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Half Of Businesses Still Use Windows 2000
bonch writes "An AssetMetrix study shows that half of business are still running Windows 2000 four years after the release of Windows XP, and that usage of Windows 2000 has only decreased by 4% since 2003. Microsoft will officially stop supporting Windows 2000 by the end of this month, offering one last update rollup later this year. Windows XP's slower adoption illustrates Microsoft's difficulty in competing with the popularity of its own software platform, and makes it more difficult for Microsoft to convince people to upgrade when Longhorn is released late next year."
when Longhorn is released late next year
Yeak, okay...
I have not run into a compelling reason to upgrade from Win2k to XP. Win2k has been very stable for me. It seems that my XP boxes get more security patches than my Win2k boxes. I don't need all the eye candy of XP.
Windows XP's slower adoption illustrates Microsoft's difficulty in competing with the popularity of its own software platform
I don't think the "popularity" of Windows 2000 is a factor. I think its more of businesses have a hard time justifying that hit for another $199 to Microsoft for an updated version when the version they've already paid for meets their needs.
I want a new quote. One that won't spill. One that don't cost too much. Or come in a pill.
Certainly in the mass market. Why upgrade if you're not getting any significant benefit and possibly causing yourself huge amounts of grief?
Deleted
The simple fact of the matter is that upgrading from Windows 2k to Windows XP, doesn't offer much, a server running Windows 2003 Server, can still operate the same without switching the clients to Windows XP. Windows 2000 also takes uses less hardware requirements, and if it runs all their programs with ease, why would they risk switching to a new OS with problems? Then there is the fact of security Windows 2k has been around about 5 years, its going to have less exploits then a system like XP which can have more potential security flaws, then ones that been around longer.
Well the blurb might have been a little harsh but...
Mainstream
* Paid-per-incident support
* Free hotfix support
Is what expires next month.
In the drops - An Aussie's musings on all things cycling
There are two main reason I have seen for not upgrading:
1. There isn't very much difference between XP and 2000. 2000 is a fairly stable platform that runs pretty much all the same software as XP. "If it ain't broke"
2. The activation stuff sucks. Even as a legal owner I find it is a huge pain in the ass. This is especially true when you upgrade a server. It's not uncommon to upgrade servers either by changing/adding hardware or just replacing the whole machine which can cause you to have to reactivate Windows. Now, it's not that hard to reactivate but it's just a stupid little thing you have to do and the machine won't work until it's done. It feels risky to upgrade machines running XP because you're not sure if everything will go smoothly because of the activation crap.
I use 2000 on my main development machine because sometimes I do have to change the hardware for testing purposes and I got tired of having to continuously reactivate Windows.
I don't know what I'm going to do if they stop supporting 2000. More reason to spend more time in Linux or OS X I guess (although technically I simply must spend some time in Windows for development purposes).
The ratio of people to cake is too big
Here is a list of the new features in XP. Notice the use of words like "Enhanced, Improved, Greater, Easier" -
.NET Platform
For the life of me, I can't figure out why anybody would consider moving thousands of workstations to XP. The only thing I can come up with is the built in firewall which can be controlled via group policy.
User interface improvements? Big deal, so now it looks like nintendo. Better help? Users call the help desk. 64 bit? Big deal...
-Intelligent User Interface
-Comprehensive Digital Media Support
-Greater Application and Device Compatibility
-Enhanced File and Print Services
-Improved Networking and Communications
-Integrated Help and Support Services
-Improved Mobile Computing
-Reliability Improvements
-Stronger Security Protections
-Easier Manageability
-64-Bit Support
-Looking Forward: The Microsoft
It has to be released then according to MS: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/lifecycle/default .mspx
Check out the table. Notice how the licencing end dates run out at the end of this year for OEMs and next year for system builders? Longhorn has to fill that spot or the contracts need to be renegotiated.
How much of the other half still runs win95/98/me ? It just depends when they bought their comuters and how long they last, not how long MS thinks its software should last.
This space is intentionally staring blankly at you
I'm the only IT guy, and my company uses a windows2000 server with active directory and such on a Dell. Runs fine.
