Are old applications holding you back getting rid of Windows XP? It’s A reason we hear a lot and these apps do exist. But often it’s because the effort to make it work isn’t considered worth the cost. Year after year. So some people today are stuck on a Windows Server 2000/2003 & XP infrastructure. How does that cost compare now to the cost of dealing with the application? Was it worth not moving the application & have an out of date infrastructure holding your ENTIRE company down?

While some things can’t be fixed, putting in some effort could have prevented you of being in this mess. Yes it would have cost you a decent penny but nothing compared to where you are at now with your infrastructure “challenges”.

Here’s a little example for you. Over a period of 13 years we’ve moved an old application (using a Borland database engine & ISAPI DLLs in IIS). It ran on Windows Server 2000. It was P2V’d to VMware Server. Over the years the data base swapped from Informix to SQL Server 2000, 2005, 2008, 2008 R2. We upgraded the VM to Windows Server 2003(x86), moved to Hyper-V, upgraded to Windows 2008(x86) & final now put on W2K12R2(x64). So what do you mean you can’t get rid of XP? We’ve moved the client app for that VM to x64 with Vista in 2007.  We were not to let that app block our way to the future and Windows 7(x64) and Windows 8 & 8.1(x64). In 2014 you should be able to move to or you need to reconsider your approach to IT as you have totally painted the organization into a corner. We did not have installers for anything. We extracted registry entries & bits form installed systems and build installers ourselves with the free NSIS installer. We used  Windows SysInternals tools to figure out where the application wrote & read, what permissions where needed and add those to the installer to make sure it did not need local admin rights. It gave the business over a decade to get a grip on application live cycle management & replace the app. They failed twice, and while that’s bad and we do not like it, it was not deadly as they haven’t let the rest of the company suffer for it. Never, ever let your infrastructure get stuck in the past. But wait you say, what you did is not supported. That’s right. That’s one app, that works, and it beats being left with an unsupportable infrastructure blocking progress

You might need some help and here’s a great place to start helping yourself The App Compat Guy. Read and view (TechEd presentations) anything Chris Jackson is offering on this subject and you’ll be on your way. Need a helping hand? Here’s a good place to start if your in Belgium: Microsoft Extended Experts Team (MEET). Chances are some of them known some one who knows how to get it done or are the person to talk to.