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Win95 Lifecycle Draws to a Close
Mr_Perl writes "As many Everquest players discovered recently directx 8.1 is not being made for Windows 95, sending stores everywhere into a frenzy to slap little stickers over the words "Windows 95" on game box system requirements sections. Microsoft has picked November 30th, 2001 as the date that Win95 moves into the unsupported phase of it's career, making it even more useless to those who still keep it around for playing the latest games. Looks like Win98 is slated for execution June 30, 2003."
Questions
I would say there are big differences between win95 and ye-old-linux-releases, or at least, there should be:
The biggest is that you can get the super-new-linux-release for either nothing, or next to bothing. Upgrading from 95 costs you real money.
this box
However, perhaps the more important point is that not only does upgrading from 95 cost you real money - it's otherwise unecessary. If you only have 95 installed for playing games, and use (say) Linux for real work, this must be a real annoyance. Is DX8.1 really so odd that it can't work under 95, but can under 98? I think not.
I'm in the position of having win98/Linux dualboot. I *only* have win98 for games now, having moved everything else to Linux (modulo staroffice 6 beta problems, everything is very good). By the time 98 no longer cuts it for games I'll be faced with a real problem: will I have to buy a retail version of XP just to play PC games? God I hope not!
To be honest, I think it's far more likely that I'll just buy PS2 releases, or whatever console is around in 2003, and save myself the hassle of have two OSs on my PC...
Tales from behind the Lagom Curtain
No but you don't have to pay a fsck load of money to keep up to date with linux,
and you don't have to buy a new computer every year to keep doing the same things.
'Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson...'
Bullshit.
Backwards compatibility is a requirement in the commercial software world. Microsoft has observed it in the past and it's simply arrogant of them to break with this tradition. All the more reason not to run Microsoft software, if you ask me.
I think you're just a Microsoft astroturf troll.
WIN XP:
233 MHz minimum required
64 MB RAM minimum supported; may limit performance and some features)
1.5 gigabytes (GB) of available hard disk space (depending on components)
WIN 95:
80386DX (or Intel-compatible processor), 20MHz
Memory 4 MB
Hard Drive Space 10 MB for Compact Installation
For a Window manager, I can't see where 1,490 megs of space go to make the difference in programs. The thing I can't stand more than anything Microsoft does is bloat. If you know the differences between the two that I am overlooking, please point them out. IE 6.0 ran on a 486 dx2 and Directx 8.0a runs on 95 as well, so barring that, whats all the fus about? oooooh It looks purty. Thanks to all of our 100 megabyte bitmaps that we paste everywhere. The base functionality has not changed, but the cpu usage has? Whats that supposed to mean?
All a coder really wants, are fast cars, fast women and fast algorithms.
If you hate 9x so much why did you run it in the first place you fuckwit?
"MiKro$0ft (tm)" indeed, jeezus!
This gets a +3 too. I see the 15 year olds are moderating again today - why not add an 'insightful' (betting some asshole mod actually does)?
You can just download XP off KaZaA. (USA Build 2600 No-Activation) It's not worth it, though.... peice of bloatware crap. The default interface looks like something out of pre-primary school. Perhaps that's what Microsoft's expecting the average intelligence level of the next generation of computer-users to be. Yes, I know you can change back to the "classic" interface, but that doesn't help the fact that XP is bloated, slow, and incompatible with a large amount of software (Yes, MS marketing is bullshytting people, as usual). I'd say forget XP and download 2000.
I've reinstalled Win98SE twice because of registry rot, and now again there are weird things happening that are impossible to localise. You could assume I'm a moron, of course.
No wonder everyone here hates MS so much--the article talks about Win95, you're using Win98SE. Trust me, THOSE SUCK. Win95 sucks, 98 sucks, 98SE sucks, ME is probably the worst of all of them. Try 2000 and you won't have to worry about all those problems. Not that 2000 doesn't have any problems, but it is a much, much better OS and the problems are fewer and farther between.
Even if you actually decided to buy the OS, the $100 or so would be well worth getting rid of the frustration of 95/98/etc. A guy here at my work uses 98 and it is nothing but trouble.
Where are we going and why am I in this handbasket?
A friend of mine worked for Microsoft doing Win 3.x support. One week they sent everybody in his group off for Windows 95 training, shortly prior to it's release.
When he finished the course, he turned in his notice, effective the day before Win95's release. He didn't want to support anything that buggy.