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."

Comments

So?

[dolo666]

Windows 98? But they are on XP now...
So I guess it's no big deal. How does this harm Microsoft? Win98 is (was) a nice and stable gaming platform, but XP is very stable for gaming too. This counts as a win on the record, but it's still too little too late, imho. Sun should be awarded more rights over *current* and *future* Microsoft products, as a penalty. This could get interesting!

Re:So?

[Frymaster]

How does this harm Microsoft?

actually, it helps them. there are millions of administrative assistants and other corporate flunkies who have been happily using win 98 for years.

now that end of life is officially declared, the it deaprtmnt will probably force upgrades on all those people - and, of course, pay the necessary licensing fees to redmond.

microsoft: taking a bad ruling and turning it into a cash cow. again.

Re:So?

[bloodrose]

Cash cow yes bad ruling far from it. Windows 98 was a decent platform for those who didnt want to bother about more advanced topics, but it as many things slowly loose their appeal to support after a while as well as the invention of "newer" technologies, but honestly who reaps the benefit of this "Cash Cow". Not just Redmond. Usually when a peice of software (os or otherwise) is "retired" supporting companies (ISP's, repair shops, etc...) lag behind about a year or more before declaring that they will not support it. For example, this year an ISP I worked for finally decided not to support Win 95 anymore. The repair shops that are in town that still support these "older" technologies will reap the benefits in that users who first turned to microsoft will turn to them instead before even considering to upgrade.

Re:So?

[Ray Radlein]

Windows 98SE is still the baseline gaming platform for Windows gaming, and certainly represented a local maximum in stability -- it is worlds more stable than its predecessors (Win95 and 98 original), and it is also more stable than its immediate successor, WinME. And while the NT branch of the family was sometimes more stable than 98SE (and sometimes not), not until XP has game support come anywhere near being equal to that of 98SE.

98SE is, of course, far from perfect, but I, for one, still use it (don't worry, though -- I dual boot with Red Hat). When my mother-in-law got a new computer with XP on it, I had to spend a couple of weeks hacking and slashing away at its bells and whistles (and security holes and spyware) before it would run acceptably.

XP also suffers from the classic Microsoft "your OS knows what's best for you, and you'd better like it" syndrome. On the other hand, after five years, most of the operational innards of Win98 have been well mapped by generations of hardy explorers, and there are plenty of tools available for tweaking it just so.

Obviously, Win98SE is not the greatest OS of all time; but, in terms of relative stability combined with widespread application compatability, it is certainly the most successful OS Microsoft has ever produced.

I suppose you could look at it as being similar to the late 19th century British cavalry saber -- a form which realized its ideal expression at the same time as it became obsolete.

Upgrade

[Cavalkaf]

Well, Microsoft is forcing everyone that wants tech support to pay another $500 to upgrade, and still get no source code....

Re:Upgrade

[king-manic]

Realistically, only about 0.1% of *nix users ever even think about touching kernel source. For windows users it's be down to about 0.0001% that even know what the kernel is. So the source would be about as useful as a 4000 page manual written in Aramaic, translated from the original babalonian through french then swedish and finally chinese.

Re:Upgrade

[glenrm]

I would take that a step further and say what about a useful modification that one of these 0.0001% make that everybody else starts using. Only a few people starting making the MOD to Half-Life called Counter Strike yet it is more popular than the original.

Re:Upgrade

[lightsaber1]

That's not Microsoft's business practice and probably never will be. Just because we like the idea of open source, doesn't mean everybody does. Microsoft can make more money by hiding its source and not allowing modification, so they can pay their developers more, and so on and so on. Just let it be. Those that prefer the closed source model can go there and the rest can go open source...who says everything has to use the same model? It's a free market society (in North America at least), and there are no laws against it.

Re:Upgrade

[AsparagusChallenge]

What if MS released the windows 98 source code under the GPL or a BSD or Apache style license? Probably that 0.000000000001% of developers who care enough will take it, fix some of the annoying bugs and features in it and create a windows 99 release

You silly, it would be used to create libwin32.so.98 and some kernel modules, and native windows applications would run about anywhere.

Truly Sad.....

[GeneralEmergency]

Ironically, Win98se has been Microsoft's most secure operating system for the last two years!

Kuh-Bum-Boomp!
Thank you, I'll be here all week.

Re:Truly Sad.....

[Tackhead]

> Seriously, no trolling, I mean it. I made the switch from Windows to Linux after seeing ME being a step back from 98 and XP being not much better. Now I know why I end up in an argument with every other web designer in the group!

While we're at it - Win9x was much more recoverable than NT/XP/2K. If an XP box dies on boot due to a fux0r3d registry, you reinstall because the "recovery console" doesn't actually let you run any executables that might help you "recover".

