Bitsum Community Forum

Should we continue to support Windows 2000?

Note that supporting Windows 2000 causes us significant headaches as Microsoft dropped it in Visual Studio 2010. For the 32-bit builds of our software, we have to use the VC9 (Visual Studio 2008) build tools. Dropping support would increase performance, ease development, and otherwise just make our lives easier - and more productive.

Older versions would still be compatible.

At some point, you have to say -- no more... and that point is coming. If there are Windows 2000 users, I strongly suggest you make your voice heard now, and - better yet - make your wallets heard now ;)

MS dropped support some time ago, unless you sell enough licenses from 2000 user to pay for the cost, I vote "No".  I would rather a smaller, faster product with a more efficient dev cycle for those of use with more modern OS's

Quote from: gabeeg on August 05, 2012, 08:13:30 PM
MS dropped support some time ago, unless you sell enough licenses from 2000 user to pay for the cost, I vote "No".  I would rather a smaller, faster product with a more efficient dev cycle for those of use with more modern OS's

It seems the way to go... And one day because I am on XP, it will be on lifeline, too!...but, hopefully, not yet! ;)

I changed my mind, i say drop it. Just so XP is still supported.  :) Im still hanging on with XP just a bit longer till i get Win7. Will not get that god awful Win8.

As long as you provide a build that works on Windows 2000 - even if it's an older version - I see no reason to keep on supporting it. (Home) users not wanting to update to XP probably won't be too eager to update Process Lasso, either. As for business users, the older builds should still work just fine.

Quote from: Keefa on August 06, 2012, 08:53:06 AM
As long as you provide a build that works on Windows 2000 - even if it's an older version - I see no reason to keep on supporting it. (Home) users not wanting to update to XP probably won't be too eager to update Process Lasso, either. As for business users, the older builds should still work just fine.

Right as   many of newer features only work on vista + OS , so your not really going to get much more improvement over whats there now IMO with older OS . XP is already limited with power options and few other features .

Ok, I think a consensus has been reached then. Support will end when I switch to Visual Studio 2012 - which means this month at some point.

I believe it important because the newer compiler has better optimizations than the older one does, therefore all XP users will see a performance improvement in Process Lasso, however small. I will create a message for Windows 2000 users stating the exact last build supported, and keep that build publicly available. While I could wait for version 7 of Process Lasso, that may be a ways off, and I'd prefer to make this change as soon as possible.

For Windows 2000 and some XP users, version 3 may even be the preferred build. That was the last version at which I didn't target any NT6 (Vista+) specific features.

The following Operating Systems will be supported indefinitely (and will continue to be tested against):

Windows XP
Windows 2003
Windows 2003/R2
Windows Vista
Windows 2008
Windows 7
Windows Home Server 2011 (home server edition is no longer published by Microsoft - requires server license)
Windows 8
Windows 2012

I second those people wanting Bitsum  to drop Windows 2000 as a target for the current (6.0) & future version of Process Lasso in order to simplify Bitsum's development burden.

Windows 2000 users can continue to use the current or earlier stable versions quite happily, I think--it really is well implemented software and most of the new features/fixes apply to Windows Vista+ anyway...

I still have an old, barely used Windows 2000 low-powered (Intel P3) tower-case machine which I power up only every few months in recent years, but I want to definitively remove Windows 2000 in the not too distant future and somehow recycle the whole dinisaur--I do everything on my notebook+external USB disks these days, time to liberate my desk from that hulking CRT monitor! (I'd love to use it as a headless file server, but it's not energy efficient and makes too much noise. Perhaps I can put it in a new case and make it work with only passive cooling, I'm not sure.)

UPDATE: the decision was made while I composed this post...

Thanks for all your votes and comments - and sorry to pre-empt your comment mjdl ;). It was clear what the trend was. Honestly, I am eager to drop Windows 2000, as much as I appreciate it as an efficient home desktop OS. From time to time, I might create a new Windows 2000 build if possible. I may leave that capability, and potential.