Dexsal

Research group Gartner has advised its clients to upgrade their Windows 2000 systems to SP4 as soon as possible, after Microsoft announced last week that it would not release any new service packs for the aging operating system.

In late November, Microsoft said that in the future there would only be small security fixes released for Windows 2000, which Gartner believes is a decision that creates both advantages and disadvantages for enterprise customers.

According to Gartner analysts Michael Silver and Neil MacDonald, because Windows 2000 SP4 will now be the basic platform for all Windows 2000 variations till the end of its supported life (30 June 2010), maintaining the OS will be simpler for administrators because small patches are easier to deploy than a service pack.

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nForcer

And why are they not running SP4 NOW!

Tipstaff

Well.. that one is kinda hard to answer straight up. As a personal user you won't incounter some of the bigger issues. The majority of the issues don't surface if you install Windows 2000 SP4 straight up since that is where your starting from, but.. the smaller ones you'll see (or not.. depends on the installed apps/devices) are when upgrading any version of Windows 2K to SP4, such as BSoD crashes (and then requiring a reformat), USB devices and network cards no longer working, tons of Anti-virus issues (biggest is with Norton Security), incompleted SP4 installs which inturn crashes Win2K, and thus needing a reformat.. the list goes on. Again, for some, installs go flawlessly, but I've had a fair share of customers PCs needing to be scrapped after upgrading to SP4. For me, this is wasted time, and how the hell do I charge a customer this time if it was Microsofts fault? I can't.. I simply have to bite the bullet and redo everything (and that means backing up data first.. which could take hours).

On the corporate side.. this is a HUGE issue. I can name 40 major issues with upgrading from SP2 to SP4 that would fill this forum.. everything from overwriting of 3rd party SCSI drivers, and thus making those devices "dead" (not good if your running an Exchange Server). Novel Netware will stop working if it was installed before SP4, and thereby needing an Admin to add that computer back onto the network/domain. .Net 1.0 programs are pooched after upgrading, but can be fixed if .Net 1.1 is updated before SP4.. the list goes on.

Granted, a large number of these issues have some sort of "hotfix" now.. but you need a working system before you can install these "hotfixes". So, in the grand scheme of things, upgrading to SP4 from any older version of Windows 2000 is a major pain. If your a corporate IT, there is just too much to do before hand that makes it not worth upgrading to SP4 since you WILL have problems.. major ones that can mean major downtime, loss of data, and you just made yourself a target for "downsizing". Most companies have opted to buy new systems with Windows XP installed rather than upgrade to Windows 2000 SP4 as it's more, and I quote one of my customers: "It's more cost effective to replace these systems, and then transfer the old data, than it is to spend hours in preperation, hours upgrading, and then praying to god that nothing screws up!".

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