back to article Win Server 2003 custom support: That's NOT going to be fun

Microsoft could make a mint from charging businesses for custom support once Windows Server 2003 goes end of life next summer - but it may not make financial sense or be that easy to do so. There are millions of servers globally still running the 13 year-old OS with one in five customers forecast to miss the 14 July deadline …

  1. Snorlax Silver badge
    Holmes

    Maybe you could just...

    ...I dunno, take that money you were going to pay Microsoft for custom support and hire somebody to migrate your stuff to Server 2012?

    "Microsoft has so far refused to give any guidance on the price of custom support."

    You should really read the articles you link to...

    "On average, customised support is set to cost $200,000 per year, Microsoft confirmed months ago. "

    1. This post has been deleted by its author

      1. Snorlax Silver badge
        Gimp

        Re: Maybe you could just...

        Or you just buy software and say "I'm buying this from you, if it's got security holes in it, fix them, don't come back asking me for more money"

        You sound like the whiny type who'd be more at home using linux.

      2. Arnold Lieberman
        FAIL

        Re: Maybe you could just...

        "Or you just buy software and say "I'm buying this from you, if it's got security holes in it, fix them, don't come back asking me for more money", "oh, and we're an NHS trust by the way; the support period for healthcare for your staff was only until the age of twelve years, after that we expect you to pay" .... ;-)

        "

        I'm sure on the day the IT industry cures all (computer) viruses software the healthcare industry will have cured all known (human) viruses. Might as well sell those Big Pharma shares now...

        1. JDX Gold badge

          Re: Maybe you could just...

          How many other products come with a free 12 year warranty?

          1. Ben Norris

            Re: Maybe you could just...

            They didn't stop selling it 12 years ago, in fact it is still purchasable now!

            1. JDX Gold badge

              Re: Maybe you could just...

              OK you have a point there but it's not like they haven't told everyone when this was going to happen and since people buying server OS generally should know about such things, I don't think one can blame MS here.

  2. Tim 11

    "instead of supporting a dead-end legacy they could be contributing to Microsoft's future battles with Google, Facebook and Apple”.

    I think you meant to say "instead of making money and keeping customers happy, they could be wasting money making stuff that nobody wants" ?

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Microsoft staff...

    Have a very comprehensive private medical package, so I doubt the above approach would work. Incidentally, I wonder if the poster expects their car to be serviced for free for the entire duration of its life?

    1. Tom 13

      Re: Microsoft staff...

      Serviced? No. However, even twelve years after buying the car, if there is a manufacturing defect in a part of the car that is not normally serviced, I actually do expect the manufacturer will replace it at no cost to me. And you know what, just last Friday when I took my 14 year old car to the service shop, one of the things the customer service rep said was, and I quote "No active recalls on your vehicle."

      1. JDX Gold badge

        Re: Microsoft staff...

        You can expect it but it won't happen. That's just wear and tear. If it lasts 10+ years by definition it's not serious defect!

  4. Christopher Lane

    ...But then...

    If they didn't charge such a f$%^ing fortune they wouldn't have to worry about the problem of “continue to perpetuate an island of customers who can never truly buy into the forward-looking Microsoft strategy”. For instance my lot aren't interested in O365 et al. "Why do I need the latest and greatest Excel, 2010 does want I want it to do and I own the CD!" (I know, I know, its just the rights to use the software etc but you try telling that to an MD when they are confronted with spend nothing or shit loads). You can imagine the "delight" when I told them that their Server 2003, 7 year old, HP DL380 G5 is technically end of life, they expect at least ten years out of the kit (or at least until the chewing gum and sticky tape drops off). Anyway, we steer as far away as possible from Volume Licensing and the like lest we are mobbed by the Microsoft Bullies asking us to fill in damn licensing documents; we (and I think most of the world) aren't worried by latest and greatest...unless it's cheap.

