Slashdot Mirror
The Life and Death of Microsoft Software
coondoggie writes "With Microsoft aiming to release Vista real soon now, they've been retiring older versions of the Windows OS. For IT outfits it's yet again time to evaluate what stays and what goes, and make plans for the future. Network World discusses the life cycle of Microsoft's software." From the article: "'Generally, it is a bad idea to run unsupported software, but there can be a business case to run it,' says Cary Shufelt, Windows infrastructure architect at Oregon State University, in Corvallis. The university still has some NT machines running in isolation in its labs. But Shufelt says there are security risks in allowing connections to legacy machines and that the university makes sure to minimize those risks. 'We don't allow [Windows] 9.x clients to connect to our Active Directory,' he says. 'But we try to stay current with technology so these issues don't typically come up.' Others say they also stay current to avoid headaches and fire drills."
Users may have custom software that does not work on new versions of Windows... could present IT challenges as Microsoft retires old products...
Nothing to see here... Move along...
All our Windows PCs run NT, from NT 4.0 to NT 5.2.
http://www.windowsitpro.com/Article/ArticleID/1521 4/15214.html/
Error 2101: all your sig are belong to us
I *knew* if I just type "microsoft life cycle humor" into google something would come up:
The Life Cycle of Software
1. Programmer produces code he believes is bug-free.
2. Product is tested. 20 bugs are found.
3. Programmer fixes 10 of the bugs and explains to the testing department that the other 10 aren't really bugs.
4. Testing department finds that five of the fixes didn't work and discovers 15 new bugs.
5. See 3.
6. See 4.
7. See 5.
8. See 6.
9. See 7.
10. See 8.
11. Due to marketing pressure and an extremely pre-mature product announcement based on over-optimistic programming schedule, the product is released.
12. Users find 137 new bugs.
13. Original programmer, having cashed his royalty check, is nowhere to be found.
14. Newly-assembled programming team fixes almost all of the 137 bugs, but introduce 456 new ones.
15. Original programmer sends underpaid testing department a postcard from Fiji. Entire testing department quits.
16. Company is bought in a hostile takeover by competitor using profits from their latest release, which had 783 bugs.
17. New CEO is brought in by board of directors. He hires programmer to redo program from scratch.
18. Programmer produces code he believes is bug-free.
19. See step 2
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
We have a piece of Microsoft software, X. An application Y outputs its data to application X. So far so good...
It does this by (during the export process) loading the software X. Don't ask me why, I didn't write it.
Microsoft app X+1 is now available. App Y *will not export* to app X+1 because the executable has been moved and it can't talk to the new version anyway.
The App Y developers could fix this... but they wont because they have moved onto App Y+1 which we don't want to buy (not yet mature enough). App X is no longer available in the company and we cannot buy licenses for a variety of reasons (mostly due to integration and the fact that version X and X+1 running together cause major problems). There are no other export options except to pay for monkeys to retype all the data - on a weekly basis.
Software upgrades and end of support can attack you in the posterior in unexpected ways, and sticking with old software may not be an option. If you have given away the ability to make your own modifications, or put your data into formats you cannot read, you better make sure it's in your risk register.
Think of the Children; Sleep with your Sister
There are rather few "good" reasons for the everyday user to buy Vista (unless it comes bundled with a new PC anyway). There have been many incentives to switch from NT to 2k (USB support), or even from 2k to XP (better support for a lot of hardware). But so far, the big "visible" incentive (aside of the 3D interface) is the DX10 support. Now, that's not something you can sell to a company. What for does a company need a component that mainly carters to gamers? Actually, most would love to NOT have it.
Also, there's the big black cloud of DRM that hovers over Vista, where pretty much nobody really knows yet just how dark it will be. Many people will abstain until that fog cleared, definitly something neither MS nor the content industry would enjoy. So, another incentive will be that certain content will only be available to you if you use Vista and its stronger DRM.
Another thing that doesn't bother companies too much. Actually, yet another incentive NOT to migrate, so your employees can't waste their time watching youtube.
