Do You Need to Upgrade the Operating System or Applications?


Although Microsoft still sells licenses for Windows 2000 Professional and Windows 2000 Server, these versions of Windows are no longer the latest Windows versions. In fact, as of June 30, 2005, Microsoft has moved the Windows 2000 family from Mainstream to Extended Support. Extended Support will continue through June 2010 (at least). What does the change in support mean for your organization?

The most important consideration for desktop systems is that improvements to Windows 2000 Professional and Server will be made primarily at the security level, rather than at the new features level. In all likelihood, the current Service Pack 4 is the last service-pack level upgrade for Windows 2000.

The second most important consideration for both desktops and servers is that complementary support is no longer available for Windows 2000. Paid support and security hotfixes will continue to be available, but non-security hotfixes will no longer be developed.

Given the lack of ongoing non-security development for Windows 2000, should you consider upgrading older systems to Windows 2000 instead of Windows XP or Windows Server 2003? Under certain circumstances, yes.

Windows 2000 requires less powerful hardware than Windows XP or Windows Server 2003. Applications originally developed for Windows NT 4.0 might be more likely to run under Windows 2000 than under newer versions (although Microsoft offers a Program Compatibility wizard to help older programs to run). If your staff is certified in Windows 2000 and if Windows 2000 is sufficient for at least two years of ongoing operations, it may make sense to upgrade older systems to this version.

Note

Learn more about Extended Support for Windows 2000 at http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/server/evaluation/news/bulletins/extendedsupport.asp


However, you should now consider Windows 2000 an interim solution. Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, and Windows Vista (a late 2006 release) are the future and offer improvements and enhancements not present in Windows 2000.

If you are in the process of moving to Windows XP and Windows Server 2003, keep in mind that while these are the latest versions of Windows, they are not "brand new." They are built upon the Windows NT 4.0/Windows 2000 code base. Consequently, support staff experienced in Windows 2000 can be easily retrained to support the newer versions of Windows. If you are hiring personnel or support staff for use in an environment that has a mixture of Windows 2000 and Windows XP and Windows Server 2003, I'd recommend weighing experience as much as certifications in evaluating whom to hire. Just because people are certified for a new operating system doesn't necessarily mean that they're qualified to satisfy your every need when it comes to support. Perhaps the most important thing that I've found to be indicative of an employee's abilities is experience, not certification examinations. There are a lot of people who are very experienced (trial by fire, so to speak) with Windows 2000. It's one thing to read a book about how to drive a car and then pass a written test. It's another thing to get into a car and drive it. Experience counts.

The same goes for your administrative staff. I would not consider passing a certification exam to be all that's required to hire a new employee. Experience counts. If you want to hire employees who understand Windows 2003, it would be a good idea to look at their résumés to see that they have some experience with Windows 2000 (and the Active Directory) first.

Windows Server 2003 and Windows XP will be around for a few years, just as Windows 2000 has started to be accepted by many Windows sites (and Windows 2000 has been around in one form or another since 1999). So, if you want to wait and perform this upgrade lateror perhaps skip the current generationa later upgrade might save you a lot of money in a large organization. One consideration is that some of the features of Windows 2003 variants (and there are four versions of Windows 2003) might be something that your organization can reap great benefits from. If that's the case, consider training your in-house employees on Windows 2003 and then using a laboratory of computers to ensure that the solutions they envision do indeed work.

Note

Just as upgrading to a newer operating system might not be necessary until it has been widely accepted by the marketplace, the same goes for applications. Although Microsoft Office (now in version 2003) and the various operating systems released in the past few years make up the larger percentage of Microsoft's sales, many users still use Office XP, Office 2000, or even Office 97. The main reasons to upgrade to a newer version of an application include features, support, and security. As long as security fixes are available for an application and its features are satisfactory, there's little reason to upgrade.

On the other hand, some application software vendors make upgrading more difficult or more expensive if you upgrade from two or more versions back. This should be kept in mind if you need to make upgrades as easy as possible for your users.

Before you decide whether or not to upgrade an important application, be sure to find out what the current upgrade costs will be for selected groups of users and all users, and don't forget to consider open-source alternatives for some users. Microsoft is continually changing its licensing policies, mainly due to market pressure.


There's one good reason to go ahead with the upgrade to the Windows 2003/XP platforms: support. This issue can be a minor one if you've already prepared your own support infrastructure, such as keeping personnel trained. One inexpensive way to do this is to subscribe to Microsoft's MSDN (Microsoft Developer's Network). MSDN gives you a superset of the documentation and knowledge articles that you can get from msdn.microsoft.com. Even though the articles on the Web site may be aged out over time, you can always turn to your CDs (or DVDs, if you chose that option) to find support for Windows 2000 as the next few years go by. Microsoft also offers a subscription to TechNet, which is a scaled-down version of the MSDN subscription. I suggest that you subscribe to one or the other as your budget permits. In a large network, the MSDN subscription is a small cost to pay for the many benefits (from programming to operating systems) you'll get.

