Please create an account to participate in the Slashdot moderation system

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Windows Operating Systems Software Microsoft

Windows 98 Phased Out 914

Posted by michael from the don't-let-the-door-hit-you-on-the-way-out dept.
Via_Patrino writes "According to Microsoft on january 16, MS Windows 98 and 98se will end Extended Support Phase, that means they'll became obsolete and assisted support will no longer be available from Microsoft, affecting about 27% of the internet users. That means even if 98 is working well for your needs (and especially computer specifications) and you want to pay for support (because that might cost less than switching hardware) you can't, because who will be able to patch eventual new bugs (security related or not) besides Microsoft? So if you're not planning a switch it might be your last opportunity to update MS Windows 98, after that some software might disappear from MS website (just like MSIE 5.5 for 95 did)."
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Windows 98 Phased Out More

Windows 98 Phased Out

Comments Filter:

  • People will keep using it, regardless... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by bc90021 ( 43730 ) * <bc90021 AT bc90021 DOT net> on Sunday January 04, 2004 @07:39PM (#7876157) Homepage
    Why? People don't typically switch until they get a new PC. Witness the Google zeitgeist [google.com]; though people are using Windows XP more, it is more than likely due to it being bundled with new PCs. (Consider how long XP has been out, as compared to how much it has been used. Also factor in that those XP and 2000 numbers liekly account for most of the corporate world.) There are a considerable number of people still using Windows 98, and it is likely to stay that way.

    For home users who need Office, internet, and a gaming platform, Windows 98SE upgraded and patched does everything they need. It also runs reasonably fast on today's hardware, and there are a lot of "ain't broke, don't fix" people out there. There's really no compelling reason for people to switch, so they won't until they get a new PC.

    • Re:People will keep using it, regardless... (Score:4, Informative)

      by garcia ( 6573 ) * on Sunday January 04, 2004 @07:47PM (#7876245)
      how about people, like myself, that have hardware that will NOT run anything after Win98? I have a p133 laptop that I use for web, email, etc, that cannot run Win2k (it gets to the text boot screen and freezes).

      Looks like MS is forcing me to upgrade my hardware too? Not cool.

      • Re:People will keep using it, regardless... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by darnok ( 650458 ) on Sunday January 04, 2004 @07:53PM (#7876325)
        > how about people, like myself, that have hardware
        > that will NOT run anything after Win98? ...

        > Looks like MS is forcing me to upgrade my hardware
        > too? Not cool.

        No, MS is saying they won't support your box any more. Just like you (probably) won't get support from your hardware vendor after this many years, now you won't get software support either.

        It's not like your laptop is about to stop working just because MS stops supporting the software you licenced from them. Well, probably not...

        • Re:People will keep using it, regardless... (Score:5, Insightful)

          by cyb97 ( 520582 ) * <cyb97@noxtension.com> on Sunday January 04, 2004 @08:41PM (#7876773) Homepage Journal
          Software support is in many cases more important than hardware support. Hardware isn't likely to sport new critical bugs after several years. Software is.

          The day somebody finds an easy way to "root" win98 machines remotely, they could potentially use 27% of the internet-reachable machines in the world.

          Of course it isn't really so, most of them (I hope) aren't put directly on the internet w/o protection, but there's bound to be some. This is irritating for the owner of the machine who happily surfed and checked email w/o trouble, and might even cause trouble for those who doesn't run win98 through increased traffic or DDoS.
      • Ever heard of an operatingsystem called Linux ?

        The good part - you always have the source!

      • As Grandpa Simpson says: "Oh bitch, bitch, bitch." (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Wakko Warner ( 324 ) * on Sunday January 04, 2004 @10:16PM (#7877503) Homepage Journal
        how about people, like myself, that have hardware that will NOT run anything after Win98? I have a p133 laptop that I use for web, email, etc, that cannot run Win2k

        How about it? You're running a 5-year-old operating system on 8-year-old hardware. What do you expect? The pace of software and hardware evolution will not slow down just for you. Sooner or later, you will have to upgrade.

        Looks like MS is forcing me to upgrade my hardware too? Not cool.

        Not cool? Neither is complaining about lack of support for something produced last century. Suck it up and buy something that'll run a newer operating system. Used laptops are cheap.

        People on slashdot whine way too much.

        - A.P.

        • Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)

          by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Monday January 05, 2004 @12:09AM (#7878138)
          Comment removed based on user account deletion

          • [Not!] Re:It's like the auto industry. (Score:5, Insightful)

            by stuartkahler ( 569400 ) on Monday January 05, 2004 @03:07AM (#7879007)
            In the auto industry, any body shop can fix your door if it gets dented, and you don't face problems with patent owners preventing you from getting replacement parts.

            With windows 95 (and likely 98 now), Microsoft is removing the availability of critical updates (equivalent factory recalls). They then wield the power via copyright law and DMCA to prevent anyone from making them available to people who run win 98, thus forcing a paid upgrade.

            I don't care so much that they won't provide patches to any new exploits that are found after 5 years (providing they don't sue any white hats that fix them). I do care if they pull the patches and updates that already exist. It's like if you buy a car that ends up with a recall for the seat belt, you get it fixed, and ten years later when you bring it in for a new muffler, they put back in the original, defective seat belt.


            BTW, if cars had as many defects and ran as poorly as windows, people would go back to riding horses. Luckily for them, microsoft fills their software with distracting bells and whistles.

    • Re:People will keep using it, regardless... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by incom ( 570967 ) on Sunday January 04, 2004 @08:05PM (#7876441)
      What happens when they have to re-install? The default install of win98 is alot buggier, and is missing several features of a fully updated version.

      • Burned updates to CD. (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 04, 2004 @09:06PM (#7876989)
        When I install windows 98, and get MSIE 4, I have the upgrade burned to CD, for MSIE 6, and that takes about 10 minutes to install. Trick is, don't set up an internet connection until you do the upgrade, or the upgrade installer will try and phone home. (hundreds of times, if you let it.). I also have Netscape 4.79, and MozillaFirebird, Eudora, and Pegasus, to round out the installation of Windows 98. I always have Linux, usually Redhat, or perhaps SuSE, or Debian, and Mandrake on the box also. I use a menu to select the OS on bootup, and if already in Windows 98, I have Icons on the desktop to run linux.bat/loadlin for the distro I want.
        Windows 98 closes, and my Linux boots up.
        I can just use the original Windows 98 for that, without any upgrades, but I like to compare the Linux distro's to Windows 98 on the same box. Windows 98 does a fair job, still. I always run a firewall on it to be safe if going online. For Linux, I like Firestarter firewall.

      • Re:People will keep using it, regardless... (Score:4, Informative)

        by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Monday January 05, 2004 @01:32AM (#7878618) Homepage Journal
        Windows 95 Service Pack 1 [microsoft.com]

        Windows NT 3.51 Service Packs [microsoft.com]

        TCP/IP for Windows for Workgroups 3.11 [microsoft.com]

        WfW 3.11 SMB fix for Samba smbclient [microsoft.com]

        I mean, what more do you want? I know I know, the source. But Microsoft has a history of supporting their products for a very long time, and continuing to host updates for their old products, they're freely available without even logging in.

    • EULA (Score:3, Insightful)

      by themusicgod1 ( 241799 )
      isn't there a stanza that requires that when microsoft wishes to terminate the liscence you must destroy all copies of said software(windows 98) and delete it off your hard drive? i mean, really who actually reads and follows eula, but isn't this a reason to switch somewhere else? I Thought that microsoft had cancelled all the win98 liscences long ago, mabye about a year ago, but if i was mistaken and they are doing it just now, perhaps that could be right too(i was trying to set my modem/internet account

  • Hey! (Score:5, Funny)

    by zr-rifle ( 677585 ) <zedr@@@zedr...com> on Sunday January 04, 2004 @07:39PM (#7876161) Homepage
    Screw Windows98, what about us MS DOS users?

  • Dang..... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 04, 2004 @07:40PM (#7876166)
    Sounds like that typical MS, screwing you out of support after a scant 6 or more years. BASTARDS!

    Of course, when you try to update Red Hat Linux 5.2 or Apple OS 8.5, it still works flawlessly. But no, those greedy, awful bastards at MS are just continually SCREWING the customer.

    • Re:Dang..... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by fafaforza ( 248976 ) on Sunday January 04, 2004 @08:13PM (#7876528)
      Exactly!

      And why should I be forced to upgrade by this money hungry corporation? Why should my version of Windows 98 simply stop working on the 16th. And shouldn't I have been given more of a warning than 12 days?

      Oh wait, Windows 98 will still keep working after the 16th? But I thought the summary implied... oh, nevermind.

  • Redhat EOL (Score:5, Insightful)

    by weave ( 48069 ) on Sunday January 04, 2004 @07:40PM (#7876168) Journal
    Stating obvious, that should have been part of main story summary...

