I still have some NT 4s and Windows 2000 servers out there. My main issues are these are very very old clients who will not want to move, either their programmers had long disappeared or they just had an attachment to their old servers.

Now what should I do with these? Or rather what do you guys facing similar issues deal with this? Migrate these old contented clients and risk breaking something or just leave it as it is?

Well I would say that security is going to be come a major issue. NT4 no longer has supports / updates and I think Windows 2000 is pretty much the same. My biggest concern would be say the motherboard breaks and you have to replace the CPU/RAM etc then Windows 2000/NT4 might not even have support for the network cards which is going to make life very hard.

I would say either migrate them to Windows 2003 or prehaps setup a beefier machine running VMWare and migrate them into VPS's. At least that way you can keep the underlying OS the same as well as "hardware" support

I think the VMware solution is feasible , thanks a million. I did had a motherboard issue, that took a lot of time and efforts to get that old server up again. Thank goodness the new motherboard chipset is compatible. But that was quite a nightmare!

Whilst thinking about it why not setup a Windows 2003 VPS and see if their app runs? That way you can stage it and if it works great, if not you have a fall back plan

Thanks really learn a lot from you guys here. Using VPS for those migrations are things that I never though of even though I encounter VPS and servers every single day :)

Thanks really learn a lot from you guys here. Using VPS for those migrations are things that I never though of even though I encounter VPS and servers every single day :)

Always good to learn new thing. :agree:

Because old operating systems become a greater security risk, I would recommend transferring clients to a newer server.

things are evolving really quick around here - everything new is new just for a moment :)

Windows 2000/NT4 might not even have support for the network cards which is going to make life very hard

I think the supported Intel nics are going to around for the forseeable future.

The really important thing is that if the client does not want to move to a new OS, the client is going to find a host that will let them stay on their OS of choice. Problem solved, but bad for your revenues.

The more complex an application is, the more risk and cost they face in migrating to a new platform. There is no reason for *them* to want to move if everything is working well. If you force the matter, be prepared to have customers leave. I know I would move in a blink if a host started making moves that put me at risk.
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