Win9x has a corrupt registry? No problem! Boot to DOS off a floppy. Add a line to MSDOS.SYS that that says BootGUI=0. Poke around in C:\WINDOWS\SYSBCKUP and find the last 4-5 versions of the registry. Extract somewhere safe, use ATTRIB to deprotect the corrupt registry, and overwrite.

CHKDSK/SCANDISK not cooperating? No problem in 9x. Boot to DOS and image the drive with Ghost before CHKDSK can corrupt anything.

Some twit's stupid installer overwrites MSVCRT.DLL with a borked version that breaks half your other applications? On XP, you're screwed - can't overwrite it 'cuz it's always in use. On 9x, boot to DOS and overwrite it yourself with a known "good" version. The same techniques apply to trivially expunge MS Outleak Excess and other borkware.

In this context, 9x is less secure than XP per se, but when the "security" you're trying to break is keeping you from manipulating files on your own bloody hard drive, sometimes that's a Good Thing.

Somewhere between NT and Longhorn, single-user machines that ran Microsoft operating systems ceased to be Your Computers and became Bill's Computers. Because it was based on DOS, a 98SE box is always going to be Your Computer.

Re:Truly Sad.....

[Schmucky The Cat]

Registry corruption and you need a DOS floppy?

Hello LAST KNOWN GOOD CONFIGURATION.

I mean, it even detects failed boots and offers you the last known good config option automatically.

And any DLL necessary for booting is always in \dllcache, so some twit's stupid installer can't overwrite it.

You are either making stuff up or making your life more difficult than it needs to be.

Hollow victory

[cybrchrst]

The only thing this means is that people that still have their Packard Bells and Dells and the such with Windows 98 OEM copies are not going to be able to do Windows Updates and are basically going to have to upgrade to another PC if they want support. Any guess as to what OS their next PC is going to run?

Nice way of spinning it

[gilesjuk]

Blame Sun for forcing you to retire a product. They would have retired Win98 by now anyway. It's over five years old.

for better? or for worse?

[musikit]

although i think it's for the better. get bad code out of public hands. a couple of reasons why i think it's a bad idea

1. force people to upgrade
1.1 forces people to spend money on something they may not need
1.2 forces people to use that windows activation thing
2. security. no more patches for win98. this means that the small group of people with win98 are always going to be vulnerable to internet viruses. Upgrade you say? what if you can't afford it?

i'm sure there are tons more reasons. in fact i'd like to heard more below but these are the two things that worry me because i have very little money and family/friends still using 98.

this is our chance as well

[geekoid]

Look, most people are going to have to upgrade there hardware for the latest version of XP.
We need to take advantage of this, and convince people to get Linux and give it a try.

Tell them, if they like it and it does what you
need, then they won't have to upgrade.

But if it doesn't do what you need, they where going to have to upgrade anyways, right?

The Linux community does not get many opportunities like this. lets use it.

Passive Aggressive Legal/PR Strategy

[4of12]

Compliance with court orders to remove the polluted versions of JVM does not require that those entire product lines be discontinued.

However, it is in Microsoft's business interest to push users of those products into upgrading to newer Microsoft products, for which they'll gain license revenue AND lower support costs associated with discontinuing support for those old products.

And, it is in MSFT's public relations interests to deflect blame for this action away from themselves and upon enemy Sun and its Java legal action.

Exactly the same red-herring strategy is being used to hold up class action settlements in California and to blame it on Lindows.

Re:Fact: Windows 98 is dying

[ConceptJunkie]

I know this was meant as a joke but Windows 98 was stillborn. I sucked on day one and it sucks today. Problem is I volunteer at my church to maintain their network and software and until we can convince the pastor to upgrade, I'll have to continue to support it.

We wouldn't bother upgrading because they will be moving to a new building with a new network and everything two years, but the fact of the matter is that you can't set up a Windows 98 network, work through all the pain and pathetic Microsoft crap and then leave it alone once it works because it never stays working for long.

Microsoft may be abandoning the product but the fact of the matter is that they couldn't be bothered to make it not suck in the first place and there will be millions of people saddled with support this sorry piece of crap whether MS supports it or not.

If we were talking about Windows 2000 it would be a different story because Win2k was and continues to be a viable and stable platform. In fact, with the NT line, there hasn't been compelling reasons to upgrade for about 5 years except for support of new hardware. That's the problem... when you actually do something right, you lose the upgrade track because people are actually satisfied.

That's why MS never cared about the DOS branch of their OS's. They knew they would sell bazillions of copies, but when called on the carpet for its crappy quality, they could just point to the NT branch.