    For us the easiest option is virtualise to another server; let it run there whilst I create a new 2008 virtual server (2008 not 2012 as we have all the CALS for 2008) and slowly move roles over. Once complete delete the 2003 VM, job done.

    Rant over.

  5. Arctic fox
    Headmaster

    I think that the following is the key issue here..........

    ............"All in all, I think that the price [of support] is almost immaterial. The disadvantages of staying with this OS are so manifest that anyone staying with it is assuming a high risk for technical problems, security exposure and, in today's regulatory climate, legal exposure to both regulatory bodies and private lawsuits."

    How many instances have we still got of IE6/7/8 out there for example? Where the organisation/institution/department refuses to do anything about it? Answer: Still an embarrassingly large number. I would have grave doubts about doing business with any firm that refuses to replace equipment (in this case WinS 2003) that is so out of date and frankly speaking bordering on the defective in comparison to more modern systems (whether we are talking about a modern Windows based system or a modern Linux based system). That MS is not particularly interested in continuing to support at any price such (in IT terms) ancient software as as Server 2003 is hardly surprising.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Stop

      Re: I think that the following is the key issue here..........

      " I would have grave doubts about doing business with any firm that refuses to replace equipment...."

      Why?

      If you have a 10 year old pc running W2K on a bit of old hardware day in day out, without failing, why replace it and risk it falling over every day, because someone says you need the latest version.

      Would you apply the same to all hardware?

      I've known farmers with 50 year old tractors, printing presses that are close on 60 years old. They all work and keep working and do they job that is needed.

      Old adage, if it ain't broke....

      1. Snorlax Silver badge
        FAIL

        Re: I think that the following is the key issue here..........

        If you have a 10 year old pc running W2K on a bit of old hardware day in day out, without failing, why replace it and risk it falling over every day, because someone says you need the latest version.

        You know, I had a big reply typed and ready to go. I deleted it because it would have been wasted on you.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: I think that the following is the key issue here..........

          Please do enlighten me, why I should risk taking down a key system that has run perfectly for 14 years, without issue, just because the software is out of date? It's beat 5 9's uptime, so just by swapping it out, will put it in a lower uptime from day 1.

          But please feel free to point it out my error.

          1. dogged

            Re: I think that the following is the key issue here..........

            If it's in a silo and doesn't talk (ever!) to the outside world, you probably shouldn't (except that sooner or later, the hardware will fail and then you're fucked).

            But if you decide to leave a world-facing server using tech from 11 years ago, I would prefer not to trust you with my business.

            1. Arctic fox
              Headmaster

              @dogged: Indeed, however they saw the name MICROSOFT................

              .............and what followed was not exactly surprising. My point (and of course clearly yours) was that if your OS has to interact with today's web then it is essential that it is a modern os with the wherewithal to tackle modern conditions. That our critics mention isolated systems is idiotic - such systems are irrelevant in this context. I repeat, I do not care whether we are talking about a modern Windows system or a modern Linux system; if your system faces "The Great Outdoors" then using an os that is more than a decade out of date as far as its fundamentals are concerned is idiocy, neither more nor less.

            2. Missing Semicolon Silver badge
              Happy

              Re: I think that the following is the key issue here..........

              @dogged. Or, you migrate it to a VM, and it can run for ever!

              (BTDT)

            3. Anonymous Coward
              Happy

              Re: I think that the following is the key issue here..........

              (except that sooner or later, the hardware will fail and then you're fucked).

              Except that I have spare parts for systems that old and you'd be surprised at the difficulty (not) of keeping older equipment alive. The system, hardware and software, have already proven their reliability. That machine, even singular, came together under some blessed stars (or pick your religious blessing) that day. Oh, by the way, the US Navy regularly uses (extremely) old equipment. On my ship, until we through a yard refit, had radios that were built in WWII. You bent tabs to tune them (it changed the capacitance). I also posted before that while I was in port in the Philippenes I called my mother (ex-WAVE AT2) for advice on a particular TACAN (VORTAC for civilians) problem. I followed her recipe and it identified the problem. She should know, she worked on the self-same equipment way back when (post WWII, pre-Vietnam). So keeping the old/antique running is in the blood. Or it could be that she started teaching me engineering at age 6.