    On December 31, 2003, Redhat discontinued support for Redhat 7.3 and on April 30, 2004, Redhat 9, released less than a year ago, gets the support axe.

    When compared to that, I think Microsoft has been damn generous. And if you look at my posting profile, you see i don't cut Microsoft much slack either...

    • Re:Redhat EOL (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Aadain2001 ( 684036 ) on Sunday January 04, 2004 @07:46PM (#7876227) Journal
      There's a big difference! With RedHat, you just no longer will be able to pay RedHat to keep your computer updated, but the updates are still out there. Just more work for you. And there has already been a few companies that are willing to take over the patching service for the exact same price as RedHat, so you have many options still available to you. With Microsoft, once they stop supporting it, your SOL. No one can legally provide you with a patch as they would need the source code to the OS, and MS isn't going to release that any time soon.
    • The difference is anything that runs RedHat 7.3 will also run RedHat 9. I have a PII 300 laptop that chokes on 2000 and XP that will soon become much less useful if I have to worry about getting online with it due to a lack of security updates.

  • 27% of google users use windows 98 (Score:5, Insightful)

    by civilengineer ( 669209 ) on Sunday January 04, 2004 @07:40PM (#7876170) Homepage Journal
    that does not mean 27% of internet users use Windows 98. THere are many people who just use e-mail and hardly ever use google.

  • Win98 vulnerabilities will still be patched (Score:5, Informative)

    by Teckla ( 630646 ) on Sunday January 04, 2004 @07:41PM (#7876172)

    Before people panic in the streets, it should be made clear that MS still plans to patch vulnerabilities in Win98. Hopefully this means people will keep using Windows Update to keep their system as risk free (from viruses, trojans, etc.) as reasonably possible. (Besides using things like virus scanners and anti-spyware tools, of course!)

    -Teckla

    • Re:Win98 vulnerabilities will still be patched (Score:4, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 04, 2004 @07:49PM (#7876268)
      Could you post a link to a URL where this is stated?

      • Re:Win98 vulnerabilities will still be patched (Score:4, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 04, 2004 @08:26PM (#7876647)
        "Key Dates:
        No-charge incident support ends June 30, 2003
        Extended hotfix support ends June 30, 2003
        Paid incident support ends January 16, 2004
        Details:
        Microsoft will offer paid-incident support for Windows 98 and Windows 98 Second Edition (SE) through January 16, 2004. Windows 98 and Windows 98 SE downloads for existing security issues will continue to be available through regular assisted-support channels at no charge during this time. Customers can request Windows 98 and Windows 98 SE fixes for new security issues, and these requests will be reviewed. Fixes for any new security issues can be specifically requested through regular assisted-support channels. Web-based self-help support will be available for at least one year after assisted support ends. Mainstream support for Windows 98 and Windows 98 SE ended on June 30, 2002. No-charge incident support and extended hotfix support end on June 30, 2003."

    • Win98 vulnerabilities will still be patched ..NOT! (Score:5, Informative)

      by Mostly a lurker ( 634878 ) on Sunday January 04, 2004 @08:39PM (#7876760)
      For information straight from the horse's mouth, see http://www.microsoft.com/windows/lifecycle/desktop /consumer/default.mspx
      Microsoft will offer paid incident support on Windows 98/98 SE through January 16, 2004. Windows 98/98 SE downloads for existing security issues will continue to be obtainable through normal assisted support channels at no charge during this time. Customers can request Windows 98/98 SE fixes for new security issues and these requests will be reviewed. Fixes for any new security issues can be specifically requested through normal assisted support channels. Web-based self-help support will be available for at least one year after assisted support has concluded. Mainstream support for Windows 98/98 SE ended on June 30, 2002, and no-charge incident support and extended hotfix support ends on June 30, 2003.
      Translation: until January 16 2004, fixes to new security issues can be requested and will be considered (no guarantees); after January 16 2004, you can download the old fixes for a while.

  • bad for schools (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 04, 2004 @07:41PM (#7876179)
    I work in a k12 environment, and this is going to be bad for us. We use win98 because its NOT a multi user operating system.

    A lot of schools have netware/win98 combos.

    Since win2k/XP require logins, we have to resort to novell zenworks to manage the automatic creation of machines accounts (our servers can handle it) or switching to AD (what ms wants, but our servers cant handle it).

    This blows.

