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Microsoft Squeezes Win2000 Users
Posted by
kdawson
on Sun Dec 17, 2006 05:35 AM
from the 5-years-and-out dept.
from the 5-years-and-out dept.
darkonc writes "InformationWeek has a story on how Microsoft is squeezing Windows 2000 users as Vista and Office 2007 are being released. While some new software is legitimately unable to run on Windows 2000, other software (like MS's anti-spyware product) will install and run flawlessly — but only if you remove an explicit check for Windows 2000 in the installer." The article notes that other vendors, for example Sun, have more liberal and flexible support policies for legacy products.
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Win2000 rules (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Win2000 rules (Score:4, Interesting)
Every recent MS product has just felt *slow*.
Its like outlook and office in general, the interface looks nice and logical, but it has lost its snappiness.
Actions involving a full page refresh appear like a web page.
Clicking between folders in Outlook leaves the old mail on screen briefly and things just aren't better.
I was evaluating visual studio
My colleagues think I should live on oldversion.com, but I just don't like the direction MS has taken.
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It makes perfect business sense (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:It makes perfect business sense (Score:4, Interesting)
Not a troll, I only run linux and hate windows, but I dont see the logic in your statement.
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Re:It makes perfect business sense (Score:5, Informative)
Linux can use any number of GUIs, or no GUI at all. If you want something significantly faster than Windows, don't use Gnome or KDE, as these are a bit bloated (or "fully-featured", if you want to put it nicely). Use XFCE or IceWM or Fluxbox, instead.
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Re:It makes perfect business sense (Score:4, Interesting)
It is. This 4-year-old P3 (Fedora Core 6) box is easily keeping up with my dad's brand-new Dell/XP setup. Both boxes are fully loaded with *everything*, both hardware and software. If I want to make it really snappy, I can do some re-compiling and just install only the stuff I use. I doubt that most MS users can say that.
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Re:It makes perfect business sense (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:Win2000 rules (Score:4, Informative)
This is strange, because on my test install of Vista, most tasks use less than 5 MB of RAM.
And yes, that's even the total working set, not just the private.
About 30 of 38 use less than 5 MB now.
Maybe MS split up some of their tasks into more processes though, not really sure about this.
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Netcraft confirms it: Windows 2000 is dead. (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Netcraft confirms it: Windows 2000 is dead. (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Netcraft confirms it: Windows 2000 is dead. (Score:4, Funny)
Whoa, dude - slacken that off a bit - If it's too tight to your head, it just works as a transmitter!!
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Re:Netcraft confirms it: Windows 2000 is dead. (Score:4, Insightful)
Vista can have all the oooh and aaaaah it wants in it's GUI, but guess what? When I eventually "upgrade" to it, I'm turning all that crap off.
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Netcraft confirms it: Windows 2000 is dead. (Score:5, Interesting)
The first thing I do on Vista is switch to classic (the second being turn off the side bar forever). I wonder if Microsoft have ever heard that their OS is being used by real people to run CAD/CAM applications... not that they want it, but they are forced to.
Will try the same this week with a FireGL card to see if ATI are better.
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Re:Netcraft confirms it: Windows 2000 is dead. (Score:5, Insightful)
Most people did.
Windows 2000 was an amazing operating system for its time. As stable as XP, it wasn't as much of a resource hog. It would run quite nicely on 64mb of ram. Yeah, aero looks good in Vista, but when it comes to hardware requirements, it is simply not suitable for many businesses who may have hundreds of computers not quite vista ready. If you like aero and would like to upgrade, that's fine. But locking out w2k users with software that will run fine if not for an explicit OS version check is just unfair. If the software is capable of running on an OS, I expect it to run on that OS. I don't think that is asking too much.
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Re:Netcraft confirms it: Windows 2000 is dead. (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:Netcraft confirms it: Windows 2000 is dead. (Score:4, Insightful)
Microsoft faces a monumental testing job for every piece of software they release. If they cut an OS from the lsit of supported configurations, that's a heap of testing they can avoid. It also means they don't have to worry about future updates being compatible with Windows 2000. In short, a smaller set of platforms is cheaper to develop for.
