Windows OS released for aging computers

[Kaido]

http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,126408,00.asp

Microsoft Releases New OS for Old PCs

Software is designed to extend the life of aging systems by turning them into thin clients.

Microsoft released a new version of its operating system for businesses this week that extends the life of older PCs by effectively turning them into thin-client computers.

Called Windows Fundamentals for Legacy PCs, the software is offered only to customers on Microsoft's Software Assurance licensing and maintenance program. It's not a full-featured OS, but it improves the security and manageability of PCs for customers with systems that are too old for Windows XP and who aren't ready yet to upgrade their hardware, Microsoft said.

The company first discussed the software last September as one of a series of perks intended to improve the value of Software Assurance, which had been criticized by some customers. Fundamentals for Legacy PCs was originally targeted for release last month.

Local Apps vs. Hosted Apps

The OS can run only a few programs locally, such as security tools, management tools, and document viewers, which means line-of-business and productivity applications will need to be run remotely on a server.

The trade-off is that the older PCs will be able to run the latest security and management tools, and the end user experience should be similar to that with Windows XP, according to Microsoft, making help desk calls easier to deal with. Customers will also have a fully-supported OS.

Among the other sweeteners offered to Software Assurance customers was exclusive access to a new, enterprise edition of Windows Vista due out in November. The OS is expected to include a hardware-based encryption system to protect data if a laptop is lost or stolen, among other benefits.

It also allows customers to run four versions of the enterprise OS on one PC using virtualization software. In line with that, Microsoft announced this week that Virtual PC 2007 for Windows Vista PCs, as well as the current Virtual PC 2004 SP product, are now available to customers for free.

 

[networkman]

Based on my experience with Citrix, Terminal Services, and how companies operate in general, I predict this program to be a flop. :roll:

 

[spyordie007]

I dont think it will be a "flop"; this is intended only for certain deployments and will only be available to customers with SA.

This is obviously not designed to be mainstream.

 

[bdww00]

eh my bare bones xp is good enuff..

 

[nweaver]

Originally posted by: bdww00
eh my bare bones xp is good enuff..

run y our bare bones XP on an old P2 with 256MB ram, and use office and other tools....

 

[drag]

I assume they aren't charging for this, right? It's a no-cost operating system?

Otherwise it would be much cheaper and easier to run rdesktop on a bare Linux desktop...

 

[Kyanzes]

It's a rather strange move, I mean sw developers tend to increase the hw requirements of their products with new versions. This idea, should be a success, would definitely slow the "natural" process of hardware transition therefore increasing prices in the long run. Ofc, as always, I can be way wrong. And likely it's a dead end anyway. They had to spend some money somewhere on sw development perhaps, dunno.

 

[drag]

Originally posted by: Kyanzes
It's a rather strange move, I mean sw developers tend to increase the hw requirements of their products with new versions. This idea, should be a success, would definitely slow the "natural" process of hardware transition therefore increasing prices in the long run. Ofc, as always, I can be way wrong. And likely it's a dead end anyway. They had to spend some money somewhere on sw development perhaps, dunno.

If you look at it it's just a thin client and you can't run any software of any importance on it. No games, no productivity software or anything like that.

It's designed to take a Win98 machine, format it, and then turn it into a remote desktop client for another XP pro or some server running terminal services.

So it's not a reverse at all. It's just doing something that people have been doing for years very successfully with other software.

 

[doornail]

I suspect Microsoft has decided that Windows needs a presence in every venue (probably a command from Balmer) -- which includes the barely-to-non profitable, niche ones. This project is a lot like their announced cluster computing using a modifed version of 2003 server. Something I have trouble picturing a demand for.

It might be an attempt to slow experimentation with alternative OS's like Linux.

 

[stash]

I suspect Microsoft has decided that Windows needs a presence in every venue (probably a command from Balmer) -- which includes the barely-to-non profitable, niche ones

Apparently you missed the part where it says that this product is given free to customers who already have paid for software assurance and the associated volume license program. These are customers have already invested in Microsoft products. I seriously doubt anyone is going to purchase a software assurance package just to get their hands on this product.

 

[drag]

I suspect Microsoft has decided that Windows needs a presence in every venue (probably a command from Balmer) -- which includes the barely-to-non profitable, niche ones. This project is a lot like their announced cluster computing using a modifed version of 2003 server. Something I have trouble picturing a demand for.

The clustering thing would be more for prestige. The same reason why you have automobile manufacturers doing nascar.

The truth behind Microsoft's clustering asperations is that they've doing it for YEARS. If you go around on the internet you can find NT and Windows 2000 make the Top500 list here and there and there have been extensive cooperation with a couple Universities to produce High Performance Computing versions of Windows and Windows software for a long time now. Since windows NT they've been working hard on getting a foothold in high performance computing, but so far they've lacked the respect to progress far in that feild. Now that Linux dominates that arena (75% of Top500 "most powerfull computers in the world" run Linux) it looks funny for Microsoft not to have a real presence.

This terminal client version of Windows is probably designed to entice people to finally abandon Windows 98 and older Windows 2000 machines. I expect that it will integrate well with Active directory and combined with the natural lower administrative requirements of terminals over PCs it should be very attractive upgrade for most businesses. It would lower administrative costs for older machines considurably.

