Windows NT 4.0 is alive and well and at a bank, business or hospital near you.

That's the problem, and it's one shared by both Microsoft and business. The company may have discontinued support for Windows NT on the desktop in June and will do the same for the Server next year, but for a number of very good reasons NT is stubbornly refusing to take the door marked "Exit".

This month, I had a conversation with the head of security at a leading bank.

"Blaster was a wake-up call to all of us in the financial services industry," he tells me. With tens of thousands of desktops and almost a thousand servers, we were planning a gradual migration from Windows NT, to Windows 2000 and then finally to Longhorn when it arrives.

"Windows XP doesn't appear in our plans at all, he adds. "However, not only did the events of the summer give us serious cause for concern on the security front, but they also made us worry over falling foul of the regulators, who are themselves concerned over levels of preparedness for whatever comes next."

[ Read more ]