And I say this as a Windows 2000 user myself. Sure, I'd rather that MS continued to fully support 2000 until there's a genuinely superior option, but I think there are non-evil business reasons for ending such support.
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Re:Netcraft confirms it: Windows 2000 is dead. (Score:4, Informative)
How about this: a non-negligible number of people changed the UI back to "Windows Classic," and others would if they knew how.
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Re:Netcraft confirms it: Windows 2000 is dead. (Score:5, Insightful)
Because, of course, black is far more exciting than grey...?
Look, even Apple has been increasing the grey content of OS X steadily since the very start. Now half the applications are brushed metal, which is, uh, kind of grey. And remember the "graphite" theme they introduced after their graphic artist customer base complained that Aqua was too distracting? You know, the one that turns the entire OS grey?
This "grey is for boring people" thing is getting seriously old. Themes are for people who have nothing better to do than play with themes; "dull" colours like grey (and Ubuntu's beige) are for people who are doing interesting things with their computers, and want the interface to get out of the way when they're not interacting with it. Maybe you spend all your time salivating over your awesomely pretty menus and scrollbars, but some of us are too busy enjoying our interesting and fulfilling work to care what the menus look like.
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Re:Netcraft confirms it: Windows 2000 is dead. (Score:5, Funny)
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Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually, I worked at a school that had many 2000 machines. It had nothing to with paranoid (these guys would have jumped off a cliff if MS asked). It had everything to do with cost, and Microsoft hadn't released anything in the past 7 years that they would find cost-effective.
Re:Netcraft confirms it: Windows 2000 is dead. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Netcraft confirms it: Windows 2000 is dead. (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:Netcraft confirms it: Windows 2000 is dead. (Score:4, Informative)
No, "they" don't. Whoever "they" is.
Out of the box, most distros have a GNOME or KDE desktop with a structure that's quite similar to Windows, sure. Why is that? Because that's what most people who are using Linux for the first time are comfortable with. The distros install a default look that's similar to Windows in order to make it familiar.
However, when you take a look at the desktops of more serious Linux users, people who have been using it for a while, they begin to lose their Windows-ness pretty quickly, some in subtle ways, some in very obvious ways. Mine's not as different as the other guy who responded to you, but it gets less and less Windows-like all the time. The equivalent of the start menu disappeared a long time ago, because I never use it. Where the "start" menu was is my pager application, that allows me to pick which of my virtual desktops to use. Next to it is the system tray (a good idea that Windows picked up from Unix UIs), organized so that 'klipper' is nearest the easily-reached corner position. That's the applet that lets me pick which of the last 40 things I cut I want to select for pasting. I have a task bar, but it's configured to work very differently from the Windows version of the same thing.
If you start looking at behavior, it gets even more different. Focus-follows-mouse is a huge difference, and one that nearly all experienced Unix/Linux users prefer. I like single-click activation. It's fairly rare that all of the windows displayed on my screen are actually running on the computer connected to the screen. A large portion of my work is actually done on command lines -- not because I can't do it graphically, but because the CLI is more efficient. My desktop can hold icons, but rarely does (Alt-F2 plus a working /tmp eliminate the majority of reasons people put stuff on their desktop).
The Windows-ish look is just a default put there for people who don't know how they really want it to be. Experienced users typically make heavy modifications, altering the environment so that it works the way they want it to. And I'm sure that some like it to work like Windows does, and that's a perfectly workable option as well.
Finally, I don't hate Windows. I just don't like the way it works, and I can't change it to work the way I want it to. I feel the same way about OS X, though it's more usable (to me) out of the box than Windows is.
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I walked away from Activation (Score:5, Interesting)
I was an MSDN Universal subscriber and Windows developer when XP came out, so I had 10 legit XP licenses. But I had no interest in being an early adopter setting a precedent for activation. Nor, now that they don't allow people to take their copy of the OS with them when they upgrade the machine, did I want to further lock myself into system whose costs increase while my freedoms decrease. I suppose I could have planned on piracy, but I have the odd conviction (one apparently not shared by a whole lot of companies) that it's unethical to make money by breaking the rules.