What does bother companies, though, is support. So the faster support for XP ceases to exist, the faster companies will migrate. So, let the spinning start.
Whoopsie, already started.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
all universities should probably start introducting linux in to the schemes since it'll open up things a bit. Eventually turn to all open source to cut costs... not that students would ever see the savings in their tuition. MS and others give educational discounts, mainly so that they can prey on the kids in school and make them addicted to their software and hardware and make them not know of or be schooled on the free/cheap alternatives, so that when they graduate they want to get something, and just get the software/hardware that they've been brought up on. Schools are indirectly creating millions for MS and Adobe... They make much more on the deals indirectly than they lose in giving universities discounted educational software.
Yes it can. You just need to install the "protocols for microsoft networking" or somthing like that in the network properties.
Why do I know this?
I'm not trying to flame here, but whenever a topic like this comes up there will always be someone posting about how they've had the same *nix/BSD box running for X years.
I do understand the concept of legacy hardware and software, and that if it ain't broke... However, almost EVERYTHING has a given lifecycle. I don't think that software should be any different. People are going to complain that M$ stops supporting their older OS'es (especially close to a new OS release) but honestly, how long should they be responsible for maintaining the code?
I hear the statement that "we paid for the software...so they should support it." In the open source realm, most people don't pay for the software, just for support and updates. So, in that same respect the people that bought windows paid up front for their support and maintenance, but how long should that be for? Is that something that should be included in the license...we guarantee to support this product for X years?
Sorry for the slight rant, but I know how people like to get all uppity about this stuff. But at least in this case I think it is completely justifiable.
When I have a kid, I want to put him in one of those strollers for twins and then run around the mall looking frantic.
"We don't allow Win 9x to connect to AD". It's not like there is a huge security risk for having AD run authentication for Win 9x. I can agree that you don't run AD on those boxes, but I have Win NT and Mac OS boxes connecting to AD. I can't change anything in the AD, I can just read stuff everybody else can read. Or is AD broken? In my company there are still Win NT 3 boxes standing around, they are firewalled...
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
What constitutes 'unsupported software'? While patches from Microsoft are nice and all, the important thing is software vendor support. Until the killer app that keeps my business running is supported on Vista there is no way I would change. In fact, I'm sure it will take quite some time for vendor support to reach the level it's at for current Microsoft OS's.
This article is somewhat misleading because we are talking about Windows 98. 98 sucks and pretty much always has. I can't understand why anyone wouldn't move from 98 to 2000 or XP (or slackware). Running an unsuppported OS is one thing. Running a worthless buggy OS is completely another.
Find coupons in Greeley
Despite Microsoft's Windoze vulnerabilities, we may be running some pretty old code for a while. We're international and pretty reluctant to export technology and software to certain countries, like Russia and China.
Most of our desktops that run Microsoft Office applications are running Windows 2000 Pro. We have a few high-end workstations that run XP and they may be upgraded to XP-64 if we can solve a particular problem with some software (there are no 64-bit Quicktime codecs for Windoze and we're reliant on Quicktime for a lot of our media files as it can deal with keying).
Our servers range from pee cees running Windoze to pee cees running Linux to Apple X-Serves. But on the desktop, we're still using some pretty old code because it's too expensive to upgrade and there is the potential that we'd be exporting a means by which someone may pirate Microsoft software.
Gods don't kill people, people with gods kill people.
They just slowly get virtualized....
"We are all geniuses when we dream"
- E.M. Cioran
I thought we were still on 5.x?? You mean Windows is still around at 9.x in the future?
Kernel Krunch - Part of a Complete OS
20. Profit.
I think those are the exact machines ReactOS is targeting.
This is exactly why we have VMware. Need to run an app for 98? Put it in a virtual session. Get all your *real work* done on the external OS, whether that be Windows/Linux/whatever. You turn on your network connection to the virtual machine only when you need to transfer files on and off of it. IIRC, you can also setup a firewall to block what can and can't get to that virtual machine... need ftp out? Only allow ftp. Most of this can be setup so even the most illiterate user can figure it out.
