Windows 2000 Support Shift Looms

25 Apr, 2005 at 10:15pm ET Article published in Tech

While Microsoft touts new 64-bit versions of Windows at WinHEC Monday, one of its stalwart operating systems, Windows 2000, is just two months away from leaving full, free support.

Both the client and server editions of Windows 2000 will exit what Microsoft calls “mainstream” support as of June 30, 2005, and enter its “extended” support period.

Under Microsoft’s support policy, a product in the extended portion of its lifespan is still provided with security-related patches, but fixes to issues or problems that the Redmond, Wash.-based developer labels as non-security are available only to firms that have purchased a hot-fix agreement plan.

Windows 2000 users are still waiting for the security-centric “rollup” which was announced in November, 2004, in lieu of an expected fifth service pack. The rollup is scheduled to ship “mid-2005,” said Microsoft on its Web site.

The last Microsoft operating system to go through a lifecycle change was Windows NT Server 4.0, which saw its support end the last day of 2004.

Source: TechWeb

Comments

25 Apr 2005 ~ 10:55pm primesuspect sigh... i knew this day would come. We have a huge deployed base of Win2K servers, of course
25 Apr 2005 ~ 10:59pm KingFish We have a huge contigent of win 2k clients and a few win 2k servers. I'm a little surprised that they are ending support for win 2k this soon as it shares so much core with win xp. We just got rid of nearly all our win 98 clients a few months ago. I think win 2k has a bit more staying power though.
25 Apr 2005 ~ 11:03pm primesuspect Well yeah, Win2K is still perfectly good right now. Very stable.

The ONLY thing I miss is repair install on Win2K
25 Apr 2005 ~ 11:31pm Nosferatu Well i've been a long time Win2k user and I for one am not going to upgrade to XP or Longhorn, partly due to Microsoft's "Trusted Computing" bullshit. Gentoo and OS X are good alternatives in my eyes.
26 Apr 2005 ~ 1:31am Cyclonite Most every computer in my company is running Windows 2000. Luckily, we're switching all our servers to 2003 Server within the next couple weeks, but this sucks for our client machines. Ah, well. We'll see how it goes.
26 Apr 2005 ~ 3:49am Shorty The enterprise Im working for continues to have alot of Win2K terminal servers. Mr Microsoft isn't helping people like us I can feel ya pain prime.. I can feel it! Not everyone CAN upgrade easily to Win2K3.
26 Apr 2005 ~ 5:23am Thrax This displeases the Thrax.
26 Apr 2005 ~ 9:10am QCH

"This Vexes me, I'm terribly Vexed"

Grrrrrrr.... over 250 PC's in my Org. have W2K on them... that's almost 300 PC's. Oh well, job security.
26 Apr 2005 ~ 12:05pm primesuspect My problem is that my installed base are all companies that will probably start crying that they can't afford the upgrade - not only will they need 2k3 licenses, they'll probably need some ram upgrades as well.

commence the whining!
27 Apr 2005 ~ 12:17pm canative This realy sucks, Ok lets give more money M.S.