The records are kept in a program that is no longer available and will not install on Win7 and according to him not worth the conversion effort. Also the records are before my time with him so I have no idea of the size of the data. One option I have suggested to him is just keep the box off line and stored in a closet. Note I have never logged into this box I found it running on the network when I took over supporting his site a year ago. I told him that he was running a non-supported non-patched system on his network and at that time it was taken offline. If you ignore the legal aspects of the question and just focus on the technical parts, yes it is possible. You will need to dig for some older bits to make this work since win2K is not currently supported by ESXi 5.x.You will need to locate an older version of ESXi from the 4.0 vintage or VMWare Server 1.0.10.
Install the hypervisor and get it up and running. Since you will just need this for conversion you can load either the type 1 or type 2 hypervisor on the desktop system or old server with 4GB of ram (more would be better). 4.0 'should install on 32bit hardware' or find a core 2 duo system for the conversion. Next locate VMWare Standalone converter 4.3 and perform a live migration from the GX1 (circa 1999) to your VM Host server.
Once you have the machine virtualized you can move it where you need.From the licensing side you are in a rough bit. I don't think if you purchased an enterprise version of the OS with SA would give you the downgrade rights to legally run that system off the original hardware or not. That is probably a question for a MS licensing wizard. There has to be some way to do this and remain in compliance.Edited Apr 7, 2013 at 00:06 UTC.
First off, legacy is a major PITA. I've been supporting things legacy for a few decades now, especially while in uniform, and two things I can guarantee is that you'll run out of budget and patience about the same time. So, the very first thing to discuss with the potential customer is the (so-called) business value of the data and any time and budget constraints.
A lot of research is involved and since your time is quite literally your and their money, well, you know the drill.The very first thing to do with the server, and I'm assuming it is a server installation, is make at least (2) two images of any hard drives and floppies. Just the floppies can give you fits (and why my shiny, shiny new motherboard has a floppy header).
At least one copy of each to be off-site, preferably all off-site. You'll be covered if the next time it is turned on is its last.Conduct a thorough hardware and software inventory. Some of the stuff may be really old, so keep an eye out for FCC identification numbers if nothing else turns up.Armed with this information, now you can go through the software products you'll need to hand for each possible path. Do not get fixated with any particular software/hardware combination. This is the manpower intensive part. I'm sure someone will jump in with a particular combination as perfect (and VMWare is close to perfect, today) but this may not hold true forever, or however long (double any estimate) the data may need to be retained. There are significant trade-offs in the proprietary/FOSS divide and the budget will certainly have an influence here.Observations: I'm far less worried about the licensing issue.
Should it be required, you can still pick up (completely!) unused Windows 2000 Advanced Server licenses, with the holographic disc. I keep unused copies here. Hell, I have unused WfW 3.1.1 (even MS-DOS & PC-DOS) licenses here. I'd be far more worried about that proprietary application. And some thought should be expended on identifying an upgrade path in that direction.
It's the data that's important, at least to the client. I've actually done a heck of a lot more work in that direction. And database migrations a WORM financial success.If you're a puzzle-person this can be the most intellectually challenging work you can find. On the other hand, it can also be the least rewarding financially, even should word-of-mouth get the attention of potential clients.Good luck!
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Thanks for the write up Jack; I am waiting for an answer from the client on just how much money should be spent on this system. My gut tells me that he may just retire it now. It has been off line for over a year, and at the time I discovered it he could not remember what it was for and we had to contact the prior consultant.Yep and I am a puzzle-person, I got my start in this business working with dBase3 and I love to figure out how to get data from one system to another. I have 2 PIII systems with 5.25 floppies running Win95 and 98 that I use for floppy disk conversions that I do for Oil & Gas Exploration firms. Finding the perfect solution with that old media was quite an adventure. I have successfully converted widows 7 machine into virtual using the following free utility from VMware;It is working perfectly in VMware workstation.
Owenmpk wrote:Thanks for the write up Jack; I am waiting for an answer from the client on just how much money should be spent on this system. My gut tells me that he may just retire it now.
It has been off line for over a year, and at the time I discovered it he could not remember what it was for and we had to contact the prior consultant.Yep and I am a puzzle-person, I got my start in this business working with dBase3 and I love to figure out how to get data from one system to another. I have 2 PIII systems with 5.25 floppies running Win95 and 98 that I use for floppy disk conversions that I do for Oil & Gas Exploration firms. Finding the perfect solution with that old media was quite an adventure.' Been There, Done That, Burned That Damned T-Shirt!' That great sucking noise out at Pearl Harbor was me getting sucked into a full boat of every IT discipline that existed at that time. We were running beta versions of an automated logistics overhaul system that, after every damn update, with extreme prejudice (recovery not even in the cards) blew up the old software as well as the database. I promised myself and my fellow long suffering temps that we would never, ever do that again (Thanks Taylor).
I got to practice defense in depth with no access to the 'right' tools. It was interesting. I thought the hours I was working were bad be fore. Ha!And after all that, I had s 'No $h.+ rep as some kind of miracle worker (and high-level protection though I din't find out about that until much later). Even gave me my own several million dollar mainframe (and a key to every machine in the Navy) as well. Hell, I just didn't want to re-inventory all those thousands of individual light bulbs AGAIN!
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And every little thing else. I can still recall some of those national stock numbers from memory in my nightmares;-). And that's how I learned Cobol. I already had System/360 and /370 assembly, multiple flavors of Fortran, SPSS, all on mainframes natch, and a partridge in a peartree (multiple BASICs, Z80/65xx/680x0 assembers, even 808x). What can I say, I actually enjoy reading engineering manuals!If you ever need some type of obscure legacy software that would have been in the various DOS and/or Windows fora on CompuServe, I have a full copy of their libraries here (I was librarian and tech advisor). Also IBM Laptop, C=, and Amiga fora.
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They're searchable library list to index into the libs, if necessary. Might come in handy to someone.Good luck on that job. Sounds like you have a well-earned No-$h.+ rep too if you are involved in GIS conversions.Edited Apr 9, 2013 at 19:09 UTC.