    • Re:bad for schools (Score:5, Insightful)

      by slappyjack ( 196918 ) <slappyjack@gmail.com> on Sunday January 04, 2004 @08:01PM (#7876406) Homepage Journal
      Other than the cost of migrating, I dont understand how this can be bad for schools in the slightest. Just because a system requires a login doesnt make it bad.

      Whats the harm in making all the little kids use the SAME login of "firstgrader:password"? Not only do you now instantly have a user on all the machines thats the same, but youre teaching them abuot logging in to an account, which they'll probably have to do anyway sometime in the future, and probably already do anyway if theres a netware system in the school.

      Actually knowing what this means will make them more advanced users that 90% of their parents, if they weren't already. Those that use the argument "but they dont NEED to learn that for the future" should be slapped. Kids in k12 are supposed to be there to learn and learn and learn some more. Noone ever filed a lawsuit claiming "my kid learned too much"

      Older kids can get their own user/passwd combos as needed. Kids that just need to get on a machine and do whatever can just login as "student."

      Also, cant you just make an NT/W2K/XP machine login as a specified user (like generic_student) on boot, anyway? My roommates XP machine doesnt make him login at all.

      Speaking of the older kids, why not make it an advanced class/lab to have them help admins do the migration. I know sysadmins ARE NOT teachers and have other things to do, but they're not teaching a class of little fuckers forced to be there, They're MENTORING kids that want to do this and learn something, and who doesn't like mentoring someone who's motiveted and wants to learn somehting from the ground-up by doing the shitwork?

    • Re:bad for schools (Score:3, Informative)

      by NanoGator ( 522640 )
      "We use win98 because its NOT a multi user operating system."

      Sorry to oversimplify here, but I do not understand. Why not just turn on the "log-in automatically" feature?

      If it ain't broke, don't go fixing it now. Just saying your argument caused a question mark to materialize over my head.

  • It appears the time has come... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Awptimus Prime ( 695459 ) on Sunday January 04, 2004 @07:42PM (#7876189)
    To open up the source for Win95/98/Me so the community can step in where M$ left off.

    • Re:It appears the time has come... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by ciroknight ( 601098 ) on Sunday January 04, 2004 @08:20PM (#7876589)
      There's a small problem with that.. M$ will lose a lot more ground to us if they do that. As far as I'm concerned, the biggest, most overwhelming problem to desktop linux is GUI. If my gut's telling me right, I'm betting that M$ will move to a BSD kernel variant like Mac OS X did, and simply port their GUI over top of it. Then, who knows what will happen to the NT and 9x kernels, they might get open sourced after all.. but not until Bill Gates dies....... or hell freezes over, whichever happens first.
      • With the NT kernel they control everything from the ground up, that's just the way they like it. 100% proprietary. MS will switch to a non-MS kernel the same day hell freezes over, along with open-sourcing everything.

  • Hmmm (Score:5, Insightful)

    by DiscoOnTheSide ( 544139 ) <ajfili&eden,rutgers,edu> on Sunday January 04, 2004 @07:43PM (#7876208) Homepage
    From a Network Support position at a University, I almost wished they discontinued Windows Me before they did 98. We have more problems with ME than any other OS, mostly due to it being a peice of shit.

  • Win98 (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Dalroth ( 85450 ) * on Sunday January 04, 2004 @07:46PM (#7876233) Homepage Journal
    Well, my parents run Windows 98. My grandfather runs Windows 98. My other grandfather runs Windows 98SE. I have no intention of upgrading their computers now or ever.

    I've long since put my trust in anti-viral software and AdAware. That's working far better for me than many of Microsoft's patches have. I still have IE trying to download stuff on my Windows Server 2003 laptop all the time, but thankfully VirusScan always catches it and AdAware makes a nice backup should VisusScan fail. If my fully up-to-date Windows Server 2003 machine fails, why should I even bother trying to lock-down or upgrade a windows 98 machine?

    Microsoft isn't supporting me, so I'm not going to go out of my way to get any of my relatives to support them. In fact, I'm recommending they all get Apple laptops next time they want to do a major computer upgrade.

    Bryan

    • Re:Win98 (Score:3, Insightful)

      by thinkliberty ( 593776 )
      As long as you have personal information on your laptop then you SHOULD worry about locking-down the computer and getting patches from MS.

  • Just finished upgrading... to XP (Score:5, Interesting)

    by mrscott ( 548097 ) on Sunday January 04, 2004 @07:47PM (#7876249)
    My organization is on a 3-year desktop replacement cycle. Just this week, we fished the last five Windows 98 machines out of our pool and are now at XP across the board.

