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Microsoft has officially withdrawn NT 4.0 as of July 1, 2003. From that day you will not be able to buy it anymore, and support slowly is phased out. MS has already started to try to phase out NT by stop selling NT licenses. This effectively forces anyone rolling out new servers to get W2K/2003 licenses.
Today, those running Windows NT Server 4.0 (Standard, Enterprise Edition, or Terminal Server Edition) are eligible for all standard support services, which include:
Pay-per-incident support
Premier support
Ability to request and obtain QFEs (or "hot fixes") at no charge
Online support
The rest of the Phase Out Schedule goes as follows:
January 1, 2004:
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Redmond ends non-security hotfix updates |
January 1, 2005:
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Beginning on this date, Pay-per-incident and Premier support will no longer be available. This includes security hotfixes |
January 1, 2005:
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online Windows NT SUPPORT disappears |
This obviously will make people think about moving to W2K a bit faster these coming months. MS is cutting off NT's life simply because they want people to upgrade, and to get out of supporting the now 10-year old code base.
As a result it is now time for companies to start to plan the migration from Windows NT to Windows 2000 or Windows XP/.Net.
For further information see the Microsoft website about NT support more.. |