Others say they also stay current to avoid headaches and fire drills.
Strange. I always though staying current was a headache and a fire drill.
(Heck, I still use 9.x on my kids' computers. Works fine for their software, and they're usually not on the internet. When they are it's behind a NATed firewall and using firefox.)
-- Alastair
This may be worthy of another topic in itself, but I think we will be looking at replacing some desktop machines with thin clients next year. The patching routine, as well as the routine explained in the summary, wears on my 1 man IT department, not to mention the constant hardware failures of the PCs themselves. I'm sure there will be software/firmware updates to the thin clients, but the goal is to reduce the administrative burden as much as possible. Of course, I'll be working through the same process in determing server software, operating system, etc... --
Vista is also updated from the ground level up. New memory management, caching techniques, security protections, networking stack, audio stack, video driver ring move, etc etc etc...
It may not 'look' that much different, but has as many differences as NT4 to Win2k did.
I find articles like the one posted quite suspect. Legacy hardware can easily run WinXP as well, and there is Virtual PC for the hard core legacy apps that can be tightly wrapped in the new OSes security...
On the day of the 11th, the day support for all Win 98 systems, I stopped by a Fedex and realized their POS systems (pun intended), were are win98. I let the guy know that Microsoft stops support for them and he said 'good luck getting corporate to upgrade'. At that point I realized that this was a POS system that was sold to them by another compny and that it is most likely that TONS of POS systems still ran 98.
I suspect that alot of companies at this point may actually decide to replace these systems with Linux based POS to save money and as a result of that, they will see the benefit of using Linux elsewhere as well. The big issue will be that these companies will have to upgrade all their terminals and hardware as well as all their software and potentially, if they just switched to Linux and a Open Source POS system, they could save MILLIONS.
Feel free to insert opinions here. I'm interested how others think corporate America will respond.
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is mine.
Vista will be stillborn!
We have the exact same problem. It's fucking insane to be installing Access 97 on brand new 3+ ghz machines, but what can you do?
We finally EOL'd Win9x last year after fighting to do so for about 4 years. We still "officially" support OS9 on Macs, fortunately we only have a few hundred Mac users and almost all of them are obsessed with getting new machines every chance they get. I think maybe a half dozen are clinging to OS9.
We supposedly have a semi-mission critical piece of software that runs on OS/2. The developer has been out of business for 10+ years. From what I've heard the box sits in a closet humming along and no one is really sure who is in charge of supporting it anymore. Someday it will die and probably land in my lap...
Active directory has been elevated to any degree of an interesting piece of infrastructure.
AD is a souped up directory server with stupid lockin code on the clients.
Its all it is and its pretty sucky at that.
NO SIG
Microsoft has promised to continue to sell XP to OEMs and retail for a year post-Vista, and to system builders for two-years post-Vista. They can't wrap up support while they still sell it. They'll still be selling it (with very few takers) until Q1 2009, assuming no delays. Based on Win98 and WinME, it'll have support for 12-24 months after that. So we'll see XP supported when Blackcomb/Vienna is rolling out.
Well, we (a US Navy shop) have one machine running Win 3.1, and another that was "upgraded" to Win98... Though I doubt that as stand alone machines they qualify as being in a "high availibility enviroment". The machies run some specialised RF testing programs, and it just isn't cost effective to re-write the programs and/or QA the programs to run in a more modern version of Windows.
Acutally there is a whole host of companies even Fortune 500 companies running Windows 98. Dumb, yeah but cheap for the companies. Money wins over common sense far too often.
Computers are like bikinis. They save people a lot of guesswork. - Sam Ewing
Slick...learn something new everyday.
For businesses I think there are two reasons to upgrade, neither of which you mentioned:
1. Improved support for remote administration. That is not an area I am at all familiar with, but I keep hearing that group policies are much more comprehensive in Vista.
