4 box if you don't get the settings exactly right.
Example 1: Dell Latitude laptops such as the CPi. These came pre-loaded with NT 4 and were "certified for NT 4" use by Dell. Install a Xircom PCMCIA ethernet card in one. You'll immediately get asked which I/O address and IRQ it's on. Pick incorrectly and blam - BSOD.
Example 2: NT 4 on older hardware with ISA slots and NE-2000 cards.
OK, everyone loves to bash Microsoft because they are the huge multibillion dollar corporation... but expecting Microsoft to support all it's software indefinitly and forever is bad for the little guys.
Once there is some sort of precident that says that software companies have to support their software forever, that is going to make a lot of small companies not viable.
Microsoft will just keep tacking more money on the "Microsoft Tax" to hire more people to take care of it, or lawyers to protect them from the liability. Tiny companies who do not dominate the market will go out of buisness, because they will not have the money to support every product that ever existed (and the people who demand that products are supported for life will still not get any support).
It was done in NT 4.0. That was one of its major features (the improved graphics performance).
In enterprise systems though, the context is rapidly shifting and the machines involved are way more general-purpose. In that context a cheap (read "free") software upgrade would make sense, as you're leveraging statistics for a set of fixes that are likely to help you in many scenarios. That's the sort of atmospheric-pressure marketing a company can use. Embedded systems aren't upgraded without the hardware context as a rule.
I don't know though -- there may be elevator engineers who download a software update everytime someone presses the ground floor button.
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
Sorry for the misspelling ... Wiki has an article on the venerable AN/UYK-8 at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AN/UYK-8
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear