Greetings:
I contacted Microsoft with the intention of paying them for
the DST patch for Windows 2000 (for those of you sleeping under a rock
W2K is out of M$’s support cycle and they are not distributing
non-security patches to organizations without Extended Support Contracts).
We still have a small percentage of servers that haven’t been replaced
yet. The response was that it would cost $4000.
We’re not paying $4000 for a patch. I don’t
suspect many departments across the University are. So what are you guys
doing? I know we aren’t
the only ones with W2K servers and workstations lingering… Here, we’ve
discussed the following alternatives:
a) One of my
co-workers found a 3rd party company that was giving an unsupported
patch away for free on their web site; sounds great, but, it’s not from
M$ and who knows how well it works come March. I’d feel much safer
if it was from M$.
b) M$ offers
instructions on how to do it manually in KB914387. It’s very complicated.
I wouldn’t trust myself to even copy and paste without errors, and
being a registry patch there would be no feedback as to whether it was wrong.
c) My limited
understanding of Kerberos and AD/Domain behavior suggests that trying to fake
it out by changing the time won’t work for any machine in the domain (it seems
as though it might for non-domain-members). (Kerberos refuses net connectivity to
any connection more than 5 minutes offset from the DCs – try it yourself –
change your workstation date ahead and try and connect to Exchange – no go).
d) Could the U.
buy the patch and distribute it, much like U. site licenses? Perhaps we
would all pay a fraction of that cost?
Are you aware of any other options?
Brian Hoort
Business & Personnel Office
Rm. 1 Physical Plant Bldg.
517-432-0242
[log in to unmask]