Slashdot Mirror
Windows 98 Phased Out
Via_Patrino writes "According to Microsoft on january 16, MS Windows 98 and 98se will end Extended Support Phase, that means they'll became obsolete and assisted support will no longer be available from Microsoft, affecting about 27% of the internet users. That means even if 98 is working well for your needs (and especially computer specifications) and you want to pay for support (because that might cost less than switching hardware) you can't, because who will be able to patch eventual new bugs (security related or not) besides Microsoft? So if you're not planning a switch it might be your last opportunity to update MS Windows 98, after that some software might disappear from MS website (just like MSIE 5.5 for 95 did)."
Why? People don't typically switch until they get a new PC. Witness the Google zeitgeist; though people are using Windows XP more, it is more than likely due to it being bundled with new PCs. (Consider how long XP has been out, as compared to how much it has been used. Also factor in that those XP and 2000 numbers liekly account for most of the corporate world.) There are a considerable number of people still using Windows 98, and it is likely to stay that way.
For home users who need Office, internet, and a gaming platform, Windows 98SE upgraded and patched does everything they need. It also runs reasonably fast on today's hardware, and there are a lot of "ain't broke, don't fix" people out there. There's really no compelling reason for people to switch, so they won't until they get a new PC.
libertarianswag.com
Screw Windows98, what about us MS DOS users?
Hack your mind out of its sandbox.
... compared to the other major player in the consumer OS market, Apple, how good is Microsoft's support for older operating systems?
Sounds like that typical MS, screwing you out of support after a scant 6 or more years. BASTARDS!
Of course, when you try to update Red Hat Linux 5.2 or Apple OS 8.5, it still works flawlessly. But no, those greedy, awful bastards at MS are just continually SCREWING the customer.
On December 31, 2003, Redhat discontinued support for Redhat 7.3 and on April 30, 2004, Redhat 9, released less than a year ago, gets the support axe.
When compared to that, I think Microsoft has been damn generous. And if you look at my posting profile, you see i don't cut Microsoft much slack either...
that does not mean 27% of internet users use Windows 98. THere are many people who just use e-mail and hardly ever use google.
New year Resolution: Don't change sig this year
Before people panic in the streets, it should be made clear that MS still plans to patch vulnerabilities in Win98. Hopefully this means people will keep using Windows Update to keep their system as risk free (from viruses, trojans, etc.) as reasonably possible. (Besides using things like virus scanners and anti-spyware tools, of course!)
-Teckla
I work in a k12 environment, and this is going to be bad for us. We use win98 because its NOT a multi user operating system.
A lot of schools have netware/win98 combos.
Since win2k/XP require logins, we have to resort to novell zenworks to manage the automatic creation of machines accounts (our servers can handle it) or switching to AD (what ms wants, but our servers cant handle it).
This blows.
To open up the source for Win95/98/Me so the community can step in where M$ left off.
OS X, it's like Linux but a lot more expensive...
And all the windows98 users would have to buy a new computer as OS X doesn't run on i386.
From a Network Support position at a University, I almost wished they discontinued Windows Me before they did 98. We have more problems with ME than any other OS, mostly due to it being a peice of shit.
Viva La Revolucion! Buy a Mac!
Anyone who is happy with Windows 98 should not be required to upgrade just because Microsoft can't be bothered to support a product they created and sold to end users. God forbid that the needs of these consumers, for whome Win98 is just fine, should be paramount.
... or, be supported by someone else. That's probably about as likely as a spontaneous mutation in Bill Gate's eyeball creating a separate human species which lives on tears and speaks only Esperanto.
Either that, or Microsoft should give these users the opportunity to support themselves. They are obviously not going to make any more money from Windows 98, they should open the source so that people who don't need to upgrade can support themselves
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. (Einstein)
Well, my parents run Windows 98. My grandfather runs Windows 98. My other grandfather runs Windows 98SE. I have no intention of upgrading their computers now or ever.