I stayed with Win2k, moved my data away from Office and into open formats (mbox, Open Office), turned my attention towards FOSS development, and finally switched to Mac. Incidentally, the Mac is very pretty, but I would have been fine with W2K's "hideous" look. Apple's no saint; someday I expect I will similarly have to make the shift to Linux.
Paranoid? No. I just want control of my computer and my data, and I don't want my money to encourage schemes like DRM which erode my freedom and that of others.
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Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Netcraft confirms it: Windows 2000 is dead. (Score:4, Informative)
On several occasions, I have recently gone into a couple of local banks and while I was standing in line, I noticed the words "Windows 2000" on their screen savers. I have noticed the same thing at several other business as well. Apparently many businesses that have not felt the need to upgrade.
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Re:Netcraft confirms it: Windows 2000 is dead. (Score:4, Interesting)
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Ease of system administration (Score:5, Insightful)
This is what you get for having systems that can be administered using a simple mouseclick by somone with only superficial knowledge of the matter!
Of course it would be simple to automatically install a registry fix on all systems on his network, but he has become so accustomed to every tiny fix being installed in a hundreds of KB executable with automatic installer that he has never learned (or forgotten) how to script such simple things himself.
The daylight saving time mechanism in Windows is broken anyway. Posix DST handling is much better, especially (but not only) when the definition of start and end dates changes.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I disagree. My take is "this is what you get for hiring people who believe that the correct way to fix a large number of systems is to click "next next next" on every one of those systems like a trained chimpanzee". What are such people doing in IT anyhow? The whole point of computers is to make repetitive tasks quick and easy, why are you giving yourself a rep
Cut the BS (Score:5, Insightful)
From the summary: "other software (like MS's anti-spyware product) will install and run flawlessly -- but only if you remove an explicit check for Windows 2000 in the installer."
I work for a software company - and I suspect many Slashdotters do also, and there are extremely good reasons for this. My company's software dropped support for OSX Panther in our last release, even though in all likelihood there wouldn't be any trouble running it on Panther - we weren't using anything that would specifically be known to break Panther, right?
But one has to realize that to release software on a mass scale involves a lot of QA work. You cannot say "we're not using any XP-only features, so it must work on 2K also!", you have to rigorously test your software on all supported platforms. Failure to do so is irresponsible and unprofessional. This means that, if you wish the drop the overhead of testing in 2K, then you stop supporting 2K, and to prevent consumers from installing your software and then coming back to complain about it (or worse, posting a scathing blog entry about your software's suckitude), you simply block the installation of the software on the older OS.
There's nothing evil about this, this is a simple business decision: you cannot support every legacy OS forever, and as new OS'es get released, your QA load increases. At some point you have to drop support for legacy OS'es, even if they are still technologically compatible with your software.
Re:Cut the BS (Score:5, Insightful)
Lots of programs in the win9x era would show a dialog box at installation when you tried to install them on a winnt system : Might not work, unsupported...
Then, it's the user responsability to choose.
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Re:Cut the BS (Score:5, Insightful)
Another poster below you also pointed out the same strategy. It is a valid notion, I admit, but considering our software is targeted at average users who may not be technically inclined, I believe ours is the right decision. I believe you are grossly underestimating the intelligence, or dare I suggest, honesty of the average software user.
If you give them the option to install, they will ignore any and all warnings and call you anyway when they run into problems. Worse yet, they will fly off the hook and begin slandering your software to anyone who will listen, and you bet your ass that their version of the story won't contain the fact that they're running on an unsupported OS.
Some won't even understand what the warning means, or some won't even read it - the "OK" button is just too large and tempting to click.
