Windows 2000: Do you think Second Life Should Stop Support for Windows 2000

Hi Phantom, yes I have read the thread and seen the votes. While it does appear that some of the votes are more reactionary than others, everyone has a vested interest in how development time is spent. So far about 2 thirds of you have voted for us to discontinue, there is a fourth of you who definitely want to keep support with a few on the fence or just bustin chops. However, our decision to no longer to support win2k is driven by actual usage information.

Can you address my question: if someone submits a patch to fix a problem with Windows 2000, will you close it "won't fix" simply because it's a Windows 2000 patch?

I'm also somewhat disturbed by the comment about "reactionary votes". At a previous job I was responsible for driving the move to Windows NT based desktops (which eventually involved the entire range of Windows NT versions from NT 3.1 through XP) instead of sticking with remote access and emulation... and despite my own interest in the existing infrastructure. I use Windows XP on a regular basis, and support Windows Server 2003 and 2008. I don't stick with Windows 2000 at home because it's what I'm used to, I stick with it because it's smaller, faster, and easier to manage than Windows XP.

Do you have any estimates on how much development time is actually spent specifically on fixing/testing for Windows 2000? (EDIT: Percentage, or in some way to compare to work for other OSes) (EDIT 2: edited for clarity)




Non-Windows 2000 users. Would it make sense to ask whether you should continue XP/Vista support, and only listen to the votes that come from Mac users?




I wonder what OS the majority of bots run on. Heck, I wonder what OS bots tell the servers they use. I bet they report themselves as XP regardless of what OS they are on.

Personally, in LL's position I would wait until there were less users. As a percentage, the number seems small, but 2000 people is still 2000 people. That's quite a few people to just cut off support for.

On a related note I know I've seen many user agent override tip web pages telling people to use a string that just happens to contain "Windows NT 5.1" to get into web sites that block certain browsers. I wonder what that does for web statistics.

While I'm not a Linden, I don't see that as happening. If someone submits a patch, the work has been done for them.

Umm that's not what the Linux camp tell us.................................

So if we were to poll how many users thought the viewer should support Windows95/98 and only polled people using Windows95/98 and somehow got amazingly over 50% demand, we should implement it on that basis? Say 90% of Windows 95/98 users want the viewer to be Win95/98 usable, you can't argue with such high demand..............
Really what they should be doing instead of polling is finding out how many people will it effect that can't upgrade, and why can't they upgrade? Or is it they won't, they fear change, won't spend money, even if it's something they are earning money from.

If secondlife didnt run anymore on Win2K i will close my secondlife era. Win2K was the stablest system that microsoft ever offered.

You shouldnt shrink the systems there SL Viewer can installed. You should think about the possibility to insert the "viewer" as plugin to webbrowsers. Do you need new people who join secondlife and keep your regal customers who spent thousands of dollars, time and nervs in your system? Then think about to make secondlife more accessible to all.

But it is your journey, it seems to be, that you have enough payable customers in this world wide financial crisis.

Oh boy, another person who compares Windows 2000 to Windows 9x.

Windows 9x has been out of support at all from Microsoft for a long time. Windows 2000 is still on extended support, and Windows XP is going to enter that support stage in the near future.

Both 2000 and XP were also released near each other, and are similar in features and functionality. 2000 was based on the NT kernel just as XP was. I've said many times already, the reason I don't use XP is not that I can't upgrade, or fear change, or whatever other silly reasons you would like to think up; I won't use XP because it is just a bloated version of 2000 that runs slower on equal hardware. Vista is even worse in this area (and others). I upgraded my hardware to allow my applications to run faster, not so I could get a new OS to use that power instead. When an OS uses less ram and processor cycles, more of that is available to the programs you run on it.

Windows 98, though I'm sure has a smaller footprint in CPU and RAM usage, lacks support for many current technologies, such as SMP (symmetric multiprocessing; meaning multi-core processors, multi-processors, and/or hyperthreading), and no doubt lacks many libraries that Second Life requires. Windows 98 will also generate a BSOD during startup on computers with a processor running faster than 2.0 GHz.