 

[doornail]

Originally posted by: stash
Apparently you missed the part where it says that this product is given free to customers who already have paid for software assurance and the associated volume license program.

Wasn't Software Assurance that the deal where folks paid extra fees in order to get "free" product updates but then Microsoft didn't release any updates during the term yet kept the money?

People still buy that?

 

[doornail]

Originally posted by: drag
The clustering thing would be more for prestige. The same reason why you have automobile manufacturers doing nascar.

I dunno. Tide sponsors a car but they wont sell you one. This is product for Microsoft. Apparently, you can even cluster your excel spreadsheets.

Showing up once or twice and near the bottom of the Top 500 might be worse for their image than not appearing at all.

 

[unfalliblekrutch]

Originally posted by: nweaver

Originally posted by: bdww00
eh my bare bones xp is good enuff..

run y our bare bones XP on an old P2 with 256MB ram, and use office and other tools....

Worked good for me until that P2 died.

 

[stash]

People still buy that?

Yes, and nice attempt to change the subject from your first badly misinformed post.

 

[drag]

Originally posted by: doornail

Originally posted by: drag
The clustering thing would be more for prestige. The same reason why you have automobile manufacturers doing nascar.

I dunno. Tide sponsors a car but they wont sell you one. This is product for Microsoft.

Tide does advertisments. 🙂 They'd love to sell you some soap.

Apparently, you can even cluster your excel spreadsheets.

Ya they are saying that it would be great for businesses. That this will make clustering usefull for 'normal' businesses or something like that.

I see how it would help for high aviability and such.. Like have fail-over style clusters were you have redundancy (which Windows has supported for a long time). But I realy don't see it for 'high peformance computing' style things.

Showing up once or twice and near the bottom of the Top 500 might be worse for their image than not appearing at all.

Well they never showed up on the bottom. NT (including w2k and such) clusters tend to show up at around 250-300 or so.

Cornell University works with Microsoft...
See http://www.top500.org/site/401
They made rank 310 on the November 2005 list.

This shows a couple 2003 systems made it on June 2006 list.
http://www.top500.org/stats/27/os/

If you just go back (change 27/os/ to 26/os/ and so on and so forth) you'll see that there has been at least one windows system on each top500 for most of the time after 2001 or 2002 or so. But I don't think those OS stats are entirely accurate.

http://access.ncsa.uiuc.edu/Briefs/00Briefs/000613.Top500.html

 

[spikespiegal]

Based on my experience with Citrix, Terminal Services,

I don't have any problems with TS or Citrix. Maybe it's just you.

 

[doornail]

Originally posted by: stash
Yes, and nice attempt to change the subject from your first badly misinformed post.

How was it misinformed? Microsoft has begun to aggressively, if not alway profitably, expand into curious new markets such as would-be Google , software embedded ad agency, rent-to-own PC's in Brazil, and Software-as-a-Service (whatever that really means).

They are only a couple steps behind Sun when it comes to wacky proclaimations.

 

[shortylickens]

Wouldnt it be better just to run Windows 2000?

 

[stash]

Microsoft has begun to aggressively, if not alway profitably, expand into curious new markets such as would-be Google , software embedded ad agency, rent-to-own PC's in Brazil, and Software-as-a-Service (whatever that really means).

You say that as if it's a bad thing for a publically traded company to seek new sources of revenue.

Anyway, your post was misinformed because none of things you mention above have anything to do with Windows Fundementals. Releasing WF is not going to result in any noteable expansion into new markets, because, as I said before, it is only available to customers who have already invested in MS products.

I suppose it's possible that some firms who are not currently MS customers will purchase volume license agreements and software assurance just to get their hands on this, but that is decidedly a corner-case.

 

[corkyg]

Well - I posted this over an hour earlier - but I guess I didn't use the right words. 🙂

FLP

OK - the Netherlands site has been zapped. Wonder why? Here is Steven Bink's report:

Microsoft Windows Fundamentals for Legacy PCs (WinFLP) is a Windows-based operating system designed for enterprise customers with legacy PCs who are not in a position to purchase new hardware. WinFLP provides the same security and manageability as Microsoft Windows XP SP2 while providing a smooth migration path to the latest hardware and operating system.

Windows Fundamentals for Legacy PCs (WinFLP) requires:

A minimum of 611 MB of free hard drive space. Actual requirements will vary based on your system configuration and the applications and features you choose to install. Installing all optional components requires 1151 MB of disk space. These requirements are reported on the screen as you select options in the Setup wizard. Additional hard disk space may be required if you are installing over a network. Also, you should reserve additional space for future updates and service packs.

A computer with 233 megahertz or higher processor clock speed (300 MHz is recommended); Intel Pentium/Celeron family, or AMD K6/Athlon/Duron family, or compatible processor is recommended.

64 MB of RAM. 256 MB of RAM is recommended.
I installed it in a Vmware Workstation Virtual Machine with 128 MB of RAM.

I also tested a scenario with a 128 MB machine with no disks, booting into XP fundamentals then connecting usig RDP to a terminal server. The same scenario using 64MB resuted in a too low virtual memory error/crash. So 64 MB RAM is supported but it needs a disk for virtual memory.

Thanks!

Steven Bink