what will I do when 3.8 is no longer supported?
 

This is a little random really, but I noticed that a lot of mods had been put into the graveyard, and then I remembered that 3.6 is no longer supported, thus no mods and such available anymore(a lot worked on 3.8)

Well, I'm not a big fan of v4, so I don't really intend on upgrading to it, and would like to keep using 3.8.x, but eventually it's going to go the way of the rest, and become unsupported, and lose all it's available mods, etc.

What does one do in such a case?

You should always keep backup copies of the mods you install on your harddrive. A mod can go into the graveyard without notice at anytime (the developer just needs to ask).

As for the whole version being archived here, we have always made an announcement a few weeks in advance of archiving a whole section. I would guess that the 3.5, 3.6, 3.7, and 3.8 sections would be archived at the same time since so many of the mods will work on any of those versions, but that is just my guess.

No 3.6 mods have been moved to the GY unless the author has requested it (or removed the files themselves). The 3.6 section is not, currently, archived.

The next one to get archived will be 3.5, no date is set for that. The 3.8 section I would imagine to be around for a number of years still.

ya I kind of jumped the gun on that, I didn't really think the situation through fully.

I feel a little stupid now after reading this thread later.


Lynne: I used to have a full copy of all the mods I have installed, but I had a hard drive BIOS go bad, so now to get the stuff from the drive is going to cost $1000 because the HDD doesn't know what it is..... shows up as a MAXTOR FALCON 0MB

<a href="http://www.vb3forever.org" target="_blank">www.vb3forever.org</a> is a comminity of 3.8 admins dedicated to keeping 3.8 alive past it's official end of life. They will release community created security patches as needed.

thats awesome.

hum, interesting....

btw, i don't think such site will rise any interest, but i love to see others efforts, and see where that can go... :)

I agree it's going to be an uphill battle and when Xenoforo was announced it let a lot of steam out of the enthusiasm for this project, admittedly I was spending a lot of time at XF too in the days after it was made public... but eventually reality set in and I'm not going to be moving my 3,8 forum to XF anytime soon, I would say a year out at minimum and I don't even know if ever... There were some talented people working on this and an admin cp interface which would allow easy applications of patches without manual file edits... I mean it may still be years before vbulletin/IB stops releasing security updates for 3.8, but we don't know- so this will be a backup.

I always try and keep copies in a few different places - a folder on the server, a folder on my computer, and then the backups I have of my harddrive. So far, I haven't actually needed a copy, but better safe than sorry. :)

800mb CDs are now like 5¢, you can't avoid backuping anything....

Most CD's turn into what I like to call "coasters". The either don't burn, burn but aren't readable, or are not readable either way. I've never seen CD's as cheap as $0.05/ea. either.

If most of your CDs are coasters, then you are doing something wrong. I have all my backup CDs (although I use DVDs) labeled and I go back and grab stuff off of them all the time (music) and it is just fine (I always have .md5s and .st5s with them to check them).

I've been working with computers long enough to know how to burn a CD =) (I've been working with computers since '97) Oh, and CD's != DVD's.

When manufacturers try to make discs as cheap as possible, then it's easy to get a bunch of "coasters". Just read through a few Newegg, TigerDirect, Buy.com, etc reviews to get an idea on how some of the most common brands are doing nowadays ;)

I always bought Taiyo Yuden made in Japan ones. So, I was very careful to make sure I had good CDs. My whole U2 collection is on those and I still listen to them even though some were burned way back when I started collecting in '97.

rofl... when someone give '97 as their year of reference, i mean... hum... damn you're young... rofl

so, what someone would do after 3.8.x ???

This is awesomeness to all degrees. I was worried as well. Only for security patches. Just dont want my site getting hacked if a hole is discovered.

The drive I had go bad was the one which stored all my backups, we are talking 400+GB of stuff in general. Eventually it went from backup only to just a sort of backup drive where I stored anything.

The real problem is that it went bad in the matter of a single reboot. It was working fine, then reboot the computer and that was it, no warnings, no SMART errors nothing, just dead.

a drive is not a backup... its a storage device with flaws... backups are medias that are secured... at least for a minimum of resources... if you do not break a CD, if you do not scratch it intentionally, it will be safer than a drive... because you can move it away from a dragon...

;0)

yeah, I'm young, so what? :P I was 10 in '97 (:

Random and instant hard drive failures are the prime example of why you should use raid. Preferably using an external raid controller.

Edit: post #666 :evil:

I often use Gmail a a backup medium next to my (live/backup) drive and DVD backups.

and for Mac users, iDisk do the same... :)

You can always contact the author of the hack to ask if they have the script up on a 3rd party site to download, or ask for an e-mail of the script in what ever version you need. Most people that make something have a master copy of the program stored away somewhere.

As far as a backup of data, I use redundant hard drives.
- 1 TB of data on two different 2 TB drives.

One drive I use and one sits on a desk with latest backup.

lmao ! Now I do feel old....

It's the same for any product. Once it out lives its usefulness, upgrade, or move to something else.

I've just recovered data from a 500gb hard drive for a friend to an extarnal drive, their drive had crashed, they even formatted and reloaded windows, i used Power Data recovery and ripped every file and folder of the hard drive to the external, they recovered all their photo's, files...etc so were very happy :)