2. Better security. I know, MS always claims the next release will be locked up tight, but to some extent they are correct - each version is tougher than the one before At this point there is no reason to believe that Vista will not be an improvement over the security in XP. Just having the default accounts run as non-admin, and the whole principle of LUA will serve to stop lots of attacks.
Just because a product is old, it does not mean that the product is obsolete. That is something that the IT industry needs to learn.
The Automotive industry is a good example. Suppose you bought a brand new car today, you would expect that you would be able to operate that vehicle for a number of years, after all it is a big investment. However, if the vendor said after 4 years that the engine could no longer be maintained and that it must be immediately replaced at your cost, you would not be very impressed. You would be tempted to perform your own DIY and install your own engine from a different vendor.
Thing is, Microsoft in recent years has tried to market a versions of Windows for embedded applications. When users of these operating systems realise that after 4 years that microsoft will expect you to upgrade a major piece of equipment as they no longer support the software it is based on, the customers are not going to be happy.
An old computer may run old software, but there is every chance that in every other respect that it may still be just as useful as a new one. The computer may have features that are no longer supported such as ISA cards or serial ports that are required to operate certain useful external equipment and embedded applications. In essence the cost of upgrading the computer operating system may be much greater than requesting that existing software is maintained. Unfortuately this is one area where Microsoft are running the risk of loosing the plot.
As for Microsoft saying that Windows ME is 6 years old and is therefore unsupportable, until 4 and a half years ago it was the latest operating system for home computers. XP isn't even 5 years old yet, but one thing is certain, if Microsoft imsists that I upgrade to Vista within the next 2 years, I will upgrade to Linux or OSX.
Not only do I not know why Vista would be such a tremendous improvement over 2k/XP (fine, fine, they changed a bunch of stuff, does that really make it worth the lateral upgrade?), but the issues with DRM and the Mac OS X-induced feature creep have made me decide to replace my old laptop before Vista is released, to guarantee that I don't get stuck with it.
This isn't just a MS-hatred-induced unwillingness to upgrade. 2k/XP are orders of magnitude more stable than 9X was - so stable that I don't feel like going to Vista would get me anything that I need but don't already have.
Right now we only have two non-Linux machines, including my WinXP box, and the only reason we have that is MSFT Access. If a push to Vista breaks that, given that we've already migrated most of our SAS databases to MySQL on a Linux database server, it might mean we decide no more MSFT OS at all.
They might call it planned product obscelescene - we call it killing off your reason to exist.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Millions of retailers using Win98 on their POS registers...
"But this one goes to 11!"
Be aware, the "Kerberos" that Microsoft supports is Microsoft Kerberos.
Any resemblance to the Kerberos prior to their "embrace, extend, extinguish" effort is entirely coincidental.
That said, I agree with the thrust of your argument.
Bob-
The Ludwig von Mises Institute. The reasoning individuals economics
I wrote a blog for Free Software Magazine about the dangers of buying into a proprietary system. In summary, if you give up the freedom to make your own IT decisions, you can expect to pay for it (and dearly). It's no fun to have your core logic hostage to the whims of a third party who doesn't know you exist and wouldn't care if they did. We're doing new development in Python, and while I hope that people keep updating it, we don't go out of business if they stop.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Have you tried running a Virtual PC version of windows 98 on a Windows XP machine. That way you could use that machine for something else other than just hanging around becasue you need windows 98
Note that there's also an NT4 version of DSClient:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/288358/
Also note that there is no DSClient for WinME, officially, though "you may be able to install Active Directory Client Extension on a Windows Me computer for testing purposes."
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/276472/
Web 2.0 == Giant Blogspam Circle Jerk
I only use Windows for the one thing its good for.
When World of Warcraft is ported to Linux
I can scrub my Windows partition.