Now that those branches have merged, I guess they have to start making all their OS's suck, or run the risk of having too many satisfied customers.

Others Should be able to legally support it then.

[Linus Sixpack]

When the car manufacturors stopped making older cars a whole industry sprang up supporting older models. The Car companies had at first said to the consumer -- upgrade its not supported.

Car part companies won a major legal win where they were allowed to make parts, against the wishes of the car manufacturers because there was an over-riding consumer interest.

At what point must the publishers of a de-facto standard publish its source code to allow others to help the userbase when they choose not to?

Re:No, it does not include Win98 SE

[Anonymous Coward]

So, how exactly does the Sun Case impact

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

Are they saying the JVM is in all these products ?

Most likely it is they want to force people to upgrade to the latest products.

I wont even contemplate how SQL server impinges on JVM

I guess I am in the cynical camp and see this as a marketting ploy to force people to upgrade and endure licensing 6.0

their lips moved

[twitter]

They retired them because they did not want to get them into compliance and spend the resources on those packages.

Right, they had no intentions of improving or modifying W98SE. In fact, new sales must be so low it was time to shoot it anyway. So nice of them to blame Sun for what they obviously indended from the start. It's so much better than saying that 98 simply sucked, like they said about 95 and 3.1 and you get the picture. Oh wait, they did say that 98 sucks.

As with most MS settlements, they win even when they lose.

As with most Microsoft statements, it was a lie even when partially factual.

Re:Others Should be able to legally support it the

[gellenburg]

Well...

You actually own the car.

You don't own Win98. It's licensed to you by M$.

As the owner of my car, it's my choice what parts I want to be in it (within reason of course).

As the owner of Win98, it's their choice whether they want to offer support.

Go FreeBSD.

Re:Fact: Windows 98 is dying

[T-Ranger]

Two years running an unsupported OS is a very long time. If your network is connected to the internet it is a death sentence. It is almost guarenteed that in two years someone will find an exploit, and exploit you specificly.

As a matter of cost, having computer upgrades tied to building upgrades for an orgnization which Im sure has finite amounts of money is a Bad Thing. Either get your new hardware and licenses now, or after the new building: spread the costs around. Not for 30 years has physcially moving computers been a major cost concern. Computers are resonably portable. New computers and new buildings are sepearate issues.

Re:Things I wish Microsoft would retire

[DA-MAN]

> Ahh, if only MS hadn't crushed netscape we might actually have a standard that is actually followed (rather than re-written as MS sees fit).

*aHeM* Netscape, pre-Microsoft-killing, was not anywhere near being standard. The last version of Netscape that supported the standards properly was probably Netscape 3.01. After that they too tried to pull Microsofts game on Microsoft, embrace/extend/etc. However Microsoft ultimately won due to the tight grip on the desktop.

Never more stable than NT

[msgmonkey]

NT3/4 was always rock solid compared to Win95/98/SE/ME. Sure it was never the thing to run for games but you can't even compare the two when it came to stability.

Re:Yah I still use 98

[d34thm0nk3y]

Actually, Microsoft has historically treated programmers pretty well. The whole reason most of the software on the planet is for Windows is because of this.

Anybody who says that raw c++ is easier than VB is on crack! Microsofts whole business model is based on making it easy for people to build software for the platform.

I write business apps in Python (and VB) using COM and I have to say that it is actually pretty neat as long as your company is already willing to pay the MS Office tax.

It works both ways, folks...

[Reziac]

Well, I can't help it that you linux types can't figure out how to run Windows ;)

Seriously, in *every* case where someone complains that their Windows setup is unstable, I've found one of three factors is actually at fault:

1) Crap hardware and/or drivers
2) Lack of basic maintenance (frex, defragging)
3) Installing tons of crapware/spyware, and/or uninstalling apps via the "random deletia" method

The average Windows install, with *ZERO* maintenance and much abuse, lasts about three years before it reaches a point where most Joe Users think it needs a reformat. Meaning it's gotten slow, and crashes more than once a week or so. (Tho so far I've only seen ONE Windows setup that I couldn't quickly clean up and restore to good working order, *without* a reformat. Reinstalling stuff is against my religion. :)

Serious question: Can a default linux install survive three years of daily abuse and neglect, by clueless users who nonetheless stick their fingers into everything in reach, and still be functional enough to be merely "annoying" (the state at which most folk give up on a neglected WinSetup)??

Linux proponents are always saying that anyone who thinks linux is hard to get running good are just ignorant. Consider that the reverse is also true -- that anyone who can't get Windows to run stable is equally ignorant.

Because frankly, folks, it just ain't that hard.