Discussion on:

Businesses should go with Win2K Pro and ignore XP

I can agree with the tech reasons, but the business reason, and especially the hint at changing licensing policies and the Microsoft Product Activation are far fetched.

By now, I would have guessed that everyone knew that MPA is not for enterprise customers, but for home users. And the move towards 'renting' software as people keep calling it doesn't seem like such a bad idea to me. After all, it does not necessarily mean that because I'm entitled to upgrade that I have to. If I don't upgrade I don't have the costs (and yes, I will continue to pay for the older software, but it'll probably amount to less in three years than buying a license). If I do upgrade, I have the most recent software (and let's assume that this is a good thing) at no extra cost, but the cost for doing the upgrade.

Sven: You make a good point on MPA that I should have covered further. It really won't affect enterprise-level organizations (or anyone that works with volumne licensing). As a matter of fact, the whole MPA issue should be a wake-up call to small and medium organizations that don't always use volumne licensing to get on the ball and start using it for their MS licenses.

Here is a poll on the Product activation feature by mostly IT Profs:

http://www.sunbelt-software.com/sunpoll.cfm?id=20

-Is Micr$oft Marketing listening???
Sounds like I will cease upgrades in MS until Billy Bob opens his ears, - - OR --

I get up to speed in Linux

Hate to say it, but maybe you should open your eyes: Customers buying more than 5 licenses (basically any organisation in my opinion, unless the home office user) benefit from one type of license program or another.

THEY WILL NOT BE AFFECTED BY MICROSOFT PRODUCT ACTIVATION.

BTW: This has to be the worst reason to switch to Linux that I have read; unless you thought that Microsoft produced freeware software all the time...

Interesting, although I must say that in my view the Sunbelt-site visitors are notoriously ignorant...

Maybe TechRepublic should conduct a similar poll, we'll probably get some more representative results.

I recently spoke with my software vendor and found out that Office 2K is no longer available since XP is out. Last December I migrated my whole network to Windows 2000 and Office 2000. At the time, the upgrade to Office 2K cost $159.00 per seat. Now, the upgrade to XP is around $270 per seat. My network is small (43 workstations) but the price increase would be $4,773 for Office alone. Imagine a company with 10,000 workstations! The price difference would be in excess of 1 million dollars. If Windows pricing increases comparably, the price of an upgrade could very well double by the end of the year. MS may not go the leasing model but I think other points of the article are valid. I am considering Linux solutions for future projects.

I am using FrontPage 2002 (XP) and so far am not very happy with it. Microsoft has removed some of the functionality I rely on in the product and has added almost nothing. There are now tabs that allow me to switch between pages, but that was effectively part of FP98 and was removed in FP2K! At least that is back now.

I experienced the full Office XP line at the launch and my inpression was that it is entirely aimed at large enterprises. Individual users will never use what was added in XP, it is overly complex and constrains the way a person will use the product. I am not planning to ever upgrade to other XP products and sticking with Office 2K. - Exasperated

What ?!

Many smaller companies (and even some large ones) use OEM or individual licenses - these will NOT be exempt from MPA and therefore you WILL be screwed on imaging problems and PC setup costs/time WILL escalate.

Therefore - avoid XP at all times...

My advise would be not to avoid MPA, but get smart about licensing...

Using OEM licenses seems attractive in the short run, but they don't allow you to upgrade at the upgrade price. Which basically means that if you want new software, you need tobuy new software or pay the full price.

The organisations that buy individual licenses for over 4 installations should fire their CIO or IT manager.

Companies should only do the upgrade when their current OS or network can not handle the work they need. or it costs too much for maintainance and external support, or too much down time. they don't need to upgrade the OS just for licencing mentioned(renting instead of buying) or the new OS is better or has got more functions, since their current OS is still fine. OS or software are made to fit business use and need, remember that.

From leescot@excite.com

We, too, will eventually upgrade to Office Xp, but not for awhile. MS will make us upgrade because Access 2000 and XP is not compatible with Access 97. MS is sly. They do not make a Network Administrator's life very easy. I feel sorry for those who upgraded to Office 2000. Here is an idea for Microsoft: Stick with a product for awhile and tweak it with Service Packs. COncentrate on the one product and perfect it before celebrating another release! This idea goes for their Operating Systems as well. Win NT had a long shelf life in comparison. I miss NT already...even without its plug and play and USB support. By Service Pack 5, NT was king. Now we are forced to purchase new PC's because Win2000 or XP will crawl on a Pentium 333...evn with 256 mb ram. Stop the madness!

