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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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I got windows 98 to run for weeks at a time on my machine. Its not stable compared to Linux, but it is stable compared to its predecesor, windows 95.
Viral software licensing is not freedom, it is in fact GNU/Socialism.
I walked him through the process and told him that Win 98 support was going out the window at year's end. This isn't the first time this story has graced /.. He didn't seem to care and has no plans to upgrade until the hardware gives out and the harddrive fails or something like that.
Then he's buying a mac...
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
Note that this says nothing about support for these products. Microsoft is going to stop distributing these products to comply with the court order, not support them. It really is two different issues.
Now, since some of these products aren't even sold anymore, the only reason this was noticed was because of the notice on MSDN, which is a place you could get these products if you had a subscription.
Forget the whales - save the babies.
Simple,
They'll use retiring all those products to move people to a newer version of Windows, which will arguably be EVEN HARDER for users to migrate away from!
Every time Microsoft is sentenced to a "penalty" they find some way of using it to their advantage.
No reason why this will be any different.
I don't know the meaning of the word 'don't' - J
CNET is owned by Paul Allen's Vulcan Northwest. Paul Allen has a 5% stake in Microsoft.
Tin foil, get your tin foil!
I for one welcome our new SCOviet Russian overlords to whom all our base are belong.
If a company ceases to support a product, the source code for that product should be automatically released into the public domain or under and Open Source license. I have a client that has thousands of Win98 machines that are still being used. The the Win98 source were available, Wine would get real good, real fast.
To get bad code out of public hands, they have to replace it with better code. This will just replace bad code with even worse code (XP is worse because it has more DRM).
The "activation thing" is a cripping feature. I can't accept that EULA in good faith, so I can't use XP at all (imo pirating XP would be sinking to MS's level). This just pushes me one step closer to a mac. I'm currently running win98 and win2k. The security issue is the major concern; now I can't use win98 on an important machine anymore.
Jason
ProfQuotes
No, but Windows 98SE is dead for all practical purposes since many companies no longer release drivers for it (including a certain graphics card maker that I won't name... but its name begins with "nV" ;))
...but what about those of us who speak Aramic?
The point is that it's there for those inclined to see, to do, to touch, and to modify. And it makes all the difference.
-Sara
parting will be such sweet sorrow. The first mainstream x86OS to be somewhat stable. In contrast 95 looked so bad, it was the fufillment of a promise that microsoft had always given us. With out it, I dare say that the web would be quite different. Without 98, Netscape would still be a domminant company. Who would have filled the void of a desktop Gui? 98 was the ultimate hack. DOS meets Gui, 16 bit in harmony with 32 bit, ugliness and usability. While I eventually left for the stability,security of Linux. We wouldn't really appreciate Linux without having windows to compare it to. 98 had its flaws and those of 95 and 3.1 and Dos, but altogether they made for a quirky upredictable system that couldn't survive a week without a reboot. Ahh the good old days, or bad days.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
But they can. No joe user would dwelve into kernel editing, but with linux a developer can, without having to pay $1000s to microsoft. In fact, the tools required to edit the kernel come with the linux distribution. Just because it's only 0.000000000001% of the users doesn't mean that it's still not a good thing.
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 that can be used by anyone to patch windows98 and create a useable free version (think dr-dos being released and now used as a minimul dos environment by various companies, ie: apple's virtual pc uses it as a base dos install).
Maybe that wouldn't happen, maybe it would. Without he code being available, it *can't*.
I wonder if any of those TCO papers discuss what it costs to upgrade in the next ten years because MS decides to put something in their software to make you upgrade.
I'm not sure how I should react to this.
But personally, my vote is for Windows 95b. The b is very important. That was a distribution that actually worked. If they kept the USB add-ons available I might still have on of my machines running it.
I wonder how Windows 95b would run on a 3GHz CPU with 1GB RAM?
Actually, you might see quite a benefit upgrading to 2k or XP, since they both have much better power management support. Win98 doesn't even support the HALT instruction, so your system is sitting their running at pretty much 100% CPU usage all the time. I upgraded to WinXP on my 5 year old laptop with a K6-III+/400, and the battery life went way up, and the system runs much cooler. Win2k/XP are also much better at handling frequent PC Card swapping, something I find myself doing quite frequently.
There are 3rd party apps that added the CPU idle feature win9x/Me, such as CPUCool.
Win98, on the other hand, I've never had success in keeping relatively stable.
No, it's 233 PII w/64MB RAM minimum, 300 PII w/128MB RAM recommended. BTW, I've seen benchmarks showing a P100 w/512MB running XP Pro, and THG said that they couldn't get anything meaningful out of a 486, but it was possible(!)
I run win98 on my desktop (read game machine and hard drive server). I run win98 dual boot on my laptop with linux. Win98 runs all the games I want, it runs opera, it runs AIM, and it runs my email client. It runs perl, it runs emacs. It connects and shares an internet connection, it manages my hard drives, cdroms, printers etc for my home based network. That's all I need out of it. Anything else I'll do under linux.
I find my win98 installation to be fairly secure. Unless I try and screw it up (ie run an unknown email attachement I was sent by someone I don't trust) it's fine. No services to worry about, no random open ports to be exploited, really unless I try to have the machine hacked it seems perfectly safe.
Plus, it's paid for. I have yet to be given a compelling reason to upgrade to a new version of windows. MS not supporting it any more? So what. It's ran reasonably fine the past 5 years. I'm not surprised MS wants to get rid of it, there's no icentive for there customers to replace it.