I would wager that 9x authenticating against AD per se is not the problem, its having 9x plugged in at all and running on their internal network that's the problem. Allowing it to authenticate is just encouraging the problem. Also, since 9x boxes were client machines, they would likely have users interacting on them and therefore more things are likely to go wrong than just having a service running on a firewalled NT box in the closet. If MS is no longer supporting 9x, then the AV vendors aren't going to either (at least not for long). A firewall isn't necessarily going to stop a naughty user from bolloxing your entire internal net by clicking on an email attachment (that has not been sanitized because your AV vendor no longer supports 9x).
Interesting idea, but not really needed. The PCs in question are rack mounted, and only used for those two programs to test out some radio frequency cards, so we don't need to wait on them for anything. Plus, we'd have to be allotted money for the programs, and testing, etc... The current set-up costs nothing and works. In actuallity, I kind of enjoy running Win 3.1 on a modernish (the motherboard might hold a Pentium II) machine; it burns through boot-up, DOS, and Windows 3.2 into the test program so quickly that there is little time spent waiting for the machine to get ready.
There was only one reason why old versions of Windows lived on for so long. There was one jerk-off that had SteveB's ear and kept extending the dates of Win95, NT, ME, and Win2000 to completely arbitrary dates against the product groups recommendations....he's also the brainchild of software assurance. Andy is a real thinker...another director level clown at MS just looking for a circus.
I'll know that MS is on the right track when I hear, "Andy? 'E got canned!!"
There are still advantages to staying with Windows 2000. The absence of a backdoor that allows Microsoft to install software is the big one. The stuff coming in via Windows Update is sometimes a win, and sometimes a lose. Do you want to take that risk? Especially since Microsoft doesn't make any contractual promises that they won't break your machine or install a new security hole. And since occasionally, they do.
I see no reason to upgrade, most applications still run fine on windows 98, even though I did migrate to win2k for its security and folder permissions aspect. Before I switched, my win98 machine was bulletproof, no crashes, no viruses and very little overhead. If I didnt have to play with permissions I would probably go back to win98. so until it becomes "manditory" to upgrade the OS, I wont be switching... and even then it would probably over to Linux
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
2. Most businesses already don't allow users to run as admin. The legacy apps that require writing to HKeyLocalMachine, etc., are the problem here. Not Windows. If users are already running as limited accounts, it's really no change at all.
Another big impediment to adoption by business is the Aero interface requirement of a 128MB video card. Remember that the biggest selling video chipset is the intel integrated. The vast majority of business PCs deployed right now do not come close to meeting this requirement. For me, the possiblity of having to deal with an environment where there is all one OS but some machines have one UI and others a different one is huge disincentive to upgrade.
Ideology: A tool used primarily to avoid the bother of thinking.
You mean, while Blackcomb/Vienna is being delayed...
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
From TFA: "It isn't only aging operating systems, however, that have their support lapse. Windows XP Service Pack 1 will be retired for good on Oct. 10, and users are being advised to start planning now for completing upgrades to XP Service Pack 2, which has been touted for its security improvements."
This is a non-issue. Service Pack 1 is not an Operating System, it's a major bug fix/addon revision. Service Pack 2 has all the features SP1 has, plus it's a free upgrade to even pre-SP1 Windows XP. This is not the same as Windows 98 being retired and a business buying new software (and most likely hardware as well) as a result. I can just run Windows Update to get service pack 2, it adds features but it doesn't change the way the core of Windows works or make it incompatible with any of my software. Did I mention it's free?
It's not as if Microsoft were making customers buy a new $129 license for every minor service pack release, or worse yet, changing the name of the OS for each bug fix and feature addition in order to justify it, that would be unethical.
*cough*Apple*cough*
Vista is dead. Quoth Bill Gates.
That which does not kill her only prolongs my agony.
Another big impediment to adoption by business is the Aero interface requirement of a 128MB video card.
Wrong. Aero isn't a requiment in the Business lines of Vista. Would it really hurt to do some basic research before you post?