Assuming you're under fifty employees, have you looked at MS's Small Business Server? For about the price of the server OS on its own you get all the big server products provided you run them all on the same box.
Granted, there's not a lot to make SBS 2003 a must-have over SBS 2000 apart from:
1. Exchange 2003's Outlook Web Access is much nicer than 2000's
2. ISA Server 2004 instead of ISA 2000 (if you get the SBS 2003 Premium edition and apply SP1)
and they're just nice-to-haves really, along with all the other Server 2003 nice-to-haves.
I can recall similar tales of various versions of NT back in the day suffering from slow adoption. Aside from what has been previously stated in this thread about just what XP offers to business users as opposed to 2000 (almost nothing), let's keep mitigating factors in mind.
.NET being scrapped as native to the OS, there are less headaches than one could initially surmise. I will stress, however, that the pattern of not being able to get something to work right and trashing it demonstrates a development problem which, if not rectified by now or soon, could result in an extremely poor product coming out of Redmond. They need to be at the top of their game, as their enemies come from all fronts with attractive offerings of their own these days...
The enterprise costs of XP in support are greater than 2000 in a number of cases. Many companies bought into 2000 in the very beginning, and got hardware that worked at that time. Resources are a problem for many of the machines built OEM for Win2k. Additionally, compatibility issues with other software and hardware solutions arise. Speaking from personal experience, our company committed to a software phone system which, as it turned out when we tried to upgrade to XP, just STOPPED WORKING. This is really bad for a CALL CENTER. Compatibility issues such as these mar XP's widespread corporate adoption.
I will go so far as to predict Longhorn will have the same adoption problem if Redmond continues current patterns. With WinFS and
The Crimson Dragon
Do you know how many businesses use 98 still? A LOT. Many businesses are still using 95 and 98 on their old computers because they can't afford new computers. Businesses are not going to change as quickly as Microsoft wants them to. NEWS FLASH!
Did you ever notice that *nix doesn't even cover Linux?
WinXP is laid out all screwy too, makes it really hard to configure or use. I don't think it's any more stable either. Also, the "eye candy" you refer to is absolutely garish - it's like they got a retarded monkey to try to imitate Mac OSX. First thing I did on my work computer (which is XP unfortunately) was switch the style to classic to save my eyes and some of my sanity.
With the eye-candy disabled, XP is just a more up-to-date Win2K - just as stable/unstable really.
The interesting thing is - what % of businesses are XP? Even if MS get some of the Win2K people to go to XP - how are they going to get the XP people to go to Longhorn? It isn't going to happen extensively!!! MS are actually possibly more screwed (at least in terms of getting people to Longhorn) if they get Win2K people to go to XP at this stage.
And it's still long time to wait for direct Win2K -> Longhorn upgrades (2 years? More? -including evaluation/install time for businesses).
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Your system is down for a minimum of several days, and possibly weeks as all the apps have to be reinstalled/upgraded/reconfigured. It may not work at all.
If the system is WORKING then only a fool would bugger about with it. I have no intention of upgrading any of my WIn2K servers until such time as they are down for other reasons. And even then, only if I am sure that all the third party apps are guaranteed to work - most of our mission critical stuff is ONLY certified for WIn2k server edition. Mission-critical means if its down, we stop earning money. So down is not very good news.
Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
Like the link says, only "Mainstream" support will end. You can still get support on a per-incident basis (which isn't really that much different then before.)
Additionally, Microsoft will continue to release security fixes for Windows 2000 for several more years - they still release patches for Windows 98 now.
It won't change much for most people.
At my company, we've got several hundred servers running Windows 2000 still. IIS6 in IIS5 compatibility mode isn't perfect, and IIS6 in native mode breaks a lot of apps. And there's a ton of other little gotchas with Windows Server 2003 - Can't run Exchange 2000 on it, can't run a lot of 3rd party software, etc etc. It's not an extremely hard upgrade but like any other major upgrade it's a lot of preparation.
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
I like Windows XP. However, I just don't understand why they did some of the things that they did with it.