    Yeah - I considered Linux, but then I considered retraining costs, application problems and general user resistance and decided it wasn't a battle worth fighting at this point. (not that I WOULDN'T like to get MS out eventually).

    If it wasn't for the regular security threats that need patching these days, Win98 could go on for a long time.
    • XP will need as much retraining as KDE or GNOME.

      If your application don't work, and there are know replacements, then yeah, thats a big issue.

      User resistence generally fades out fast once they relize there doing the same thing. Start->programs->open office.
      Start->programs->ms office.

      If buy user, you mean managment, work up some costs, and show the CIO how much he can save, both short and long term. I am sure, cost savings ==bigger bonus.

      There are fewer new Virus and Trojans for win98 then XP

      • Re:Just finished upgrading... to XP (Score:4, Interesting)

        by mrscott ( 548097 ) on Sunday January 04, 2004 @10:12PM (#7877480)
        Actually, I am the IT Director and responsible for this stuff.

        I've been rolling XP onto desks with no training for my users and having NO trouble. We did a pilot before we went organization-wide and all of our apps worked with no problems and the users had no trouble.

        My goal is this: provide my users with stable, usable tools to do their job in a cost efficient manner. After doing the analysis, XP was the better choice -- FOR NOW. I did NOT sign a long term license nor am I just going Microsoft to go Microsoft.

        In fact, I just replaced SQL Server 7 on Windows NT with a PostgreSQL server running Linux.

  • Not bad (Score:5, Insightful)

    by dtfinch ( 661405 ) * on Sunday January 04, 2004 @07:49PM (#7876275) Journal
    Microsoft's support phases last a lot longer than most proprietary software companies out there.

    I expect that the next big virus will knock a bunch of the remaining 98 computers offline once Microsoft stops making patches. Zone Labs will probably experience a small surge in downloads of their free firewall product.

  • So What (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ToasterTester ( 95180 ) on Sunday January 04, 2004 @07:50PM (#7876282)
    Software gets old and the best thing to do is officially put it to rest. If you want to continue to use it that's your choice. Just means you also don't plan to update your hardware.

    IMO supporting old versions of software is a waste of energy. I'd rather see that energy put to drivers and updates for new systems. Things need to progress forward. WHen I got into Linux the community would brag that it would still run on 8086 or 286. That's over for mainstream Linux. Hardware moved forward and so did Linux.

  • Give it a break guys (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Lurgen ( 563428 ) on Sunday January 04, 2004 @07:58PM (#7876372) Journal
    Operating Systems have a limited lifespan - don't tell me you hadn't noticed? RedHat doesn't support every single distribution they've ever compiled, and there's a reason for that: it's not the way the software industry works.

    Sure, there are lots of people out there using Win98 still. Heck, there are still people using Win95! But can you really expect a company to invest in support for a product that is 3 generations out of date? For each OS a company (regardless of whether they're Microsoft, RedHat or Apple) it is necessary to have a testing environment, testing staff, developers, marketing, and who knows what else. Microsoft currently support Windows ME, 2000, 2003 and XP. Surely that's an impressive amount of supported products?

    Or perhaps we should demand they support everything they make forever. You never know, there might be one or two Windows 3.1 users out there who still want hotfixes released. I have some DOS 3 floppy disks lying around, surely I'm entitled to lifetime support for these!

    Typically enough though, this is Slashdot - every decision by Microsoft has to be wrong, evil, unthinkably unfair. And the link to linux under the word "switch" is a good example of how biased this site has become. After all, I don't see the same level of screaming about me being forced to switch my RedHat 7.0 and 8.0 boxes over to Red Hat Enterprise Linux... surely that is a far more shameful lack of support?

  • ... So? (Score:5, Informative)

    by CeleronXL ( 726844 ) on Sunday January 04, 2004 @07:58PM (#7876378) Homepage
    Why does everyone make a big stink and bi0tch at Microsoft for doing something like this? Very few companies provide any support at all for old versions of products. Many will cease support old versions the very instant a new version comes out, and will tell its users to upgrade to the newest version if they want support.

    Microsoft, on the other hand, provides support for it's software for five (?) years, even after it's been succeeded by Windows 2000/XP!

  • Sadly, good news for trojan and virus writers (Score:5, Insightful)

    by S.Lemmon ( 147743 ) on Sunday January 04, 2004 @08:03PM (#7876423) Homepage
    Really, who actually calls Microsoft for support anymore? It's both expensive and usually an act of futility. Even the non-computer savvy usually call Dell or whoever they bought their PCs from instead.

