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Microsoft Retires Windows 98

Posted by michael on from the porch-and-rocking-chair dept.

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."

6 of 697 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Good, now retire IE5 by larsoncc · · Score: 4, Informative

    IE 5.X is part of this forced retirement.

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    Video Game News, FAQs, etc
  2. Fortunately ... by IPFreely · · Score: 5, Informative

    ... Microsoft is not retiring Win98 SE, only versions of Win98 prior to SE. See this.

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    There is nothing so silly as other peoples traditions, and nothing so sacred as our own.
  3. No, it does not include Win98 SE by leerpm · · Score: 4, Informative
    In the original full posting, they give the full list of all products being retired:

    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 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
    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

  4. Re:Good, now retire IE5 by larsoncc · · Score: 4, Informative

    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
  5. Re:Truly Sad..... by Tackhead · · Score: 5, Informative
    > Ironically, Win98se has been Microsoft's most secure operating system for the last two years!

    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.

  6. It doesn't force upgrades. by BoomerSooner · · Score: 4, Informative
    You can still use your product, MS is just shelving the ability for you to get it. This was on the MSDN site a while ago. Here's the text:

    Subscriber Download content will be retired on December 23rd
    Due to a settlement agreement reached in January 2001, Microsoft is phasing out the Microsoft Virtual Machine from its products. As of 12:01 AM Pacific Time December 23rd, 2003, we will phase out several product families, and remove the Microsoft Virtual Machine from others. The major product families that will no longer be available are:

    BackOffice Server 2000
    MapPoint 2002
    Office 2000 Suite and Products
    Office XP Developer
    SQL Server 7.0
    Windows 98

    Although these products will no longer be available for distribution from Microsoft, they can still be used in accordance with the terms of your MSDN Subscription license agreement.