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Microsoft Retires Windows 98
prostoalex writes "Complying with the court requirement related to Sun-Microsoft lawsuit over Java, Microsoft is retiring Windows 98, SQL Server 7, Office XP Developer Edition and some other products."
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IE 5.X is part of this forced retirement.
Video Game News, FAQs, etc
... Microsoft is not retiring Win98 SE, only versions of Win98 prior to SE. See this.
There is nothing so silly as other peoples traditions, and nothing so sacred as our own.
Due to a settlement agreement reached in January 2001, the following products are being phased out and will no longer available to customers through MSDN Subscriber Downloads or other channels at Microsoft. These products will be removed from MSDN Subscriber Downloads as of December 15th, 2003.
Office XP DeveloperVisio 2000
BackOffice Server 2000
Office 2000 Developer
Office 2000 Tools
Office 2000 Multilingual
Office 2000 Premium SR-1
Office 2000 Service Pack 2
Outlook 2000
Project 2000
SQL Server 7
SQL Server 7 Service Pack 3
Embedded Visual Tools 3.0
Visual Studio 6 MSDE
IE 5.5
MapPoint 2002
Visual Studio 6.0 SP3 and SP5
Windows 98
Windows 98 Y2K
Windows 98 Resource Kit
Windows 98 SP1 (all win98 except SE)
Windows NT 4.0
ISA Server 2000
Visual Basic for (Alpha Systems)
The following product will be updated with Java-compliant versions before the 12/31/03 deadline: Office XP Professional with FrontPage
Publisher 2002
Windows NT 4.0
Small Business Server 2000
Full list of retired products, taken from MSDN board...
> Office XP Developer
> Visio 2000
> BackOffice Server 2000
> Office 2000 Developer
> Office 2000 Tools
> Office 2000 Multilingual
> Office 2000 Premium SR-1
> Office 2000 Service Pack 2
> Outlook 2000
> Project 2000
> SQL Server 7
> SQL Server 7 Service Pack 3
> Embedded Visual Tools 3.0
> Visual Studio 6 MSDE
> IE 5.5
> MapPoint 2002
> Visual Studio 6.0 SP3 and SP5
> Windows 98
> Windows 98 Y2K
> Windows 98 Resource Kit
> Windows 98 SP1 (all win98 except SE)
> Windows NT 4.0 (Terminal Server and Option Pack)
> ISA Server 2000
> Visual Basic for (Alpha Systems)
>
> The following products will be updated to versions that do not contain the
> Microsoft Virtual Machine:
>
> Office XP Professional with FrontPage
> Publisher 2002
> Windows NT 4.0 (Workstation, Server, Enterprise Server)
> Small Business Server 2000
Video Game News, FAQs, etc
Flamebait?
A Win98SE box runs no services. No DCOM, no RPC, no IIS, no "Remote Support", no MSN. With a couple of tweaks to rebind (or unbind) NetBIOS, it listens on no ports.
Use a third-party email client and a third-party browser to avoid the Outleak/IE holes, and the poster's right. For a clued-in user (i.e. someone smart enough not to click on every stupid attachment some bozo mails him), Win98SE is more secure than XP.
Is Win98 a good operating system? Hell no. It's a glorified DOS shell. Get your trojan running anywhere on that machine, and j00 0wn t3h b0x. But in order for that to happen, the end user pretty much has to cooperate.
According to Google, Windows 98 is the second most used operating system of the world. It had 30% market share of all web users at September.
h tml
Source:
http://www.google.com/press/zeitgeist.
Because.....It's being retired because of a lawsuit, not because it was Microsoft's will. Notice they also had to retire a version of SQL and the current version of office. Not a very happy ending for them eh? RTFA.
--fetch daddy's blue fright wig, i must be handsome when i release my rage
I just found this: Among the products to be put to rest are older versions of some the Redmond, Wash.-based developer's flagship packages, including all versions of Office 2000, Visio 2000, all editions of Windows 98 except for Windows 98 Second Edition, Internet Explorer 5.5, and SQL Server 7. The artical from techweb
1) The current version of Office is 2003.