The install/runtime check is more of a preventative motion than anything else. We don't want to present a negative image of our product when know-nothing users decide to run it on unsupported hardware/software and get stuck. We don't want support calls related to this - even listening to them long enough to kick them off the line costs us valuable dollars and cents. We want nothing to do with this possibility - and the number of honest consumers who will legitimately accept the lack of support and run it on an old OS is small enough that we really don't want to open ourselves to that risk. Honestly, if there were a significant number of people still using the OS, we wouldn't drop support for it.
Disclaimer: The above is a personal opinion and in no way represents the views of my employer.
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
There are plenty of
Re:Cut the BS (Score:4, Insightful)
What might work in the shop adequately may not be robust enough for general use. We take OS faults in stride...
Back on topic, I've suspected artificial version lockout on many occasions, stuff that will install on XP but not 2K, even though they are almost identical "under the hood". Seems especially common on high end A/V editing/processing programs. I'm interested that TFA pointed to the Orca editor, that sounds like an quickie way to see just how many of these programs will _actually_ run under win2k.
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So much for the charitable theory (Score:4, Interesting)
But Microsoft does, through their announced product lifecycle, [microsoft.com] promise to deliver security and other fixes for a period of up to 10 years beyond "general availability" (NOT date of license purchase, a nice loophole penalising customers who buy late in the lifecycle). According to that page, Business customers can expect security updates through 2010. Perhaps they don't classify Spyware as a security issue (would explain a lot).
Al Capone put it best. You can get more upgrades bought with flashy launch hype and a gun, than just flashy launch hype.
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Evil? Not in the best interest of legacy OS users for sure, but evil? Where in blue blazes do you get off on calling that evil?
Get off the high horse and realize that just because we refuse to support your usage of an ancient OS, and we refuse to spend millions in man-hours QA'ing for it when you represent an infinitesimal portion of our customer base, doesn't mean we're evil. For cryin' out loud the damn thing is 7 years old! You don't expect Doom 3 to run on your Nvidia TNT2 do you?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
If the number of users of the ancient OS is that infinitesimally small, then even if it's broken you'll only get a handful of support calls. Force people to jump through a little hoop to install the program, like running the installer with a special "/skiposc
Windows 2000 works *reasonably* well for me ... (Score:3, Interesting)
Seriously, I run win2k(sp4) on an old PIII 600 with 128 megs of RAM. It does what I need it to do, if only grudgingly. Why would I "upgrade" to Vista, when I've never had any intention on "upgrading" to XP, which probably would refuse to work with my hardware anyway? (dunno really, haven't checked)
Solaris 2.6 support? (Score:5, Interesting)
That said, 2.6 is a pretty old release and we're overdue doing an upgrade on it, but it's inaccurate to say Sun still support it. Added to that, there are a number of Sun Alerts which come out and say that older versions aren't being evaluated for certain bugs.
You love me, you really love me ! (Score:5, Funny)
I think that's why Microsoft does it too.
I still haven't figured out why Uncle Tom squeezes me though.
It's a sin to bear false witniss. (Score:3, Interesting)
Personally I suspect that they are still making enough cash on the current releases that they don't have to resort to petty tricks. IF they wanted to pull the plug on the older O.S.'s then they could probably do a much better job than disabling software.
Anyhow, it's better to be unassuming than to assume they would be dishonest. We really don't don't know what their motive was, and, like them or not, we shouldn't just assume their action was dishonest or that it was done for an insidious reason.
The bottom line is: it's a sin to bear false witniss, even if it's against Microsoft.
Article should be entitled... (Score:4, Funny)
Vista Upgrade Advisor (Score:5, Interesting)
Abandonware status for OS'es once dropped (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I think this is the REAL issue here. Microsoft didn't know for sure it worked on win2k, and this guy doesn't either. He hasn't rigourously tested it in any fashion. He just installs it, runs it a few times and proclaims 'Hey, it works!'.
When an app IS supported, it can have major issues. Unsupported has got to be a lot more risky. If your whole point of running win2k is the stability, running un
The Boston Globe (Score:5, Funny)
Man, those guys are good!
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