Died -- 12/31/02: here rests your operating system. (Office Technology).

In the years that this column has been appearing, a lot of time and space has been spent discussing various hardware upgrade issues. Less attention has been spent in discussion of software upgrade issues.

One very important software issue that you should be aware of is operating system upgrades, especially if your organization primarily uses Microsoft operating systems. The reason for this is that Microsoft recently issued a new road-map of its operating system lifecycle guidelines. You can find all of the details on Microsoft's Web site, www.microsoft.com, but here are some of the highlights. All products, including most operating systems, have a lifecycle. They are introduced, sold, and supported. As new versions and products come along, software vendors face a declining number of users who are still running the older products and versions. At some point in time, it simply becomes very uneconomical for the vendor to continue to provide support to these users.

At that point, support is either reduced, or completely eliminated. If you have a problem with the product, you either have to pay to have it fixed, or you are on your own.

Think of it akin to the bumper-to-bumper warranties offered on many of today's cars. For the first 36,000 or so miles, the car dealer will fix pretty much anything that goes wrong on the car except "wear" items, such as brakes. After that, it's $70 an hour labor and expensive parts on your charge card.

Every once in a while, Microsoft announces a lifecycle road map for its operating system products and some of the components, such as Internet Explorer, that are ancillary parts of the OS. These detail the dates when the operating system and/or component will be fully supported. Microsoft calls it the "Mainstream" phase, supported through pay-per-incident and self support (the "Extended Phase"), and the "Non-Supported Phase," where you'll have to rely pretty much on the online help and troubleshooting guides.

The "Mainstream" and "Extended" phases on many of the Microsoft Operating Systems generally run for about three to four years, though the newest Windows versions promise a longer support period, after which you are on your own. At some time before this happens, you may want to consider upgrading the operating system to a newer version.

Some Microsoft operating systems have already reached their end-of-life, where no active support is available from Microsoft. These include all versions of MS-DOS, Windows 3.xx, Windows 95, and Windows NT 3.5x, all of which "died" on December 31,2002.

Windows 98/98SE and Windows NT 4.xx are already in the "Extended Phase, i.e. pay-per-incident support, and will enter the "Non-Supported" phase on June 30. These versions will reach the end-of-life mark on June 30, 2004. Windows Millennium Edition (Windows ME) has bit longer to go, entering the pay-per-incident support phase on December 31, 2003, and the "Non-Supported" phase on December 31, 2004.

Calling for support on an operating system problem can be expensive, though the fee is charged on a per-incident basis, rather than an hourly rate. That means that you'll pay the same fee whether it takes two minutes to solve the problem, or 10 calls over two weeks. Still, you had better have your credit card ready, or you can forget about talking to a support tech.

Upgrading the operating system costs more, but it serves several purposes. First of all, it provides you with an umbrella of support. Moreover, it also brings you features, and often increased reliability, that you may not be seeing in the operating system version that you are running.

Depending upon exactly which operating system and version you have running on a particular personal computer (PC), upgrading it can be easy or difficult. Installing Windows XP Pro or Windows 2000 on a PC running DOS is a major task, and you will probably have to reinstall most, if not all, of your applications.

It's easier to upgrade from Windows 98 or Windows 2000 to Windows XP Professional, but there's no real upgrade path from Windows XP Home Edition to the XP Professional Edition. Expect to pay between $100 and $200 per system for each upgrade. If you have a lot of PCs to upgrade, look for volume and corporate pricing.

One thing you might want to consider is simply replacing older PCs that are running DOS or Windows 3.xx. An operating system upgrade to Windows XP Pro can cost about $200 per system, and with the great deals right now on entry-level PCs, you can get a pretty nice PC for about $700 without the monitor.

When making a decision about upgrading to a new version of Windows, stay with Windows 2000 or Windows XP Professional. The Home Edition of Windows XP is nor as robust as the Professional Edition, which is built on Windows NT and Windows 2000 technology. For office use, you really want the extra reliability and better networking capability that the Professional Edition offers. It's more expensive than Windows XP Home Edition and worth every penny over the long run.

The Apple side of the street

Some of the points raised above are just as relevant if your organization makes use of Macs, rather than Wintel (Windows and Intel-based) PCs. Apple has introduced several new versions of the Mac OS during the past two years, including a major upgrade from the Mac OS 9.x series to the OS X (10) operating system.

With the Mac OS operating system, however, upgrading is a bit more complex decision. The very tightly tied hardware and operating system integration that makes the Macintosh so attractive to many users means that you may not see much of the benefits of the more powerful OS 10 operating system if you run it on older Mac models. Many of the OS 9.X and OS 10.X features are in the area of multimedia, and require some of the newer hardware features to use.

Apple tends to have somewhat more lenient support of its older operating systems than does Microsoft. This is a result of the fact that Apple makes its profits from selling you an integrated hardware/software system, rather than just the operating system and upgrades (a la Microsoft.) This puts a bit less pressure on Mac users to upgrade to avoid end-of-lifecycle issues.

Regardless of the operating system and hardware platforms you are running, it's always a good idea to occasionally look at the "big picture." Internal support of multiple versions of an operating system is tedious, and potentially time-consuming.

Too many organizations have PCs running the entire gamut of operating systems, from the newest Windows XP Pro going back to DOS. Not only does this place constraints on what applications you can adopt organization-wide, but it also means that you may be forced to upgrade at a time when it is less than convenient. Taking an operating system inventory every year or so lets you know where these vulnerabilities are. Knowing this, you can then make an informed decision on if, and when to upgrade.

Ted Needleman is the former associate publisher and editor-in-chief of Accounting Technology magazine. He is now a technology consultant and writer based in Stony Point, N.Y. His email address is [e-mail]