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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
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.
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.
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
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
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.
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
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
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?
> Though many years late, Windows XP is what WinNT4.0 should have been
Yeah, and in two years you'll be calling it crap, just like the people who used to rave about NT poop on it now.
Why don't you beat the rush and admit that XP is crap now.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
"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.
... 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
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
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.
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.
My NT4 machines are the cleanest running machines - no spyware malware etc. No more support means no more hackers trying to get in.
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
That's not a bad idea, an unpatched Windows XP it's a time bomb ready to explode. People that format their pc usually just grab their 2001 Windows XP CD, put it in and proceed with the instalation. Once finished, they connect to the internet without patching and 1 minute later their PC it's a spam sending zombie.
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.
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?
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.
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?
...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 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...