--
Michael Feuell
Yup, this is only too true. Using Windows 98 does not contain any risks. Unfortunately, whithout any firewalling, with NetBIOS enabled by default on all adapters, with a broken TCP/IP stack (and a completely bunk dial up networking) etc. I would be very hard pressed to recommend it as low end internet operating system.
Furthermore, it would be easy to use XP or Windows 2000 with the firewall enabled. That would be as safe (or safer) than using the Windows 98 operating system. IE and Outlook are just disasters waiting to happen (on your system, on the internet they are already happening) so using third party browser and email client is to be recommended in all circumstances.
The only thing worse than using Windows 98 may be Windows ME, but they fixed some serious dial up issues in that operating system, blurring the choice a bit.
There are millions of users out there still running Windows 98. There may very well be more users of 98 than XP. Pulling 98 off MSDN means it will become significantly harder for developers to test their code on the platform that still large numbers of users have.
This is utterly disastrous. Companies that say there are risks of working with Linux should see what it means to work with Sun.
--Dan
I used Win 98 for most of my stuff cause I like some of the older 6.22 games, and they never seemed to run worth a damn on Win2000 - so I stayed with Win 98 -
The funny thing is, I'm also running Zonealarm and a private FW, but it's nice to know the next time some mega XP worm launches it won't affect me too badly...
RB
----------
ah honey, we're all resplendent - Bill Mallonee
WIN98SE: stable surfing the 'net & playing games as well as d/l via WinMX or Bit Torrent. I've had it running smoothly for 5-8 days at a time.
WINXP: stable for gaming? You're the one who's delusional.
I will probably goto Mandrake. I like Linux (been using PCs since 1982) I have a copy of the Windows eXtortion Program (pro edition). I might install it but I have it at work so there's no real point.
I did all my years of networks & servers in the 80s and early 90s. All i want out of my home computer is entertainment (surf the 'net and GAMES GAMES GAMES).
The biggest headache I have about XP is that there isn't an Expert Mode. I absolutely HATE having to waste my time going the baby steps that are there to help inexperienced users (i understand some people need this) but hinder those of us that know what they're doing.
As for stablility: Win2000. I haven't used it much but out of 30-40 techs & net admins that I've talked to, they all seem to agree on this...
The GEEK shall inherit the earth...
98 is more stable than 95, and is good for gaming.
I code on Linux, and port to windows.
I was just worried today that the industry keeps trying to make technology more confusing.
Linux raw c++ coding is WORLDS easier and powerful than Visual Basic NET COM or whatever they're using in IT.
A lot of upgrades Microsoft does is that they want:
#1 Cheat out the competition, like win98 did to Java.
#2 Make coding more difficult and obfuscated.
#3 Mix up the screen and add a paper clip so they can sell version 7.0
Microsoft plays a game of laziness. They sit around and collect money, until they see some young company with a good idea. When they see the idea, they steal it, and fund development on a similar product, and make sure the company never gets off the ground.
>ISA Server 2000
Of the list, this is the one that is the most current version being sold. Are they just going to discontinue it?
Windows 98 is very stable if you know how to coax it and caress it. I've been using 98 on my main studio/gaming machine for years. Using the 98lite patch helps a lot. I haven't bluescreened in over 18 months, unless a CD was dirty. In fact when I set up my first web server it ran 98, and was up constantly with zero downtime for six months, until I moved. Of course, it wasn't always so, but it's been around for so long that most of the major bugs have been worked out (hell, most of em were worked out by the release of 98SE). So of course MS had to go invent new bugs to put back in and call it Millennium Edition.
I'm not saying that it's the right choice for everyone or for all situations, but for my multitracking/simcity box I wouldn't have it any other way. 98SE is VASTLY faster than XP. And, BTW, VASTLY more secure.
They will never stop until somebody makes the
I regularly got 98 to run for 4 months at a time before finally it simply stopped responding requiring a reboot. I used it at work every day, lots of word processing, spreadsheets, some graphic design, web browsing of course. Played Quake after hours too.
Comparison: My record uptime on an XP box is 3 weeks (similar usage). NT/2000 servers at my work stay up for months at a time.
Sure it doesn't beat my Linux boxes which have stayed up for years at a time, but it's no where near the "crashing all the time" reports that I've read.
Windows Me on the other hand....
You don't own Win98. It's licensed to you by M$.
...you have purchased a copy of Windows XP. There's no other way to interpret the transaction. Subsequent dialogs presented to you during installation are irrelevent. No where on the box, during the sales transaction, or on the sales receipt does it say "license to use Windows XP".
Let me put this as politely as I can: bullshit!
I don't own the copyright to Windows, but I damned well own my copy of it and the CD it came on. The software industry pretends otherwise, but the reality says differently. The only reason why they've gotten away with it is because the courts have ignored the situation.
When you walk into a store, pick up a box that says "Windows XP", see a price tag that says "$199", walk to the sales counter, hand over $199 plus tax, and receive a receipt that says "Windows XP",
It's like buying a fork. You may not have the copyright to the design on the fork, but you still the owner of the fork. You can use it, throw it away, give it to a friend, or sell it at a garage sale.
I have stopped buying commercial software for this reason. They are engaging in illegal bait and switch. I've got no problems if they tell me up front at the time of purchase that I'm not really buying the software. At least that's honesty. But I'm sick and tired of the outside of the box saying "product" and the inside saying "fooled you, it's really a license".
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!