Tip

Another option you might want to consider is the Microsoft Action Pack. This is a subscription that supplies Microsoft Partners with operating systems, Exchange Server, and a few other software items. If you do not need the development tools that come with an MSDN subscription, you can at least preview newer operating systems and some software by becoming a Microsoft Partner. You can sign up as a partner by becoming a reseller, or even a consultant. See the web site at https://partner.microsoft.com/global/salesmarketing/salesmarketingoverview/40009545.


If you already have trained personnel for the current operating system and applications, support isn't that much of an issue for your network. Yet, Windows Server 2003 and Windows XP might be a good choice mainly because of the additional functionality and security improvements they provide. For example, Windows XP Professional has a user-friendly task-oriented GUI (although you can choose to revert to the classic Windows interface). Other important features of Windows XP Professional include a solution to what is called (in Microsoft documentation) DLL hell. Applications that now overwrite DLLs (dynamic link libraries) in the Windows environment (Windows 9X/Me excepted) are now stored in application-specific directories, so the core DLLs located in the system files directory remain untouched (except by Microsoft updates, of course). This can solve a lot of headaches for network administrators who are deploying new applications. So, if your network adopts new applications frequently, upgrading might be a good choice as opposed to a network that requires only minor upgrades for applications.

Windows XP also has many other new features, some that make the user experience easier and some of which solve problems that exist in Windows 2000. For example, the capability to set checkpoints and roll back to a previous state on the computer is an important one. This feature is called System Restore. If you or a user makes a change to the desktop's configuration or installs an application that causes problems, it's easy to simply use System Restore to go back to the previous configuration of the desktop without having to remove programs and diagnose other configuration changes. System Restore enables you to create these checkpoints yourself (for example, just before you make the changes), and automatically creates checkpoints on a periodic basis and when some changes are made to the operating system or applications. However, it's best to create a checkpoint yourself (a simple matter) before making changes to the desktop computer.

Tip

For more information about DLL hell and System Restore, see Platinum Edition Using Windows XP, published by Que Publishing (ISBN 0789727900).


System Restore is not a free lunch. It works by saving critical system files, including Registry settings, on the hard disk so that it will have the necessary information to restore your computer if you choose to roll back to a previous state. If disk space is important, this feature might not suit your environment. System Restore requires, at a minimum, 200MB of disk space. However, you can change this to a larger value to keep old restore points around for a longer period of time.

Windows XP is also available in an x64 version that supports the 64-bit extensions found in the latest desktop and workstation processors from Intel (processors that support EM64T) and AMD (processors that support AMD64). Although drivers must be rewritten to run for 64-bit operation, the user interface of the x64 edition of Windows XP is virtually identical to the original 32-bit version. If you need a native 64-bit edition of Windows, this is the way to go.

There are many other features that Windows XP offers for desktop users that go far beyond the scope of this chapter. You might want to check out these features on Microsoft's Windows Web pages for Windows XP. There are many white papers and other documents available on Microsoft's Web site. Some changes are cosmeticsuch as stacking multiple instances of a single program into one item on the toolbar when the toolbar has become overpopulatedto the new interfaceto the capability to enable another user to take control of the desktop and assist a user with problems. Many of these new features are also offered by third-party products. However, if you have not yet invested in these kinds of products, you might find the features that Windows XP offers for desktop usersnot to mention the features to make life easier for your help desk staffworth the upgrade.

Windows Server 2003 versions are another story altogether. You'll find Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition, Windows 2003 Enterprise Server, and Windows 2003 Web Server, as well as numerous specialized versions such as Storage Server, SQL Server, and many others.

If you support Itanium servers, there are two versions of Windows Server 2003 optimized for Itanium: Enterprise Edition and Datacenter Edition. For 64-bit (x64) servers based on Intel Xeon and AMD Opteron processors, there are three versions available: Windows Server 2003, Standard x64 Edition; Windows Server 2003, Enterprise x64 Edition; and Windows Server 2003, Datacenter x64 Edition.

With all that said, let's now get on upgrading to Windows 2000 and then Windows 2003 if your network consists now of Windows NT 4.0.

Tip

Whatever you decide, check Microsoft's Web site and examine all the white papers and other documentation available to determine whether you'll benefit from an upgrade to Windows 2000, Windows XP, or Windows Server 2003.





Upgrading and Repairing Networks
Upgrading and Repairing Networks (5th Edition)
ISBN: 078973530X
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2006
Pages: 411

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