Absolutely, I wasn't advocating that organisations switch to XP because of licensing and/or activation.

I merely tried to remind everyone that organisations (having more than 4 desktops) are not affected by the MPA.

beta on a portable with 450MHz and 128MB RAM, and it works fine.

I'm not sure upgrading to Win2K as fast as possible - before it disappears from the shelves - is such a good idea, unless you absolutely must upgrade in the next six months. We've been through this before, with 95, 98, Me, NT. However, in the late 90's many organizations were first acquiring the desktops they needed - there are now working (or sort-of working) stables of desktops and most organizations (I think) are more in a replacement mode.

Bottom line: what we have now won't turn into pumpkins at midnight once XP is released. It'll keep on working. For many people and organizations that'll be enough. I think the real questions are: must you upgrade real soon (your current equipment simply isn't doing what you need) and can you work without much support (as Microsoft starts spending more of its time supporting the later systems).

Also, since we're all going to have to buy a Win2K or two or an XP or two as vendors start offering only these choices, another real question is: with organizations bound to have 2,3, or 4 generations of OS on various desktops, how do you best handle that?

As far as Microsoft not supporting the older stuff I don't really see how that's a major issue. Most of the bugs have been worked through on 95,98 and NT and to a lesser extent on ME and 2K. If businesses have decent support staff there is seldom any reason to look on Technet anyway and where I work it is an extremely rare occasion we would submit a question to Microsoft anyway. As my one co-worker said recently, when the support goes away heaven forbid people might actually have to crack a book. There is so much info on the old OS's now who needs to upgrade anyway?

I personally like Win2K more then any other MS OS but I am still fiddling with Linux and may make that transition rather then go for the upcoming nightmare that MS is going to try and force on people. As far as the problem with buying new PC's that come with 2K or XP? If you don't need it put the license on the shelf and install the OS flavor your company is currently using instead. Not a big problem.

I've got a Cisco router with no idea of prior passwords. Does anyone know how I can flush them all and start fresh?

Sorry, posted to the wrong article. But if anyone here knows the answer, feel free to respond!

If you go to the Cisco web site and do a search on the term Password Recovery, you will locate a document detailing how to recover or change the password on the router. One note, it does require that you have local console access to the router. You also need to know what kind of router you have as the procedure changes somewhat from model to model.

whats the routers model?

I use XP Beta 2 for two months on PIII-533 with 128 RAM and must admit that it is pretty fast and stable, especially comparing to Windows Me from which I performed leave-it-by-itself-through-the-night upgrade. Looks like it handles process use of memory slightly better than Win2KPro (I used to use it for two months year ago, then dropped). I haven't seen any of expected possible administration problems regarding sharing and Active directory integration nor with application compatibility (except antivirus software). Plug n Play is fancy! Two sequential baloon messages on taskbar acknowledged me that new hardware is found and installed, yet was it USB scanner, LPT printer or USB Steering Wheel

If you have Win2K enviroment then upgrading to XP could be too many bucks for the bang. But upgrading 9X to XP could lower TCO dramatically. I suggest anybody to buy Upgrade Advantage licences now (while they're still available) in first case or to directly upgrade to Whistler in later or combine both if you have mixed Win2K and Win9X enviroment.

Warning! Be aware that Whistler can possibly hit the stores later than October which means that according new Microsoft licensing schema You will be forced to pay full product price plus Software Assurance for first two years (about 50% from full product price). Which means also deep sigh and saying "goodbye" to Upgrade and Upgrade Advantage product options as they will be discontinued since October 1-st.

Take care

Janis Irbe
Project Manager, MCSE

I have now gone through several articles where people are complaining that Windows ME is unstable, or perhaps less stable than Windows 2000. I feel I should share my comments at this point, because I have not had this experience at all.

Just before Win2K was released, we had about a 20/80 NT 4.0/Win 9x mixture. As soon as Win2K was released, people with NT machines were begging to be upgraded, so we started with them. It turned out to be one heck of a process, ending up with systems that were less than stable (i.e. blue screens of death), and many people wanting their old OS back. In short, it took SP1 and several hotfixes before we felt comfortable about giving users Win2K-loaded machines (i.e. a period measured in months).

Upgrading to Windows 2000 Server was also a laborious process. We, in fact, aborted our first pass at it, and picked it up a few months later, after SP1 became available. The general consensus is that overall, it was a good thing; however, more than one technician would still rather have to deal with a machine running NT 4.0 Server with SP6a (the "Active Directory -- so what!" point of view).

