Many organizations like banks, telecom companies and schools have a lot of old computers. They're running on Windows 95 or Windows 98 and can't run new applications. To upgrade, they will have to buy new hardware and new licenses like Windows XP. Fortunately there is a simple way that allows to run the latest Windows applications without upgrading the old hardware.
All you need is to setup a Windows server and install the Windows applications that you need and install the "Terminal Service" which is included in Windows 2003 server. Then you can connect to this server from an old computer, see its desktop and run the applications on it, as if you were sitting in front of it. Usually one such server can support up to dozens of users. It means that you can now run the latest applications without upgrading the old computers. In addition, if you need to upgrade the applications, all you need is to do it on the server; You don't need to do it on each client computer. This will save you a lot of your administration efforts. A third benefit is, as the old computers don't have the right to modify the software on the server, you don't need to worry that the users may screw up the settings.
However, there is a still a problem: If the old computers continue to run old versions of Windows, as Microsoft has stopped supporting them, they contain a lot of security vulnerabilities and can be hacked easily or may leak your customers' information. To solve this problem, you may run Linux on those old computers. The magical thing is you can still connect to the Windows server and run its Windows applications. It means running Windows or Linux on the old computers will make no difference to the users at all. The latest version of Linux can still run on 486 computers. Therefore, security is ensured. As Linux is open source, you don't need to pay any extra license fee.
Many organizations overseas have used the method above to bring thousands of old computers back to life. They include: Gruppo Ventaglio touring company in Italy, Livedoor in Japan, Skegness school and Handsworth school in UK, Holy-cross school in Canada, Gould Academy in US, Guilford public library and Meadville public library in US and many more.
If you'd like to train your staff up on Linux, you can send them to
our up coming Linux courses: RedFlag
Linux Administrator Program or Linux
New Comer Institute (Fedora).
Any questions, ideas or experiences to share? Contact me at 781313 or kent at cpttm dot org dot mo.
Until next time,
Kent Tong