Plus, current Beta reports of Vista are that it is currently far LESS stable than XP right now. And even if it does eventually become "stable", there are serious concerns that "nest-to-newest" software in real usage in businesses, will crash on Vista, or at best hopelessly overload IT staff with user questions.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
"That is something that the IT industry needs to learn."
should be:
"That is something that the IT industry needs to re-learn."
it used to bge called maturity. Maturity doesn't make a lot of money for vendors.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
R2 is basically Server 2003 SP1 with the resource kit and the other various little free downloads included (there's a little more to it than that, but not much), but you do have to pay for it (i.e. you can't use an SP1 key on an R2 installation, or vice-versa).
Lets face it most people are going to upgrade to Vista because of advertising. Joe User does not know or care what DRM and DX10 is. Stronger DRM becomes "see more of the web" in a commercial.
Many people will abstain until that fog cleared
Many in this case is probably a few thousand. I know there will be magazine articles saying don't buy Vista yet it has bugs. This is just there chance to produce an article that catches everyone eye. Has anyone ever seen a followup to one of these articles saying it is OK to buy Windows XP now?
[Intercom buzzes. Dave presses button.]
Secretary on intercom: Excuse me, sir, your beautiful and intelligent wife is on the phone.
Dave: Oh. [Picks up phone.] Hello. Uh- huh. Well why don't you take the blue Porsche, well then take the red Porsche. Well what are you wearing? Well then I suggest you take the BMW. Do you love me, uh-huh, whatever. [ Hangs up.] So go on, you had- a thought?
I'll just use my special getting high powers one more time...
In the sense that I can call somebody on the phone.
yet I still run it.
Acutally there is a whole host of companies even Fortune 500 companies running Windows 98. Dumb, yeah but cheap for the companies. Money wins over common sense far too often.
Yeah, every Fortune 500 company is at the top of companies because they are dumb. That is why smart people like me don't and won't work for Fortune 500 companies with their stupidity and all of that money and crap.
This is a lie and you are spreading FUD. Support for hardware comes in the form of drivers from the software companies. Just because microsoft writes some of their super special drivers doesnt mean that the os is devoid of support if those super special drivers arent there. No major hardware company has dropped support for windows 2000. Theres a good reason for that too, the underlying layer hasnt changed. In win2k its just not loaded with all the extra buggy crap that xp is. XP is like shit smeared over a marble fascade.
The one superficial difference is that win2k doesnt have a wireless client built in. As every wireless card ive ever seen comes with its own wireless client, this is not even an issue.
2k is the best operating system ever made by microsoft. XP is buggy as hell and makes way too many decisions for you...
I'll just use my special getting high powers one more time...
Speaking of microsoft software ... can somebody please dos this server for me?
s p
http://mlslink.mlxchange.com/Login/BrowserError.a
About 10 percent are switched to another POS Software running under XP Embedded for testing purposes, but we also look into some Linux options.
We expect to have the DOS completely replaced by something else in 3-4 years or so.
True, but XP has more drivers bundled with it, which means you don't have to dig around for the driver CD or check the manufacturer's website for a driver nearly as often when you go to connect some random bit of new (to you) hardware. In some cases, if WinXP doesn't already have a driver for something, it can go get it (through Windows Update) and install it, again without you having to find & download the driver yourself. This, I suspect, is what the OP meant.
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
Driver subsystem and # of drivers shipped with the OS are two different things.
Better support in this case means you don't have to download anything to get your hardware to work.
I work with two os2 machines (one warp, the other is version 3), one old Mac (os 7 or so), one OS X, several flavors of Windows(95, 98, 2000, and XP), linux and unix. This is the joy of working in a research lab. You buy a piece of equipment and use it til it dies and usually that equipment is tied to an os. So we keep the ancient mac for a specialized scanner, we keep the OS 2 machines for confocal microscopes, keep the windows 95 machine for a different confocal microscope. Lets just say I have learned a lot about keeping things going past their prime.
True, but XP has more drivers bundled with it, which means you don't have to dig around for the driver CD or check the manufacturer's website for a driver nearly as often when you go to connect some random bit of new (to you) hardware. In some cases, if WinXP doesn't already have a driver for something, it can go get it (through Windows Update) and install it, again without you having to find & download the driver yourself.