In contrast, the least painful upgrade we went through was from 9x to ME. Other than the time involvedin finding the latest drivers, the upgrade process was smooth, requiring few or no changes to the installed software on end-user machines. In addition, the machines boot faster and benefit from better memory and process management.

Summary:
NT 4.0 upgraded to Win 2K: users required, and continue to require, at least as much support, if not more.
9x upgraded to ME: users required, and continue to require, less support.

So my question is, what is everyone complaining about?

I don't think the W2K Pro is hogging any more resourses than any previous OS comparable to what hardware is available at the time. If you are going to go through the hassle of upgrading OS on the desktop, why not upgrade the desktop PC as well. With todays pricing, you can get a PIII 1Ghz, with 40GB HDD, 512MB RAM for around $2000.

It sure must be nice to have a budget like that. For the rest of us mere mortals with real budgets, we'll have to make do with older equipment.

Also, why is it that code can bloat and get worse over time and people are happy to throw hardware at a problem that is nothing more than bad code. Why do we continue to pay m$ for bug-ridden bloated code? FWIW, my personal machine at home is strictly FreeBSD because it is light and fast and runs happily on my old hardware. As soon as Abi Word and the K-Office suite fully handle M$ document files, I'll switch the office to FreeBSD.

Bob

2000$ per workstation ??
And all that the workstation does is use a few intranet applications and MS office to create documents ??

Did you realise , that there is an ecomonic slow down out there ?? I would rather have that money to pay my staff ...

I wish we all had budgets like yours. $2K per node is totally out of budget for our small org (50 users). We're happy with our W2K Server OS's and our W98 clients work just fine (now that all fixes available were completed).

We still use a large number of DOS applications, and can use Windows 9x to run them on older Pentiums (133 - 233). It is absolutely ludicrous for companies in a similar situation to spend money upgrading just because M$ says to. The only reason that a number of workstations even have Windows is because MS DOS was not Y2K compliant.

Not many companies can justify spending that kind of money for workstations to run legacy programs. Let's see . . . $2000 per workstation X 125 workstations. .. hmmmm

The reason we use and I support Microsoft products is that users reuest for it, but i personally would shy away from MS products at a drop of a hat. Its good that i read this article. thanks TechRepublic. Ill do a preemptive strike against the Windows XP line every step of the way.
And very slowly were really veering away from the MS stranglehold.

I am not a rabid Linux fan but stuff like this should really help Linux.

Both on the resources and the extortion issues (I mean fee structure)

It has been heard for the last 3 years (roughly) that this is Bill Gates agenda. No more will you be able to "purchase" software. Everything will be on a rental basis. I don't know about anybody else, but I've got enough revolving debt without worrying about paying Microsoft on a regular basis. It is true Win2k is very stable, but if the forseen future of this OS is so very short lived, maybe people will start to weigh their options a little more.

I totally agree with the article and just wanted to say how I appreciate the concise information. I will be using it to convince my employer that we need to finish up the W2K conversion before all the "simpler" licensing changes go into effect. Maybe we just get a single copy of XP for research. I went to the Office XP unveiling and was not impressed with the O/S XP portion.

I really haven't looked at XP yet, so I can't say what I would do. The reasons given for not moving to XP are good ones and maybe bad also.

I don't think you should ever fix something that isn't broken. If your still running Win 9X and you're happy with it then stick with it, but I can't see how anybody would be happy with any Win 9x OS. I think the jump from anything pre-Win2k to Win2K is a really good move. The stability alone is worth the cost. Microsoft has finally got a very stable OS, not that NT wasn't but Win2K is much more stable.

Everyone I know grumbled about having to upgrade workstations to run Win2k, but personally I'm glad my employer was forced to get rid of some of it's paper weights. If you want the performance of the OS you have to upgrade or you want be happy with it. Technology is growing at such a rapid pace that sometimes we need a push to keep up. I recently saw some of the research projects Microsoft and some schools are doing. One was a three dimensional desktop enviroment, and also a virtual OS, where you used hand and body motions to operate your computer. What kind of hardware do you think it will take to run something like that?

As an administrator I like the idea of maybe renting/leasing software. While working for a former employer they used a program that they leased annually which used a hardware lock for each client running the software or a group of licenses on a server where the server had a hardware lock. This solved a problem of running illegal copies of software, which can become a nightmare left uncontrolled.

