No NT 4 Service Pack 7 At All!...WTF !!!

[Toby 0]

This is from the the newsletter I just recived form win2knews.com. If this information is correct it really SUCKS!!.

 

Have any of you heard anything in this matter?

 

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No NT 4 Service Pack 7 At All!

 

 

You may be aware of the NTSYSADMIN list that Sunbelt sponsors. It's a great (free) forum to discuss system administration issues for both NT and W2K. We have well over 4,000 pros on there discussing very interesting threads that hash out problems and solutions. Since we have increased our double T-1 to a T3 (now driven via optics), and downgraded the Lyris listserver software back to an earlier version, performance has soared. Imagine the news I got via the NTSYSADMIN list: WinNT4 Service Pack 7 will never arrive!

 

This despite my last issue where I expected it to arrive end Q3. I was contacted by some one 'in the know' that this was incorrect. Here is the copy that one of the list subscribers just received from their Microsoft Technical Account Manager. I'm quoting verbatim here, so there will be no confusion caused by me interpreting anything. here goes:

 

"Windows NT 4.0 Service Pack 6a, the most recent service pack for Windows NT, was released in November of 1999. Since then, Microsoft has been supporting our customers with a series of hotfixes in response to specific concerns, including security vulnerabilities.

 

"Microsoft intends to continue supporting customers by making hotfixes available as they are needed. However, since the release of Service Pack 6a, the frequency of critical problems reported to Microsoft has declined significantly. Microsoft originally planned on releasing Service Pack 7 late last year, approximately 1 year after the release of SP6a.

 

"At the time, Microsoft had produced relatively few post-SP6a hotfixes, and decided to delay SP7 until Q3 of 2001. The frequency of hotfixes has continued to decline, and now, well over 1 year beyond the last SP, we still have made fewer fixes than were included with either SP5 or SP6.

 

"We discussed with a number of our customers their use of recent service packs, and their requirements for an additional service pack. From these discussions we learned that most customers are running a combination of Service Pack 5 and Service Pack 6; in some cases with 3-5 additional hotfixes. These customers told us that these service packs, particularly Service Pack 6a, have been very stable.

 

"There were three reasons we heard that customers were anticipating Service Pack 7: An easy mechanism for deploying the security fixes Microsoft has publicly released since SP6a. Availability of the Windows NT 4.0 Active Directory client, originally planned to be part of SP7 - now available for download at

http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/news/bulletins/adextension.asp

High Encryption for International versions of Windows NT which is now available through Internet Explorer and downloadable at:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/

 

"Based on discussions with our customers, we have come to the conclusion that Service Pack 7 is not needed, but that an easy way to deploy our publicly released security fixes would be appreciated by many of our customers. It is clear to us that our customers would rather have a smaller, lightweight, easily deployable way to secure their systems, rather than potentially disrupt their stable environments with another large service pack. Microsoft is therefore planning to release a comprehensive rollup of all Windows NT 4.0 security vulnerabilities as a single package in Q3 2001.

 

"Microsoft recognizes that some companies have been planning on a new service pack, especially since Microsoft had previously given indications that Service Pack 7 would be released. For customers who were planning on deploying Service Pack 7, we now encourage them to focus on completing rollouts of Service Pack 6a, in combination with the planned security pack. Microsoft will provide detailed instructions for deploying Service Pack 6a with the security pack.

 

"While Microsoft will not offer any further service packs for NT 4.0, we are committed to providing regular service packs for the currently released operating system, Windows 2000. Service Pack 2 for Windows 2000 will be released in the near future. As new versions of Microsoft operating systems are released, Microsoft will continue to evaluate the need for service packs based on our customer's requirements and feedback, and the stability of the operating system." End Quote.

 

Andrew Baker (one of the Guru's on the NTSYSADMIN list) commented 'tongue-firmly-in-cheek':

 

Top 10 Reasons Why SP7 Was Cancelled:

 

10.Win2K is selling better than expected so there's no reason to continue working on NT4.

