Today, support for Windows 2000 from Microsoft ends. Windows 2000 was released over ten years ago, on February 17, 2000. Although it may have had a shaky start as far as application compatibility goes, it is renowned as one of the most stable operating systems ever to come out of Microsoft, and it paved the way for Microsoft to merge the “home” (9x) and “business” (NT) lines of Windows with Windows XP, the following year.

Windows 2000 received its last service pack, Service Pack 4, on June 26, 2003. It has been in “extended support” since June 30, 2005, and since then it has only been receiving security updates from Microsoft. Now, all support for Windows 2000 is dropped, and security updates will no longer be issued.

Another Windows release passes on to the pile of Windows versions past. But this was a great one, so I wanted to post a small tribute to it.

If you were wondering, Windows ME was released after Windows 2000, on September 14, 2000. However, Microsoft dumped support for this operating system, the last of the “9x” line, back in 2006. The next operating system, Windows XP, is already in “extended support,” but will continue to receive security updates until April 8, 2014. By this time, Windows Vista will be in extended support (which happens in April, 2012). Only Vista Business and Vista Enterprise will be supported during the “extended support” phase, which will last until 2017, so support for the other editions (including Ultimate!) will end completely, before XP’s support runs out.

Anyway, here’s something that I’ve run into a few times now:  After running a repair install using a Windows XP SP3 disc, after booting up and logging in, you’re given the message along the lines of: “You must activate Windows before you can log on.  Would you like to activate Windows now?”  If you select “Yes,” which is supposed to bring up the activation prompt, nothing happens.  You get to stare at your desktop wallpaper until you decide to restart your computer manually.  If you select “No,” you are immediately logged out.  What to do?

Anyway, I discovered an easy solution to this problem today:  Just boot the machine in safe mode and install Internet Explorer 8.  (You’ll need to download it from Microsoft’s web site and put it on a flash drive or something to move to the troubled machine.)  After IE8 is installed, reboot again in normal mode and you should be able to activate.  Note that you still may have to wait a minute or so for the activation window to appear after you click “Yes.”

This condition may be dependent on having IE8 (or 7?) installed before you attempt the repair install, and it somehow gets messed up during the install.