Why stick with 95/98? Because for some customers it works just fine, and it's already paid for. Just because MSFT has write new products doesn't mean someone has to use it. Everything about the benefits of W2k Pro or XP might be true, but it is dupliative. Ten years from now millions of folks are going to be using their P133/Win 95 machines. They will get work done, like tracking patients medical records or connecting to a server to process insurance claims. Not going to need a 1.21 Ghz machine or a 121X DVD-RW consuming 1.21 gigawatts to do all that.

Renting/subscribing software is for fools. This is Microsoft's way to obtain cash for patches.

I never said everyone who runs Win9x needs to upgrade. I said if it works for you don't fix it, in other words don't upgrade if you don't need to. It's been my personal experience that Win 9x is very unstable. There are other options that I've heardwill be available with XP, like Windows shell customization, which will be very nice in certain situations.

A lot of software companies are moving to renting or leasing software, not just Microsoft. I know you probably think Microsoft's actually conspiring to take over the world, but there more than likely trying to run a business.

"I know you probably think Microsoft's actually conspiring to take over the world, but there more than likely trying to run a business."

Which, if you look at MS's history and their future plans, trying to run a business means trying to take over the world. Billy boy would want it no other way.

Win 9x is very unstable. But, it works good enough for most, and people have already paid for it.

Of course other companies will try to rent code instead of selling a license. After the rental agreement expires, you can't use the code withoutpaying for an upgrade. This puts a constant stream of revenue into the code companies hands.

Why?

Subscribing means paying for patches. Most of the so called features, chrome, or bells and whistles added are useless ephemera to most people. Nice is certain situations, yea, but largely useless to general public.

I don't tolerate car leases, where car dealers lock you into a perpetual scheme of give us cash or else. Why tolerate it from software companies who wish to charge you for something you bought that doesn't work so they charge for a fix?

In the past, Msoft upgrades have been around 1/3 or 1/4 of the cost of the full product, and come round every 2 years or so. They had a "Upgrade Advantage" scheme which gave us rights to all updates for 2 years for about 1/3 to 1/4 of the prices ofthe software. If we move to a rental model, I expect a reduction in that price, as Msoft is getting its money in advance, and does not have to earn every new dollar by adding a perceived value. I think being able to budget a known amount for software per year, whether Msoft release an upgrade or not is good (half the time we only upgrade because we need to be able to read other people's emails in the new file format - so we do HAVE to do it, usually about a year after release, as a critical mass of our trading partners have the new version.)

Let's see here???

What's the difference between a business and a monopoly?

I heard an asociate of mine best describe it as " the difference between competition and Rape"

Apple OS may be good - but I don't see them pounding on Billy Bob.

I'm about to the point where the "blue screen" of dead may actually be more cost affective for my organization.

Contrary to popular belief our gov't is not and will not be Big Brother. M$ with XP is going to take care of that with future OS versions.

I have just recently started looking into XP, with the stories I have heard of W2K(Upgrade and Full) soon becoming unavailable with the introduction of XP. I manage a small network (140 Workstations/65 NT,5 W2k,70 Win98)and was wondering if anyone knew of any Case Studies in Upgrading from Win 98 to W2K. I am NOT looking for trouble they ran into or what it required, I am well aware of the issues of upgrading, I am looking at the cost and the money (if any) saved in IT Support after the upgrade.

With todays economy I really need to know if I will see a cost benefit with the Upgrade.

Thanks!

Russ

Win2K or NT5 as it was initially, was the most beta tested, most reworked, most tweaked OS that Redmond ever put out. Steve Ballmer said that the reason they delayed the release of Win2K was that they wanted to get it right the first time. I thinkthey did a decent job with it. I am in the process of a Win2K roll-out and am not even interested in looking at yet another OS. If they got it right the first time (with Win2K) what reason - other than a money grab - is there to replace that OS inthe following calendar year. Gimme a break already.

Thank you for such a well written article. Brief but to the point, with very simple explanations of why we need to change from sheep to Human.
Microsoft is in the business of making Billions of dollars at our expense, & their investors insist on continually increasing profits. Who doesn't? However, it ultimatly ends up a pyramid structure with us at the bottom. If Microsoft produced a truly reliable operating system and we were clever enough to recognize it (and ignore the hype for yeta newer one), their profits would soon dry up. They can't afford to give us reliability & consistency. Their business is change.
I watch the sheep follow Microsoft's BS in extreme wonder. How can we be so dumb? Here's how: It's easier to follow the crowd than to think. But we will ultimately pay dearly for that. We had them in court, but then we changed the courts in their favor. How dumb are we? Just watch Microsoft.