The only advantage I believe will come from dropping 2000 support will be the ability to implement IPv6 support, as I cannot for the life of me find anything for that for Windows 2000 Professional SP4. If they do indeed add IPv6 support, the client will be very likely to stop working on Windows 2000.

I'm not a Linden, but I've submitted a patch, and, well... you'd be amazed.

Well, if they were to go IPv6-only. They'll have to keep IPv4 for basically forever, though.

I'm not a Linden, but I've submitted a patch, and, well... you'd be amazed.Well, if they were to go IPv6-only. They'll have to keep IPv4 for basically forever, though.Yeh, and the Windows camp tell us that Windows is secure now. I'm not a boy scout, I don't have to live in a camp.

They just have to try to put in support for it. I've seen this happen before with another project, they moved to XP and eventually added optional support for IPv6, the application crashes immediately on running it on Windows 2000. It may be poorly done, but they refuse to fix it because they do not support Windows 2000 anymore.

Hi Argent, We'd take this on a case-by-case basis, but generally we're not opposed to taking patches that help platforms we don't actually support. We have done this before.

Thanks. That's all I wanted to hear.

I guess that won't be so bad then if that is the way it has to be..

My 2 cents, shut er down! Win 2000 is old, most companies have already dropped supporting it anyways

We are up to Vista even though its not the greatest. It's been 8 years if someone has updated there computer to XP they should be shot.

I wouldn't put it that way, but certainly downgrading to Windows XP from Windows 2000 should at least get you a slap on the wrist.

i had 5600 on SL and i crashed and lost it all how would i go out getting it back

Hi there. I am since 24. march 2007 in Second Life. I has an Win2000 operating system, and also i am are an Invalide in RL. So i dont has the Money for an new Machine who can running an Windows Vista OS. Windows 2000 is an stable, small and verry good OS. From much People i heard, that they has greatest problems with Windows Vista. And my old Computer canot running an Vista. So if you end the suport for Windows 2000 then i canot longer go in Second Life. Why? Simple... i dont has the Money for buy an new Computer and for buy an Windows Vista.

So please, dear lindens... dont stop the suport for Win2000, one for the most stabelst OS who Microsoft has bring out.

Thank You

Sayonara, Shamara.

Windows 2000 machines can also run Linux. The Linux version isn't going anywhere. Linux is free.

Im surprised some people still use windows 2000, LL could consider keeping support going for say 12 months, perhaps, as another new windows OS is going to be released in Q3 or Q4 2009, but i think support could be dropped, because practically no-one supports win 2000 for program updates and such....BTW to save windows 2000 people screaming, linux is free and will install over windows, and i have heard that even ubuntu will run in SL, although i personally have not tried to run it in SL, but my old dinosaur pc actually runs ubuntu quite well over the internet.
(just dont stop support for xp ok ??? pls..)

I have installed SL on both WIN2000 and XP boxes ... while the XP boxes went 'ACK!' (and I have not dared experiment with it on vista) the 2000 ones could handle it.

Interestingly, their figures of <1% usage of Mac OS 10.3 (strange, I am an IT pro and I use both of these 'marginalized' OSs) was the reason they dropped it. Interstingly, the justification for keeping Win 2000 then was because of the SP release they want to brush under the carpet now.

The word from LL was they would give us notice (90 days before dropping it I think) before dropping 10.3. Well, it turned out the 'we are thinking about it' post *was* the notice, when that time expired there was a mandatory client upgrade that would not work on 10.3.

Some of us value stability more than being on the bleeding edge.

However those patches are rarely included in an official release from LL even when they sit in the JIRA for years, are a trivial code patch, and have been sucessfully used in other clients for several major releases.

I vote for stopping the Win2000 support.
Times and technology change, and Win2000 is a dinosaur os.
Instead of supporting old systems, better provide better support to actual systems

Best regards
Celina