2) They're only retiring office 2000 Professional. Office 2002/XP is not on the list that I could see.
In spite of what MSNBC says (nice job moderators; linking to a story written by an obivously biased news source...), the court order doesn't require MS to stop distributing these products. The court order says that MS has to ship Windows with a Java VM (and not the MS "Java" VM which is not really Java). They've known this was coming for years; they could've updated the products to use a real JVM (as they did with many other products/verions), but, instead decided to stop distributing these old products. Blaming the court order is ridiculous.
Microsoft must be retiring Win98 for reasons other than the Sun/Java legal issue.
If Sun/Java was actually the reason, then Microsoft would also be retiring Win2000, which also comes bundled with Java, just like Win98 does.
Microsoft is trying to use Java as an excuse to say they must "retire" Win98. It's just ruse for the real reason -- to boost XP sales.
I wonder how Windows 95b would run on a 3GHz CPU with 1GB RAM?
I wouldn't - above a certain speed Win9x falls over with a division by zero (some kind of busy loop it uses for timing I think).
IIRC it can only address 256MB anyway without becoming unstable.
That was Win95, and a fix was released. I think it was a 32bit integer overflow.
They are retiring windows 98 first edition, not both
Not only are the car makers legally required (in the US) to make parts for a certain amount of time past when the car is manufactured, but often they actually make money selling their own tooling to aftermarket parts makers when they stop making parts themselves.
In the US at least, the car makers do not have an adversarial relationship with companies who wish to continue making replacement parts for cars after the manufacturers themselves stop.
Of course, the real issue here is ongoing updates for software bugs - most of which are security patches. In the absence of Microsoft providing these patches for Windows 98, the community has released a series of patches for Windows 98 that are not available from Microsoft. These critical patches are available from http://linuxiso.org/
The first dog barks. All other dogs bark at the first dog.
I also refuse to upgrade from 98 SE. I also dual boot Debian GNU/Linux, but for gaming 98 SE is awesome. That's about it. Now if only Win95 was as stable, had good USB support and drivers for modern h/w. Win95 is one fast GUI in new machines.
My father-in-law once refered to the affect on his machine after upgrading to XP, that it was like powering a cruise ship (XP) with a 10hp outboard motor (PC). Menu response slow.
Ever try using the Search on XP facility to find pictures on your pc? Default view is preview every picture found. If you own a decent digital camera and your pics are say 2048xwhatever res, the machine slows to crap as it previews them all, maxes out your virtual memory and pc falls over. Pressing Stop has no effect for a minute or two, if you are lucky and your pc hasn't locked completely.
Windows 98: 29%
Windows XP: 38%
Windows 2000: 20%
Windows NT: 3%
Mac: 3%
Windows 95: 1%
Linux: 1%
Other: 5%
This data is the most recent -- at "September 2003". I wonder why they haven't updated it. Maybe Google is dying (or at least, Google as we knew it).
If Win98 were open-sourced, it would be a matter of months before enough chunks were absorbed into WINE to make its Win32 support perfect.
Similarly, tweaking DOSEMU and modifying Win98 (a la the modified Windows 3.1 of Win-OS/2, which can run in DOSEMU) would be fairly easy, since Win98 is architecturally so similar to DOS plus Win 3.1's 386 enhanced mode.
Mainstream OSS talent would be diverted into those projects and the improving Win98 projects, sure. But mainstream computer dollars would be lost by Microsoft to both a Linux that can run Win32 programs as well as XP, and a "Winux" that is Linux to the hardware and power users but modified and improved Win98 to the ordinary user and his software. (In the latter case, BSODs would still happen, but they'd cause the underlying Linux to quick-load another Windows session.)
I expect "Winux" would quickly become the favorite OS of computer makers; free and looks just like the familar Windows environment. Microsoft would lose hundreds of millions.
Two words... "internal security". Just because you have a firewall does not stop things from happenning. All it takes is one floppy from home and you are toast.