It's a nice idea, but I have never once seen XP already have or download a driver for a new piece of hardware I bought. Out of maybe 20 times I've tried, it always says it couldn't find a driver, even for fairly dull things like serial expander boards.
For every expert, there is an equal and opposite expert. - Arthur C. Clarke
As many posts point out, many companies stay on whatever outdated software because it serves their needs and continues to do so.
.Net anyone? What about all of those Visual Basic developers that have moved onto other languages? There are so many other examples. They've got the majority of users and they need to keep them consuming Microsoft products, whatever the cost. Sadly, customers are very forgiving, so they put up with the abuse.
Introducing planned obsolescence into your comment(are any machines....) sidesteps the career limiting risks a system administrator faces when her PHB wants a shiny new software application.
Diverting attention away from Microsoft's security woes by throwing up backward compatibility is a fallacy.
The big reason microsoft gets into security trouble is the organization has no incentive to provide more security. It's a business: Selling first, security second. I'm glad the situation is so bad because it keeps me gainfully employed.
Finally, *right now* backward compatibility is totally irrelevant to Microsoft.
Got Trader Joe's? friendwich.com RSS feeds work now!
"Mainstream support will end two years after the next version of this product is released. Extended support will end five years after mainstream support ends."
http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle/?p1=3223
It's a nice idea, but I have never once seen XP already have or download a driver for a new piece of hardware I bought. Out of maybe 20 times I've tried, it always says it couldn't find a driver, even for fairly dull things like serial expander boards.
There are probably more drivers for consumer electronics with proprietary interfaces such as digital cameras, scanners perhaps, and maybe even ethernet cards. Serial expanders aren't normally in consumer/workstation PCs, but rather servers etc, so my guess is that those sorts of device drivers are found in server edition Windows instead.
Sorry, I'll just have to point out that I don't actually know what a serial expander is, but I'm assuming it's one of those things that has a fat 72 pin plug and a cable that splits it into 8 serial ports.
+1 Insightful. In our office we run all or Windows work (mostly cross-platform testing; occasional Visio) that way -- Windows under VMWare and a more secure OS as the host.
You mean, Microsoft used to support Windows?
If the masses can keep you down, you're not the Ubermensch.
The last time i read the Microsoft MOLP agreement, after a product is released you have a time period before you upgrade or are considered out of compliance. Sort of blows the 'decision process' for large companies at least.
Not only that, but legally they can also pull the 'license to use' for any older product at any time. Remember what you agreed to when you accepted the EULA?
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Incorrect != Flamebait.
HTH.
I'm sorry; I don't know what I was thinking!
At the organization where I work, 500+ user systems run Win2K(few XP) and all our servers run NT4. when an oddball virus hit about a year ago that we actually sent samples of to Trend Micro because no one had seen the thing yet (some new variant of rbug or something) it was killing network ability on everything, as well as crashing explorer.exe on many systems. the only systems it didnt hurt were the NT4 ones. had those serves been upgraded to 2K/2003, we probably would have had a total failure. I also have to hand it to MS though for making (for the most part) Win2K as good as they did... and in doing so, I think they view it as a mistake. it runs better on old hardware than XP does, it seems quite a bit more stable than all the other versions minus NT4, and it has a nice non-doofy (eg green start button, rough edge graphics) look to it. which I think is why they are so eager to stop people from using it. I find it incredible when I buy a new PC for the business that I can go to the manufacturers site and find all the XP drivers I want but no 2K ones... or only ones for about a quarter of the hardware in the system... with the 2 OS's so close that most drivers usually work in both, I find more and more that tell you that it wont allow install to 2K. I almost feel as if MS is paying off companies that make hardware to not release 2K drivers anymore so they can get people all on XP. Its like they want you the least secure environment you can be in so they can get a kickback form the higher sales of the antivirus companies that have their own programmers writing viruses so theres something to protect against.