1. MSN Messenger auto running. Sure in a corp environment you can just have it disabled but it's annoying for small businesses that just don't have the IT resources to do it.
2. OS popups. Notifications above the tray that bring you the most inane messages ever. Try plugging in a USB2 device into a system that only has USB1.1 and follow the popup's instructions. Who the hell thought this was a good idea? I'm sure this is from MS's "usability" group that brought us Clippy and Search Mutt.
3. Window pane focus changes. This one I just don't understand. In 2k, if I open Windows Explorer in folder view, I can use the scroll wheel to scroll the pane that the mouse is over. In XP, I have to click the pane first to scroll. This probably doesn't affect many people but for those that it does, it is super annoying.
Since 2k still works for most people, I can see why XP would have such a problem replacing it.
First of all, Microsoft tried a subscription scheme back in 2001 and no one switched, mostly because it was more expensive than the current pricing schedules (Microsoft got greedy and was trying to lock in their ridiculously high profit margins to the end of time). Plus, to make a subscription model make sense, businesses would have had to update on Microsoft's schedule. That idea will never fly with a business.
It is a very expensive and time consuming process to update the system for businesses because they have to test and probably update lots of other programs as well as the system. Some of the programs you don't find in the consumer market and there is no guarantee that the vendor has an updated version that works with the latest system. If the business is using programs in that category, then they have to either wait on the vendor to create an update or they have to switch to another program. Switching programs can create even more problems. All in all, upgrading the system when there is no real reason to do so just isn't done. Forget Windows 2000, I know of businesses still running DOS for some of their programs simply because the function the program provides still works just fine.
Bottom line, the goal of the last few Windows upgrades has been more to generate hardware sales for PC vendors and cash flow for Microsoft than it has been to introduce real innovation and savvy businesses recognise that. Longhorn doesn't look to be any more than an enhanced DRM platform that will require faster hardware at this point and that is not likely to make it a compelling upgrade for the average business (nor for an informed consumer). Microsoft is stuck in a rut, in the sense that it looks like Longhorn will be "more of the same" from Microsoft, and that just won't cut it anymore.
The NSA: The only part of the US government that actually listens.
"Windows 95 and Windows 98 were reduced from a collective 28% to less than 5%;
Windows NT popularity was reduced from 13.5% to about 10%; and
Windows XP became the most popular operating system for companies with fewer than 250 PCs."
I don't think ME was ever popularly deployed in businesses. I shudder to think about it. Win2k was available then.
It's hard to justify upgrading your stable W2K server to XP if a successor product is just around the corner. Longhorn has been "just around the corner" for years.
It's common practice for software vendors to preannounce product in order to keep customers from looking elsewhere. But sometimes the tactic can backfire.
Make that not knowing their customers' customers.
While it may be fine for a Microsoft customer (Don't laugh. So its like a Mafia customer. They make them an offer...) like Dell to sell all the machines with XP pre-installed we (a Dell customer to the tune of several 10K units per year) just strip that puppy off the machine and install a plain vanilla Win2k from a CD because its absolute murder on the software when something changes.
If the OS changes and breaks something in our software, its a lot tougher and more expensive for us to fix (when its even possible. We probably won't be able to rehire the same team and most of the, uh, interesting documentation was done by osmosis.)
Microsoft's XP can sit on the shelf 'till the Longhorn cows come home.
Win2K is curently fine. We wouldn't even have gotten off NT4.0 if they hadn't 'end-of-life'd it. It did what was required and stayed out of the way.
If that hurts Microsoft's pocket book, maybe they should get into the toy business.
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boakes.org
Yes, I've had to do this a number of times, actually. But one problem is, after you read off the long code over the phone to them, you may or may not get an activation key back.
I'm not quite sure what the limitations are, but Microsoft obviously has measures in place to limit the number of times someone can re-activate XP that way. I've had customers who radically changed and upgraded their PCs a number of times over the last few years. When they had a drive crash and no good backups, it was up to me to swap out their drive and re-install XP and their apps from scratch. Their key refused to activate again, because apparently, MS decided it had been re-activated too often already and they put some kind of "block" on the code.