Comment on The end of Windows 10 is approaching, so it's time to consider Linux and LibreOffice

• Passerby6497@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Hahahahahaha, I still periodically see win2k/2k3 on the network at some clients, with SMBv1 enabled across the domain to make the CISO’s eye twitch

  source

  • aeternum@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    back in 2017, the company I worked at had a win 2K server. Crazy shit. It was for a critical system (ran the phone system)

    source

    • Passerby6497@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Fucking phone systems! That’s what these are, and we have to snap them any time they’re rebooted because sometimes they just shut the bed randomly, but the client doesn’t want to buy a new system…

      But, it’s their wallet and they’re willing to pay the “fuck you pay me” legacy surcharge.

      source
• dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  You would be amazed and the industrial world. There are tons of large and incredibly expensive special purposes machines that are operated by super antiquated PC architecture computers running geriatric operating systems, sometimes still even DOS or Windows 3.x.

  Think industrial CNC mills and lathes, presses, pick-and-place machines, specialty lab testing equipment, electron microscopes, etc.

  Process control, i.e. production line automation, is usually driven by dedicated PLCs. But the user interfaces connected to them are almost invariantly some old ruggedized panel mounted PC running Windows. An absurd number of them in my experience are still on 2000 or XP. NT4 is pretty easy to find, too.

  Granted often these are not networked, and in cases where they are they’re not connected to the internet, or may even talk to other workstations via RS-485 serial (!) or some other gimcrack method that is unlikely to be a vector for modern malware.

  source

  • nickhammes@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Critically, the people who build these machines don’t typically update drivers to port them to a new OS. You buy a piece of heavy equipment, investing tens, or maybe even a hundred thousand dollars, and there’s an OS it works on, maybe two if you’re lucky. The equipment hopefully works for at least 20 years, and basically no OS is going to maintain that kind of compatibility for that long. Linux might get the closest, but I’ll bet you’re compiling/patching your own kernels before 20 years is up.

    This kind of dynamic is unavoidable when equipment vendors sell equipment which has a long usable life (which is good), and don’t invest in software support (which is them being cheap, to an extent), and OSes change enough that these time horizons likely involve compatibility-breaking releases.

    source
  • jordanlund@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    As long as they aren’t networked, there’s no problem there!

    source