    The real problem is there will be no new patches and maybe old patches will no longer be available from windows update. The big reason it's a problem is people *won't* upgrade just because of this. Most hardly care about patches now, but may at least be coaxed into running windows update now and again.

    This won't push the holdouts over to XP (which they probably don't even have a new enough computer to run well) - it'll just result in even *more* unpatched trojan-friendly PC out there.

  • Third Party Support & Open Source Alternatives (Score:5, Interesting)

    by boobsea ( 728173 ) on Sunday January 04, 2004 @08:04PM (#7876430) Journal
    Hmm..

    Quite a few people still use Windows 98. I wonder if someone could make some money by doing third-party support of Windows98.

    It would be a bit hard to roll out patches as a third-party, but if you supplied people with some sort of firewall package (to shield users from security holes that can't be patched otherwise) and migrated MSIE/Outlook Express users over to Mozilla, it seems like something that could be done.

    Windows Media Player users could also be migrated to Winamp.. Pretty much anything that wouldn't be Microsoft supported could be replaced with still-developed Open Source alternatives.

    It seems like businesses who don't have their own IT department and run a lot of Win98 PCs who have no other need to upgrade could benefit from this.

  • What about independent online support forums? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by G4from128k ( 686170 ) on Sunday January 04, 2004 @08:06PM (#7876454)
    Do Win98 users really need official support from MS? I know nothing about M$ world, but if it is anything like the Mac world, then there should be a healthy range of thriving independent online support forums for obsolete hardware and software (You can even get support for ancient 68k Macs at places like Applefritter [applefritter.com] and 68k Mac Liberation Army [cinemafia.net]. Official support from the official vendor is not really needed as long as someone out there has the answer to your question or can help point you in the right direction.

    The only reason a computer user needs "official" support is if they have a pinhead boss or are worried about patches for security holes...... Oh, I see the problem now. Even so Win98 should be "usable" for decades to come if its users form a devoted community that provides mutual support.

  • The Slashdot Double Standard (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Saeed al-Sahaf ( 665390 ) on Sunday January 04, 2004 @08:07PM (#7876464) Homepage
    I know that everyone is going to this is all just a ploy by M$ to force people to upgrade to newer, expensive software (and is almost certainly so), but no software company is required to support obsolete versions of their software forever, this is not a reasonable idea. The /.'ers frothing at the mouth about this are the same ones who are first to also froth about how bad an OS Windows 98 is.
    • Mod parent up, please... this is the absolute truth. It's just not realistic to expect ANY software company to keep supporting EVERY version of their stuff, forever.

      For example, do you think Novell is still putting out patches for Netware 2.x? Nope, don't think so. Is Borland releasing fixes for Turbo C++ 3.0 for DOS? Nope...

      This is really a non-issue... If you're on 98, deal with the lack of support or switch.

      That said, this does demonstrate what I consider to be the single biggest advantage of the F

  • Windows as a Hardware Development Platform (Score:5, Interesting)

    by femto ( 459605 ) on Sunday January 04, 2004 @08:09PM (#7876485) Homepage
    I suspect MS has just lost a lot of hardware developers. Win98 was the last MS operating system that allowed direct access to the I/O ports and memory. This allowed the hardware to be built and a quick and dirty software system to be hacked up in user space.

    This is no longer the case. Instead hardware designers will be required to get bogged down in driver developement, just to get the first few bits into and out of their systems. In my limited experience with MS Windows driver development, DDK information is 'restricted' and 'quick and dirty' tests are no longer possible.

    It looks like I will be learning how to write a linux device driver (or reverting to a DOS replacement).

  • Hardware Problems (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Lucas Membrane ( 524640 ) on Sunday January 04, 2004 @08:11PM (#7876501)
    I found out about this last summer, about 6 weeks after NT workstation was dropped from support and I wanted to buy a new printer to hang on my old NT box. MS license the "works with windows" endorsement for the peripheral maker to put on the box. Somehow, you won't see "works with ..." listing any MS OS that is out of support. 6 weeks after NT expired, Fry's had 0 printers compatible with NT (according to the box). I bought one that works with NT, but only through a combination of knowledge, brains, and maturity, not because of any help from what's on the box.


    I believe that 98 is still the most used OS, that the 27%-35% that it has exceeds that of any of the other variants. If not, it's close. It's odd for a product to become a non-entity when it's at the top of the heap.


