Microsoft is ceasing support for enterprise IT workhorse Windows Server 2003 on July 14th. Despite support reaching end of life, research from the Cloud Industry Forum (CIF) suggests that at the end of 2014 61 per cent of businesses were still reliant on Windows Server 2003. A further study by Bit9 predicts 2.7 million Win2k3 servers will remain deployed post end-of-life. To give the OS a fitting send-off, Databarracks and the University of Surrey’s Electronics and Amateur Radio Society launched a Windows Server 2003 CD-ROM into the stratosphere in a weather balloon. You can watch the video at YouTube.
12 years is quite a long time for updates.
This effects old 32-bit systems most, since 2012 R2 is 64-bit only. Server 2012 is available in 32-bit, though, but there is no upgrade path beyond that.
Interestingly, Today, Raymond Chen updated his blog about the lack of 32-bit versions of R2
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2015/07/08/10624292.asp…
No 32 bit support is EXCELLENT news!
Now we just need them to stop releasing 32 bit workstation/home editions and we’re set! Just a decade after Windows XP 64 bit!
I just got an 8.3 inch 64 bit Windows tablet, but they’re really an exception in the < 9 inch range.
With all the cheap Windows tablets that have been sold over the past 2/3 years, 32 bit Windows is not going anywhere soon. (unfortunately)
Yeah! Lets kill 32 bit support on Windows with fire, never mind lots of people paid a heft amount of money for Autocad 32 bit versions and then some more for plugins/applications to use with it. Same for specialized softwares that, sometimes, cost way more than what was paid for the workstation + OS.
And lets never forget about specialized hardware for engineering and science and that the things are working properly and the only reason to upgrade the OS is to fix some stupid security bug on that thing.
Sometimes I think that people really believe that the real use for computers is to install OS, development tools and play around, at least when talking with developers.
There is a reason MS still has a huge market share and it has nothing to do with the new interface they are trying to push on us.
Edited 2015-07-09 13:17 UTC
But the 32 bit programs work on 64 bit windows. So maybe they’ll need to buy a new more powerful computer when support gets dropped, but all the apps should work. This is why MS still has a huge market share. Things are mostly forwards compatible.
I should have quoted the first paragraph too. That is why I even bothered to reply to the first post of this thread.
Anyway, many developers have really no idea of how much it costs to have a reasonably well build environment for engineering and science activities.
I still don’t get you’re objection to the death of 32 bit windows on workstations. Software shouldn’t be an issue. All of the 32 bit stuff should work fine on 64 bit windows.
Unless you mean that somehow switching hardware to 64 bit would be expensive. I kind of find that hard to believe, unless its some custom built NMR machine integrated with a 32 bit x86 pc system literally built into it, instead of a well modern defined interface, like rs232
Seriously, drop some numbers on workstation hardware. I don’t think you’ll shock many people. What like 10, 20 G’s?
OK, I will tell a problem I had.
A client of mine has a Total Station (actually, some) and a software to grab data from it (and generation of slope cuts, mass transfer estimation, stability analysis and things like that). The software needs a dongle, is old and has drivers to run only on Autocad 32 bits version. The silly part is that you can not install Autocad 32 bits on Windows 64 (actually, you can use a workaround but most of users would have a hard time to use it) and the path indicated by vendor is “buy the new version with the new dongle” and it IS expensive. I had similar problems with drivers for old but still perfectly usable equipments.
Edited 2015-07-09 16:00 UTC
Ah foo. I totally forgot about drivers. Yeah, that makes sense.
And 16-bit programs don’t work on 64-bit Windows either, for some arbitrary reason. There are still one or two useful ones knocking around, keeping a CNC machine going here, monitoring lab equipment there.
Well, there is always ecomstation.
I still see XP stations at all kinds of stores… Tech ones included!
On that we can agree. Backwards compatibility is one of their strengths, although sometimes I disagree with them on just how far back they should maintain it. But then I am in general against anything that last decades because my life is short and I don’t have time to wait for it!
Read my post about the problem one client of mine had. Get drivers to work is the problem, most of the times.
Also, you don’t want to buy new equipments that can cost more than US$ 5k apiece (and some cost way more than that), and are still working properly, just because your OS that costs US$ 150 has severe security flaws and the vendor terminated a reasonable upgrade path. You end up making it severely crippled for “Internet” activities, i.e. isolate it from external network access both ways, and keep things going as far as possible.
You would be surprised by how many even much more expensive hardware used on several industries fall in the same situation.
Edited 2015-07-09 17:34 UTC
Why so much hate for 32-bit architectures? I honestly do not understand. Is this based on an actual technical problem or “I want more than 4GB of RAM because of reasons”?
Personally, there are 4 computers in my home at this time, 3 run 64-bit OSes (Windows or Linux) and 1 runs a 32-bit GNU/Linux distro. None actually have more than 4GB of RAM. Main reason for the 64-bit installs is because 1 came with it pre-installed and the others are for testing.
So again, why the hate on 32-bit architectures and/or OSes? Seems like much of the hype is just “because 64 is twice as much as 32, so it must be twice as great, too.”
Your comment needs a minor edit.
s/2012/2008/g
The architectures are:
2003, 2008 – x86, AMD64, Itanium.
2008 R2 – AMD64, Itanium.
2012 and later – AMD64.
gld
Whoops
Wow, such ignorance of MS customers. Small businesses have for years had servers that weren’t nearly used to anywhere near capacity. I imagine they do today as well, although that’s where MS cloud services probably make their bank today. I imagine that should have been his response: use the cloud for low usage windows servers, not old machines in the Furnace room.