Windows 2000 still earning its keep running a rail ticket machine in Portugal
- Reference: 1768215615
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2026/01/12/windows_2000_portugal_rail/
- Source link:
Spotted by an eagle-eyed Register reader in delightful Portugal, today's fail comes courtesy of the nation's rail network or, in this case, the ticket-selling machinery.
The machine looks as though it's had a hard life, and we're not sure we'd want to go jabbing that touchscreen. However, a tougher life has been led by the software running behind the scenes: Windows 2000 Professional – that famously hard-to-kill operating system.
Microsoft [1]finally called time on the software in 2010 after ending mainstream support more than 20 years ago, in 2005.
However, as evidenced in Portugal (and in customer-facing devices around the world), Windows 2000 did not go gentle into that good night. A stepping stone from Windows NT 4.0, the operating system formerly known as NT 5.0 has continued to run thanks, in part, to hardware requirements that seem positively quaint by today's standards, and a general bomb-proof nature that would be the envy of many of today's platforms.
[2]Recline of the machines: Terminator felled by dodgy battery
[3]Welcome to Wendy's! Before your order can be taken, you must first reset this kiosk
[4]Banksy's Limitless limited by Windows Activation
[5]We will be cruising at 35,000 feet and failing to update our Apache HTTP Server
Assuming, of course, you don't plug it directly into the internet.
As well as Windows 2000 Professional, we were delighted to note that the ticket kiosk features a keyboard inside. Back when this writer used to prowl datacenter corridors, poking a rack to make a keyboard and screen fold out represented the pinnacle of design technology. Such things would probably be regarded as antiquated in the lights-out behemoths of today, so seeing the hardware live on within a Portuguese ticket machine is enough to generate a nostalgic thrill.
There's no mouse visible, but we're sure that any engineer worthy of the title could easily navigate their way through Windows 2000 without needing such fripperies.
When Microsoft finally released Windows 2000 to manufacturing, as the last century drew to a close, the company [6]claimed the operating system, which apparently outperformed Windows 95, 98, and NT 4 on 64 MB of memory, was "an ideal platform for the next generation of business computing."
[7]
So much so that Windows 2000 continues to endure well into the 2020s as engineers squeeze every last ounce of life from the software and the hardware it runs on. ®
Get our [8]Tech Resources
[1] https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/askds/reminder-windows-2000-support-ends-july-13-and-other-lifecycle-stuff-for-2003-xp/397978
[2] https://www.theregister.com/2026/01/07/terminator_felled_by_dodgy_battery/
[3] https://www.theregister.com/2026/01/01/bork_wendys_kiosk/
[4] https://www.theregister.com/2025/12/30/banksys_limitless_limited_by_windows/
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2025/12/30/update_apache_http_server/
[6] https://news.microsoft.com/source/1999/12/15/microsoft-releases-windows-2000-to-manufacturing/
[7] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2aWUorshTaLxIF_PVcqvAeAAAA00&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[8] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: Since it runs a real parallel port ...
Mach3
As in the CMU micro·kernel ?
Or is Mach short for machine or machining rather the the scientist and philosopher ?
Re: Since it runs a real parallel port ...
"As in the CMU micro·kernel ?"
As in the Mach3 CNC software that drives stepper motors direct off the parallel port ... still works perfectly 25 years on ...
Re: Since it runs a real parallel port ...
Mach3 CNC software that drives stepper motors direct off the parallel port ... still works perfectly 25 years on ...
Thanks.
Learnt something new.
A quick search and it is still supported after 25 years — nothing short of a miracle in today's world:
https://www.machsupport.com/software/mach3/ …… and now with no added AI ! ;)
If only ....
Windows 11 was anywhere near as robust as Win 2000.
Re: If only ....
Windows 11 was anywhere near as robust as Win 2000.
Odd you wrote that.
I remember (before SP1 I think) a notebook running w2k arrived in AU with a nasty virus/worm from the US a full 24 hours before it started knocking on the doors from the internet. Possibly the last time a 747 could outrun the internet. ;)
Fortunately we only had a few PCs running w2k — mostly win9x, me and XP. That might have been the virus that hammered our HP·UX boxes because of a DCE network port that was also used by w2k.
Wedged by old proprietary hardware + drivers.
I was once asked to install w2k because the proprietary ISA data capture card had a binary device driver that would only work under w2k.
The owner had a hoard of old 32 bit ISA bus PCs just to keep the card and attached instrument going — cheaper than the vendor "upgrade" of a new instrument, software etc @$1 million.
Gets interesting with disks as w2k didn't natively support SATA and most of the remaining motherboards were post IDE. I suspect the user had survived until then by transferring the disk to the next functional box from the stash.
Just getting hold of a w2k install image or media in 2015 was an "interesting" exercise (not to mention the activation code.)
A Unix sysadmin's lot is not a happy one … when they run·in jobs like this.
Why the Unix chap ? " You are the only one that knows how any of this stuff actually works ." — Thanks ؟ :(
Hint: 32 bit x86, ISA, IDE(?) boards are, or were, still manufactured for industrial (control) systems — but expensive.
Re: Wedged by old proprietary hardware + drivers.
> Just getting hold of a w2k install image or media in 2015 was an "interesting" exercise (not to mention the activation code.)
Activation Code? Windows 2000 did not require any activation. Type in a serial from wherever you got it, done. Same for office 2000.
Re: Wedged by old proprietary hardware + drivers.
I assumed they were referring to that TBF
Probably my favourite|
We did like XP, the next version, too; but only when we set it to ’Classic’ mode when it "looked" like 2000.
Re: Probably my favourite|
This is the first thing I used to do on any new XP installation. I preferred the look and as a bonus the PC's performance seemed to be better without all the visual cruft.
I used Windows 2000 exclusively until XP came out and much preferred it to any of the Win9x versions. So much more stable, it was revelation. The only issue I had with 2000 was that drivers for some more consumer based peripherals didn't come out until XP was on the horizon. I didn't use XP for long on my personal machines though and went over to Linux full time in about 2002 / 2003. Was still stuck with XP at work though. Thankfully I managed to completely avoid Vista!
IIRC
Windows NT 4.0 was the last (and maybe only) Borkzilla OS certified by the US DOD to be secure - in a standalone configuration.
I am convinced that if Portugal "upgrades" their terminals to Windows 11, they will basically have no end of troubles until they finally understand that Linux is the way to go for long-term stability.
Stability has been crossed out of Redmond's dictionary since Y2K.
Since it runs a real parallel port ...
One of my CNC machines still has it running a copy of Mach3 and throwing the milling head around reliably and safely. No internet connection needed, one just plugs a stick in with the Gcode, much the same as the newer CNC printer and laser cutter. I can well imaging that the ticket machine will have a number of pieces of hardware controlled directly from it's parallel port ...