    For example, if you develop software for home or school use, you are cutting your throat if it won't run on 98, but MS won't help you keep a 98 machine to test that it works for those 50 million potential users. Yecch!

  • But the /. community seems to be once again forgetting... we're a very small slize of the whole of people that actually use a computer.

    a very small slice.

    For most people, rebooting Win9x is just fine for them, becuase they use their machines for fucking around for an hour a day. It works, they know how to use it, its got solitare.

    These people are not only afraid of fucking something up by installing a new Windows OS on their machine, but they're simply afraid of doing it, period. People fear their machines; and if the elves in the magic box are still willing to work, well, we just dont want to fuck that up.

    Then consider the fact that for many people, paying $300 or $200 or $100 or even only $40 to upgrade their operating system is simply more money than they [ can afford | are willing ] to spend on their computer.

    On top of that, they probably werent even aware there was support for Win98 in the first place.

    i'm just sayin.

  • Please... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Stevyn ( 691306 ) on Sunday January 04, 2004 @08:25PM (#7876641)
    All these posts about the "idiots who use windows 98 should be shot" or "they should all switch to linux so they can fix their own bugs" is stupid and it misses the point. People who use windows 98 have old computers. They would buy a nice shiny new computer but they don't have the money or desire. They could find a pirate copy of windows xp but their hardware couldn't handle it. Support for windows 98 has gone on a long time. I'd rather the time be put into longhorn development to make it more stable and secure than time put into patching windows 98.

    And these people aren't going to switch to linux. Didn't you see that 1% piece of the pie? I found suse and mandrake to seem a lot slower than windows xp on my p4 1.8 so I don't think on older pentium 2 hardware anyone's going to enjoy the performance of kde over windows 98.

    Yeah, a lot of people here spend a lot of their time on computers. They love to hunt out bugs and recompile their kernels. But a lot of people don't and it's very elitest to put them down for doing so. Just because you're gentoo installation runs 8% faster than my windows xp installation, doesn't mean you'll have anymore insight into how computers work for people.

    • Re:Please... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by /dev/trash ( 182850 )
      My PC is old? It's a 800MHZ 3 year old Dell. I haven't switched because a) Windows 2000 won't play my games and b) Windows XP has that Product Activation.

  • Aren't most corp desktops 95/98? (Score:3, Informative)

    by fred911 ( 83970 ) on Sunday January 04, 2004 @08:33PM (#7876712) Journal
    Wasn't the an article posted within the last month? This is a way to force corporate desktops into XP or 2k. That's where the real money is anyway. Mom and Pop pay once for the os, the business world has MIS depts or pays support. Great way to insure migration.

  • how to save all the updates? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by mcryptic ( 196974 ) on Sunday January 04, 2004 @08:56PM (#7876906)
    I the unfortunate person in the family that has to fix friends/familys computers, and 90% of them still use 98. How would one go about saving all the win98 updates? Can it bee done if i don't have a machine running 98?

  • If this were about winows ME (Score:3, Funny)

    by way2trivial ( 601132 ) on Sunday January 04, 2004 @08:59PM (#7876927) Homepage Journal
    everyone would be going- who gives a f***

  • Archives (Score:3, Informative)

    by Shadwell ( 709447 ) on Sunday January 04, 2004 @09:04PM (#7876976)
    Looking for older versions of IE for your older machines? Check out evolt's [evolt.org] archive of old broswers. They even have 16-bit versions of Netscape and IE.

  • Security updates...who needs em (Score:4, Interesting)

    by voss ( 52565 ) on Sunday January 04, 2004 @09:14PM (#7877049)
    Windows 98 has largely been ignored by the virus writers for the past two years. The superworms this year that took down my school districts entire network of w2k machines didnt harm the windows 98 machines at all.

  • Sun to blame for Win98 retiremnt (Score:3, Informative)

    by geekee ( 591277 ) on Sunday January 04, 2004 @09:28PM (#7877144)
    according to this article [msn.com], retiring Win98 is to comply with a court order in regard to java. NS is retiring older products because it isn't worth the hassle to update them to comply with the court order. If you want to blame someone because Win98 is being retired, blame Sun and the US court system, not MS.

    • Re:Sun to blame for Win98 retiremnt (Score:4, Interesting)

      by praksys ( 246544 ) on Sunday January 04, 2004 @09:53PM (#7877317)
      First MS violated the contract that they made with Sun. Now MS is screwing its own customers rather than pay the costs of obeying the law. But you think we should blame Sun for expecting MS to abide by the contract that MS signed? And you think that we should blame the courts for enforcing the contract that MS signed?