9. Giving each developer $1000 for every bug found was getting far too costly.

8. Due to a softened economy, they've had to cut some costs, and NT4 bug fixes drew the short straw.

7. The odd numbered Service Packs are the "good ones", so Win2K migrations would probably be put off for another 18 months.

6. It was taking too long to get WPA integrated into SP7, so that work is being transported to Win2K SP2

5. Trying to get the entire Service Pack to fit on one DVD was far too difficult.

4. It just occurred to them that by Q3, they'd be supporting 5 OSes: Win98, WinME, WinNT, Win2K and WinXP, and they didn't want to get customer expectations too high.

3. Marketing reminded Sr. Management that most folks would be consider 200MB service packs to be an OS install, not a patch.

2. Win2K sales are slow, so several "Win2K Migration Incentives"have been established.

1. It was becoming very difficult to entice anyone in the company to continue supporting NT4 when "everyone else" is getting to work with that cool .NET stuff

 

You can subscribe to the NTSYSADMIN list here:

http://www.sunbelt-software.com/ntsysadmin_list_charter.htm

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/Toby

[BladeRunner 0]

I'm not really sure why SP7 was really needed.

As the newsletter (I got it earlier) says, there have been very few 'Hotfixes' for WinNT released since SP6a.

OK, so WinNT still has bugs, but what OS doesn't.

WinNT 3.51 & Win95 still have issues but they will never be fixed.

Win2k is a logical upgrade that offers more features and reliability than another SP for WinNT could ever hope to provide.

With any kind of luck with less products to support MS can consentrate on the bugs in the newer OS's.

[Igor 0]

What I think Microsoft is doing basicaly boils down to..

 

If you like NT4 with some service pack then run with it.

If you are not happy even with 6a then go upgrade to 2000.

 

After all they need the sales

[Brian Frank 0]

Actually, it looks like MS is trying to push everyone to XP, as they are dropping support for 98/ME, and somewhere in the nearer future, Win2k too. Im surprised they havent already, as I havent seen Win2k SP2 out yet (not that I really need it). I dont think MS is forgetting the older OS's as much as just abandoning them. Thats gonna piss a lot of people off, especially those whove gone to Win2k.

MS is getting a tad agressive on their OS release schedual.

What do they really have to compete with? Linux, but thats not a home desktop threat to MS by a long shot, but it does have a little hold on the server end. Mac OS___, I dont think so, fruity colored innovations only last so long before other pc makers start doing that too.

 

Honestly, what reason, other than money, does MS have to release another OS this soon? It looks like it could be a hard way to go, since people are happy with NT4.0 and Win2k. ME isnt as hard to justify, as that was a mistake on MS's part. I still think they shouldve just kept 98 and skipped ME altogether.

[BladeRunner 0]

Trust me on this, dropped support on Win2k is not going to happen for a very long time.

Too many big corporations have made the move to Win2k.

Corporations do not work on a one year change of OS, this is shown by the amount of sites that are still running WinNT.

As you'll be very much aware, moving a company or even just a site from Win2k to WinXP would not be a cheap upgrade.

With many companies only adopting Win2k within the last six months it simply wont happen.

Microsoft reported that uptake of Win2k was actually higher than even they expected.

Take us for example, we moved to an AD Win2k Domain about 8 months ago.

When WinXP is released we will look at the option of having it installed on any new PC we purchase.

I may also set-up a sub-domain with a couple of WinXP servers in, but there is no way XP would be a live Server OS for another 12-18 months from now, and then only if we found that Win2k had serious flaws that only the upgrade would fix - not looking likely, if we could copy with pre and post SP1 I can't see any issues arrising.

Support for Win9x including WinME was always on the cards once WinXP was released, but don't read too much into that, yes Microsoft want to bury Win9x & NT4 once and for all, but not Win2k - it's still their flagship product, and with so many companies working on the 'lets use the version behind the latest' it will remain so for quite some time.