The legacy apps that require writing to HKeyLocalMachine, etc., are the problem here.
Legacy app like QuickBooks Pro 2006 REQUIRE admin and not just poweruser. QB2006 is a modern app, and getting rid of it is like getting rid of paper money overnight.
Intuit wrote QB2006 to require admin because that's the ONLY way multiuser apps run on Windows. Run as a webserver, are you nucking futz? No ordinary mortal can get IIS running.
This is all true, but the question your manager will ask is "Will it make us more productive?" He doesn't care about more secure memory management or ring X permissions, he cares for support of this or that hardware piece you have and compatibility with other companies you deal with. At best, he cares for stability so you don't lose your work in a crash.
Unless it increases productivity, he will not shell out the dough for new software. Even if you have a corporate license, he will shun the downtime for the upgrade unless you can give him a "business" reason.
Security, unfortunately, is none. I see it every day.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Fujitsu Retailix is run by Jewel/Osco, many WalMarts, Hebb, The Pig and EconoFoods in Wisconsin, Shopko/Pamida, Menards/GanderMountain, Copps, KMart and numerous other humongous retailers. It can, and usually is, run on Win98.
And just think of all the gasoline stations that run on Bluebird DOS. You don't want to know what Siemens and Schlumberger peddle. DOS roolz, Vista Droolz.
I work in a 2-way radio business radio shop that uses a mixture of old DOS and Windows software. All of our programming computers, desktop and laptops use Windows 98 SE because everything after that had trouble with using the serial ports of out DOS (Now, on Win98, almost everything works. On anything past that, 90% of the software works, but you will run into something here or there that refuses to read or write to a radio). We do have some Windows 2000 programming laptops, but the people who take them know that DOS programs may or may not work.
I would love nothing more to swap each Win98 computer over to Linux, but you know how much of the radio programming software - Kenwood, Motorola, Icom, etc. -- will run on Linux? None.
Yeah, maybe we could use a free dos or gnu dos and WINE for some of the windows programs, but I'm sure some stuff wouldn't work. When we use Windows 98 SE, just about everything *just works*.
Transporter_ii
Doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, religion destroys spirituality
I've never seen a U-Scan run anything higher than older versions of NT, some run 9.x. Fat freakin chance trying to upgrade them let alone trying to take them out of service in a supermarket to upgrade them. I think that if CUSTOMERS just raised enough hell with Microsoft and told them what to do they'd have to buckle eventually. But going back 20 years we've all believed the "It's really just a cheap shitty desktop" hype and gone along with every piece of shit 'improvement' they've ever tried to jam on us. If we want to run 9.x and then let's do that. I do. I run several machines at home that use 9.x because I JUST DON'T WANT GO OUT AND BUY ALL NEW SCANNERS, DIGITIZERS AND SCSI ADAPTERS BECAUSE THEY'RE BOUND TO THE OS RIGHT NOW.
Ditto patches. I think someone needs to evaluate concretely the value of patching every last crappy fix they shovel on us versus the downtime risk of the exposure. If we spend an hour a week fixing their shit is that better or worse than the potential risk based downtime of not fixing anything.
I never indicated that using Aero was required. It was the requirements needed to run Aero to which I was referring.
Ideology: A tool used primarily to avoid the bother of thinking.
time to upgrade my windows ;-p
http://www.secgeeks.com/
I can see a lot of support for DRM within companies - from the "only run signed applications" angle.
Seriously. If the majority of your staff have a clearly defined role and only need their computer to do one or two tasks, what better way to guarantee that this is all their computer does than to nail what applications can be run in a GPO? Of course, it's been possible to lock down Windows quite a lot through policies for some time, so arguably it's not providing anything the business shouldn't have already implemented.
Or how about another angle - the "we're fed up of the press finding out about things before we're ready to issue a press release"? It's already a problem solved if you stop using plain vanilla email to send confidential memos, but how many organisations you know have actually done that?
If Aero isn't required in the business line of Vista, why would that slow the adoption of Vista by businesses?