      I supose you think that the high cost of opperating prisons should be blamed on the people who report crime, and the courts who send criminals to prison?

  • Big party planned in Redmond? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by PetoskeyGuy ( 648788 ) on Sunday January 04, 2004 @09:31PM (#7877166)
    So lets here it from someone on the inside. What kind of party is being planned in the tech support offices now that you can put the beast to bed?

  • What about Sun's lawsuit? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by shanen ( 462549 ) on Sunday January 04, 2004 @09:32PM (#7877169) Homepage Journal
    So far no one has mentioned Microsoft's official excuse for terminating Windows 98--the termination was included as part of their settlement of a lawsuit with Sun. This is actually an excellent example of Microsoft's diabolical cleverness. They basically lost the lawsuit, but they used the settlement to kill off 98 so they can make more money on that XP garbage. You call that "punishment"? Hard to believe that Sun's lawyers were dumb enough to fall for that:

    Brer Rabbit Microsoft: "Whatever you do, Brer Fox Sun, please don't throw me in that briar patch of dropping Windows 98 support!"

    Anyway, my own timing is almost impeccable, which isn't so common. I hope it's a good sign for the new year. My last pure Windows 98 box apparently croaked last night (and all the data had been pulled off a while ago). I still have a couple of cross-booters just in case.

  • Not a great idea... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by dasunt ( 249686 ) on Sunday January 04, 2004 @09:39PM (#7877227)

    Sure, it sucks supporting old software, but when January 16 rolls around, the two Microsoft 98 machines I own will switch to one Microsoft XP machine and one Debian GNU/Linux machine.

    For my personal use, I'm not willing to pay for updates when F/OSS software does what I need. The only reason why I'm even upgrading one machine to XP is that I'm not the primary user.

  • Two comments, just to alienate everyone equally (Score:4, Insightful)

    by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Sunday January 04, 2004 @09:52PM (#7877305)
    1) I agree there's no reason Microsoft should be obligated to support their OSes forever. Were you guys complaining when they dropped support for WFW3.11? For comparisons sake - as a Powerbook owner, should I be incensed that OS 6 is not maintained by Apple?

    2) The comparisons between MS's support lifetime policy and Red Hat's is ludicrous. When Red Hat ends support for a product line, upgrading to the newer comparable version of the product is free. When version 9 support runs out this spring, you can upgrade to Fedora at no cost. Last I looked, MS wasn't donating any variant of XP or 2000.
    • For comparisons sake - as a Powerbook owner, should I be incensed that OS 6 is not maintained by Apple?

      No, because there's not a Powerbook in existence that can boot OS 6. There are plenty of machines seeing daily use in this world that are still running Windows 98 and won't be replaced anytime soon. And what about the machines whose manufacturers won't support any other OS than what shipped with the hardware? I'm pretty sure Sony has that policy, and I think Dell will give you a hard time about it as well if you upgrade your OS and go calling them for support.

      Also, Apple makes a great deal of their older software available for free download. [apple.com] You can get any complete version of OS 6, and the complete version of 7 up to 7.5.3. Microsoft doesn't even make DOS 1.0 available for free download anywhere that I can find.

      ~Philly

  • You expect Grandma to Write her Own Drivers? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by seigniory ( 89942 ) <bigfriggin&me,com> on Sunday January 04, 2004 @11:26PM (#7877920)
    To all the idiots that claim that OSS is the one and only way to "keep yourself supported" - consider this: Grandma's not going to learn C and kernel development just to get her webcam working, or to keep her dot matrix printer churning out recipies.

    Imagine 2 sets of people - those still running Windows 98, *exclusively*, for day to day work and those who can fully, without-a-doubt understand their favorite OSS and code their way through a new printer driver (or whatever). Now, show me the intersection of those 2 sets. Not a big resultant set is it? Does that set even exist?

  • That reminds me. (Score:4, Funny)

    by blair1q ( 305137 ) on Monday January 05, 2004 @01:04AM (#7878495) Journal
    This article reminds me of an old joke I just made up:

    Why did they call it Windows?

    Because it's easily broken.

Slashdot Top Deals

I tell them to turn to the study of mathematics, for it is only there that they might escape the lusts of the flesh. -- Thomas Mann, "The Magic Mountain"

Close