[Ham-Computers] RE: Looking for XP Operating System

[WA5CAB at cs.com]

Aaron,

In a message dated 4/12/2007 12:41:37 PM Central Standard Time, 
aaron.hsu at nbcuni.com writes: 
> Basically, Microsoft has two support cycles - "Mainstream" and "Extended".  
> Mainstream support is the period where a product is actively supported and 
> critical patches are generally available for free.  "Extended" support is 
> where Microsoft still supports the product, but some support options may require 
> a fee and non-security patches are only available via a service contract.
> 
> Robert, to specifically answer your question about Windows 2000, 
> "Mainstream" support ended in 2005 and "Extended" support ends in 2010.

Well, that's interesting.  We still see frequent (mostly Security) patches.  
Had three yesterday, in fact.

> 
> As for application compatibility with Vista, it's a crap shoot.  At work, 
> we're currently building a Vista "staging" environment where we can test our 
> 100's of apps (many "homegrown") to see if they will work with Vista. Though we 
> probably won't use Vista for some time to come, there are "work at home" 
> people who will remote VPN in with their brand spanking new computer 
> pre-installed with Vista.  Some have already found that Vista (and/or IE7) won't work 
> our VPN software and the vendor won't have a Vista compatible VPN client until 
> June at the earliest.  Don't get me started on the handful of Win3.1/Win95 
> era apps that linger around!
> 
> And, if you really need to run that old, crusty dBASE III database or 
> MultiPlan spreadsheet, you can always use a Virtual Machine (such as Virtual PC 
> 2007 or VMWare)...works great in most cases.  See my previous posts about VM's.  
> And I won't get into the licensing aspect.  =)

Well, it actually is dBase IV/5, not III+.  A commercial accounting package 
much modified by me to handle military radios, radio sets and tech manuals.  I 
own the current 32 bit version and the earlier 16 bit windows versions of 
dBase.  But the practical problem of getting from the DOS to the 32 bit version is 
that to use the upgrade converters it has to be done in two steps.  And in 
the 16 bit version they changed reports to use an old 3rd party package called 
Crystal Reports.  And then went back to built-in in the 32 bit version.  I 
haven't figured out how to get past the 16 bit version without learning Crystal 
Reports and then forgetting it.  So I've continued to procrastinate.



Robert Downs - Houston
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