With Microsoft dumping plans for a fifth Windows 2000 Service Pack, analysts Friday urged businesses running the aging OS to immediately update to the current SP4 or risk running out of support come next June.

"Windows 2000 SP4 will now be the base platform for all Windows 2000 variations through the end of supported life for that product, which Microsoft says will be 30 June 2010," wrote Gartner analysts Michael Silver and Neil MacDonald in an online advisory. "This is good news, because service packs are hard to apply and require extensive customer testing."

The demise of a possible SP5 for Windows 2000, however, means that there's no chance that Microsoft will deliver the kind of security enhancement's it put into Windows XP SP2 will make it to the Windows 2000 platform. "If you're interested in the security improvements [in Windows XP SP2], for example, support for the /NX flag in newer AMD and Intel chips, plan to [Windows XP SP2]. Windows 2000 won't see those improvements," the pair wrote.

By upgrading to SP4 across the board, said Silverberg and MacDonald, companies guarantee that they're supported through the current extended support expiration date of June 30, 2010. "Windows 2000 SP3 support is scheduled to end on June 30, 2005; after that date, Microsoft may not deliver new security fixes for SP3," they wrote.

Windows 2000 SP4 can be downloaded from the Microsoft Web site.


Source : TechWeb

How unfortunate. That means... the next OS jump for me is Windows 2000 -> Windows Server 2003.
But then again, something new might be better option then...
Of course... unless it's one of those useless "SkipOS"-variants like WinME&WinXP.

(in reply to WinThusiast)