But we were talking about win98, not internal security. (btw, most boxes have NO cd or floppy drive, on purpose). Internal security is the same for 98 as for nt or linux. I put my knoppix cd in ANY computer that can boot a cd, and I own it, 98 or not. Also, the most important part of internal security is not getting "socially engineered", which again, is not OS specific.
I know every person using every computer, and have for many years. When they do something stupid, their computer "just wont work" for a few days (hint: because I "can't fix it yet"), which keeps them slightly paranoid about doing anything, which makes my job easier. Again, this is not OS specific.
But the main point I made was, and is, that if you need a simple network, and can use a linux firewall for external security (easy enough to non-linux users), and not overly concerned about internal security (like this church, or the my place where everyone has been there for years and its a smaller office), then Windows 98 is a pretty easy network to manage. You can run old versions of Office (cheap to ebay or find used), modern AV, and unlike XP, its fairly small and easy to backup and restore. Almost every mainstream program still being made will still run on Windows 98, although NOT all will run on 95.
Not every network needs a dedicated IT staff. Not every organization needs bullet proof internal security. Some just need 5 to 10 computers to run Peachtree or Quicken, or a contact manager. Or share the internet, in which case, the 'server' running 98 isn't needed at all. After all these years, I have come to the conclusion that smaller and simpler OS's are easier to maintain. Revolutionary, isn't it?
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
I've had more grief over the years from Me users than 95 and 98 users put together - they should keep 98 and drop Me.
IMO the damned thing is so twitchy and unstable it should never have been released, whereas 98 by comparison just keeps on going, just like NT4 SP6a which I believe to be far more stable than either 2K or XP.
Go permanent? In your dreams and my worst nightmares.
I know for slashdot the subject is a little weird, but i find 98 quite good. I mean, i run it fine and it hardly ever crashes. Some programs are worse than others and then its not MSs fault (although better memory protection may be needed) but 3rd party apps.
Thats a damn shame they had to stop supporting it. How many people stil use it? I know of a few and i think i'd rather use it thanx XP, but then, i'd rather use linux than anything else.
Giving IE users a taste of their own medicine since 2005 - http://pods.-is-a-geek.net/
Windows 98 was a 16 bit OS that had delusions of being a 32bit OS. Win2k was a real 32bit OS, and although I don't prefer or use either, it is truly an insult to win2k to compare it to win98.
Also, win98 was not a stable OS for anything. Win2k is a far better OS than win98 for everything, including gaming. Even Linux/wineX is better/more stable for gaming than win98 ever was.
Frag 'em all...
I was going to post similar feelings, so I'm glad that I read down a bit first. I set up a listening lab fo a university and their software was Win98 and a Macromedia app that required the non-NT line of OSes. 98Lite and removing every other superfluous thing on the computer saved my but on that deal. Later the director said that they needed Office and IE on the computers. I looked at her with disbelief -- they didn't use anything like that. She just wanted them on the computers for some unknown reason. Moz and OOo fixed her problem and kept the stability.
I set up an automatic ghost recovery disk for the secretary before my contract was over, but they remained stable and error free for at least eight months after, or until they upgraded everything to IE6 and warez MSOffice. TIT (This is Thailand!)
Put identity in the browser.
You don't ask KFC to reveal their "seven herbs and spices" do you?
This isn't even a fair comparison. If I don't like KFC, for whatever reason, my decision to go somewhere else (or even make my own) will be virtually without cost. Why? Because chicken isn't closed-source. If I decide I don't like Microsoft, I always have to weigh my options against the very real cost of installing and learning a new OS, converting my old documents, potential compatibility issues, etc. Why? Because Microsoft is closed-source, and is often, by design, incompatible with other potential options.
From the Microsoft Australia website (http://www.microsoft.com/australia/pricing/defaul t.aspx#W):
Windows XP Home
Estimated Price: $463.00 (Inclusive of GST)
Windows XP Professional
Estimated Price: $675.00 (Inclusive of GST)
It certainly makes OS X's price of A$229 easier to tolerate.