I was just asked how to install Commerce Server 2002 on top of SQL Server 2008 – and fix the things that broke. Unfortunately, you just can’t do that. Or support .NET Framework newer than 1.1. Or run on an operating system newer than Windows Server 2003. Or run in 64-bit

Why? A lot changed between the time Commerce Server 2002 shipped and in the latest generation of platform changes. Many of these changes were disruptive – and required extensive modification in Commerce Server 2007. The changes are substantial enough – that you may as well upgrade, as the cost of back-porting the newer platform support would be prohibitive.

A reader sent me a question the other day asking about the status of support for Commerce Server 2002. It entered Extended Support as of July 8, 2008 – see http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle/?LN=en-us&x=13&y=14&p1=1552 for details.

What does this mean? It means that non-security hot fixes, no-charge incident support, and design changes/feature requests are no longer available. Hot fixes can be acquired through the purchase of an extended support agreement. See http://support.microsoft.com/gp/lifepolicy for more information.

Commerce Server 2002 customers should really consider upgrading to Commerce Server 2009, which includes (over Commerce Server 2002 and Commerce Server 2007 (CS2007)):

• Support for the latest Windows Server, SQL Server, BizTalk Server, .NET Framework, and Visual Studio platforms (enhanced in both CS2007 and CS2009)
  
• Considerable performance enhancements since Commerce Server 2002 (enhanced in both CS2007 and CS2009)
  
• Inventory subsystem (added in CS2007) for managing quantity-on-hand and stock-out scenarios
• Significant redesign of Virtual Catalog to allow for increased granularity and multiple levels of aggregation (added in CS2007)
  
• BizTalk Adapters (added in CS2007) for interchange of Profile, Order, Catalog, and Inventory data with external systems and trading partners
• The ability to customize order schemas and utilize SQL tables (as opposed to Binary Large Objects or BLOBs) for data storage (added in CS2007)
• SmartClient Business User Tools for use on Windows desktops (added in CS2007, replaces the Business Desk)
  
• Commerce Server Staging, for transactional staging of code, assets, and Commerce Server business data + programmatic extensibility model for custom actions (added in CS2007)
• Complete data management API and ASP.NET Web Service for Catalog, Orders, Inventory, and Marketing (added in CS2007)
• Production-ready ASP.NET site for quickly getting started (added in CS2007)
• SQL Reporting Services for analytics reports (added in CS2007)
  
• Next-generation .NET 3.5+ API programming model for developing Commerce Server sites (added in CS2009); this will be the unified programming model for future versions of Commerce Server
• Integration between Commerce Server and Windows SharePoint Services 2007 and Office SharePoint Server 2007 + Search Server 2008, including ~29 ready-to-use, business user-configurable Web Parts for rapidly developing sites using SharePoint and Commerce Server (added in CS2009)
  
• Commerce Server Default SIte, which provides a production-ready reference implementation of Commerce Server and WSS + Commerce Server and MOSS  (added in CS2009)
• Data migration from Commerce Server 2000, 2002, 2002 Feature Pack 1, and 2007 (in CS2009)

Hope this helps!