Retired Microsoft Operating Systems Still Popular

Decaffeinated Jedi writes "Despite Microsoft's recent retirement of Windows 98, News.com reports that many users continue to cling to the company's older operating systems. The study cited in the article suggests that 80 percent of companies still have machines operating on Windows 95 or 98. While Windows 2000 was the most common OS in the study, just 6.6 percent of the desktop machines included in the survey were running Windows XP." The results aren't too surprising. I get a lot of user mail from Netscape 4 users, and it only makes sense that they're running it somewhere.

Comments

Re:Quantum Leap?

[ka9dgx]

How is Windows 2000 better? If you're running Office 97, or Office 2000, what does it do better than Windows 98SE?

Nothing other than satisfy the immature need to have a newer toy.

--Mike--

The thing I always wondered is

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

Ok, so now Win98 is retired, i.e. not available from its maker, Microsoft. Soon, the second-hand market for Windows licenses will die out.

Once there are no licenses available anymore, and since Microsoft doesn't care anymore either (they've abandoned the OS), why shouldn't it be possible to copy and download it freely?

I mean, I realize Win98 is still under copyright from M$ and isn't public domain, but given that they don't make money out of it and they don't support it, it's as good as abandonware, no?