              We still have a Windows 2000 Advanced Server that the only time it reboots is if a power failure lasts beyond the UPS battery life. It doesn't go anywhere near the web, nor is it connected to the network in any way. As for W2003 Enterprise, you'll pry it from my cold, dead.... It already lives in a VM on an isolated system. If I were in a snarky mood, I'd set up my W2003 Web on a VM for the ultimate honey-pot. Been there, done that, was a great venus flytrap.

      2. Pirate Dave Silver badge
        Pirate

        Re: I think that the following is the key issue here..........

        "If you have a 10 year old pc running W2K on a bit of old hardware day in day out, without failing, why replace it and risk it falling over every day, because someone says you need the latest version."

        10 year old PC?? Newbie. Mine's at least 12 years old. I swap the fans out every 3-4 years, and swapped the hard disk around 5 years ago. But Windows 2000 keeps on chugging away as my WINS server. In fact, when I last checked in August, it had been running non-stop for 3 1/2 years. Guess it's time to change the fans again.

        I've thought about virtualizing it onto new hardware, or even moving WINS to a 2012 box. And probably will at some point. But shit, how can I beat a server that's been running 24/7 for almost 4 years. That's Netware 3.x territory...

  6. AMBxx Silver badge

    Depends

    If it's just a file and print server that doesn't connect to the outside world, leave it in place.

    If it's running a public web site, time to upgrade.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Summary: the license costs of an upgrade from W2003...

    ... can only go up. And Microsoft is banking on subscriptions and thinking about the fabulous profit of getting someone to pay another 10 years of subscription fees. Beancounter's dream: it is more profitable from Microsoft that their customers upgrade to some higher Windows version than to try to milk a few years of extended support from them.

    The risk they are incurring is, given the compatibility headaches, customers may prefer to move to something completely different instead. While Gartner seems to be trying to pay some favor to Microsoft, they seem to ignore this facet of the problem. Which is very real, after all if you have a 10 year old application using some now unsupported Microsoft technology (and the Microsoft junkyard has plenty of them) you're facing a rewrite anyway.

  8. MatthewSt

    "A shortage of skills is another typical factor vendors have to wrestle with in post-support scenarios, and given the age of WS2003 this could be felt acutely.

    “I seriously question how well they [Microsoft] can staff and execute a large support program for this product,” said the Forrester man."

    Isn't this what they're doing already up until the end of life date? Not entirely sure how all of a sudden being beyond end of life means Microsoft are going to need _more_ people working on it than they have already...!

  9. MJI Silver badge

    Win Server 2003 support

    I bet a lot of companies would like to win that.

  10. Christian Berger

    Could be a new business model...

    ... just limit the support to 2 years, then bring out a new version of your operating system that's utterly undesirable for your customers to upgrade, i.e. because it's incompatible or requires new hardware, then charge through the nose for support.

    I bet this would work. Microsoft has a vendor lock in. If I don't like systemd, and I cannot find a Linux distribution without it, I can simply switch to some BSD. Why, because all my programs are written for POSIX and don't really care if they are running under Linux or some other *IX.

  11. ben_myers

    A quibble, but let's get the math right!

    "13 year-old OS"???? Windows Server first shipped on April 24, 2003. By my reckoning, it is now 11 years and nearly 8 months old. When someone doing incorrect arithmetic told me recently that he was not a math major, I said I wasn't either. This is arithmetic that a 10-year old could do. No excuses!

  12. TheVoiceofReason

    Technology Refresh

    12 years is a reasonable amount of time for any organisation to plan for a technology refresh. Any organisation that doesn't have this included and budgeted for in its IT strategy should be looking internally rather than howling at the moon in outrage. This is hardly breaking news.

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