I've long since put my trust in anti-viral software and AdAware. That's working far better for me than many of Microsoft's patches have. I still have IE trying to download stuff on my Windows Server 2003 laptop all the time, but thankfully VirusScan always catches it and AdAware makes a nice backup should VisusScan fail. If my fully up-to-date Windows Server 2003 machine fails, why should I even bother trying to lock-down or upgrade a windows 98 machine?
Microsoft isn't supporting me, so I'm not going to go out of my way to get any of my relatives to support them. In fact, I'm recommending they all get Apple laptops next time they want to do a major computer upgrade.
Bryan
Anyone still using win9x really ought to upgrade to windows 2k/XP. It will save you a lot of headaches.
...and upgrade the obsolete headaches to modern pain-in-the-asses.
My organization is on a 3-year desktop replacement cycle. Just this week, we fished the last five Windows 98 machines out of our pool and are now at XP across the board.
Yeah - I considered Linux, but then I considered retraining costs, application problems and general user resistance and decided it wasn't a battle worth fighting at this point. (not that I WOULDN'T like to get MS out eventually).
If it wasn't for the regular security threats that need patching these days, Win98 could go on for a long time.
If you leaped direct from Windows 98 to OS X it's not surprising that you feel great relief.
A switch from Windows 98 to Windows 2000 is a similar jump in quality and reliability. However, one doesn't have to throw away all one's apps and start over again.
Not that I could ever bear to live in a world with just Windows 2000. There are many good choices. I even use MacOS for some things.
A Good Intro to NetBS
OSX doesn't run too good on most machines that currently run 98. Something about a power something, or maybe a G something, i forget ;).
Microsoft's support phases last a lot longer than most proprietary software companies out there.
I expect that the next big virus will knock a bunch of the remaining 98 computers offline once Microsoft stops making patches. Zone Labs will probably experience a small surge in downloads of their free firewall product.
Software gets old and the best thing to do is officially put it to rest. If you want to continue to use it that's your choice. Just means you also don't plan to update your hardware.
IMO supporting old versions of software is a waste of energy. I'd rather see that energy put to drivers and updates for new systems. Things need to progress forward. WHen I got into Linux the community would brag that it would still run on 8086 or 286. That's over for mainstream Linux. Hardware moved forward and so did Linux.
Anyone who is happy with Windows 98 should not be required to upgrade
Where's the gun to the head?
Oh, wait -- they're not forced to upgrade!
You're just grabbing at straws trying to find things to bitch about regarding Microsoft. Red Hat drops support WAY sooner than Microsoft ever does (it's been 5 years for Windows 98 -- Redhat discontinued support for Redhat 7.3 at the end of last year and that's way newer than Windows 98.)
But no, instead of reasoning with your brain, you are going to play the part of the anti-Micro"$"oft troll.
evil adrian
Wait......this...is a joke....right? *snicker*, *guffaw!*.
"Laugh all you want, Monkey Boy." - John Whorfin
I, for one, still play X-Wing and TIE Fighter (and a few other games unplayable/unsupported in NT/2000/XP). Why, what do you use your Microsoft OSes for?
Carthago delenda est!
That's why I'm using it.
The fastest way to run Windows programs under Linux is with Win4lin.
Win4lin doesn't support W2K, so I use Win98 for it.
Mod me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!
I love OS X myself, but I still have to say you're off base a bit on '98. The nice thing about Win '98 is MS had the product out for so long, they did quite a few revisions to it, improving things like USB support and networking capabilities. The original '98 release might not have been spectacular, but most people I know found that '98 "Second Edition" was about as good as Windows ever got, before changing to the NT-based design found in 2000 and XP.
When they did the Windows Millenium version, THAT'S where they really blew it. All they did was add fluff, plus a half-broken system to roll-back to previous system states that ends up slowing the whole thing down.
I don't know how you can claim Windows '95 was superior to '98, when it lacked USB support completely, had very little native device driver support by comparison, didn't support Internet Connection Sharing or even support for internal ISDN modems (no native support for bonding multiple 64K "B" data channels together), and a slew of other things.
Operating Systems have a limited lifespan - don't tell me you hadn't noticed? RedHat doesn't support every single distribution they've ever compiled, and there's a reason for that: it's not the way the software industry works.
Sure, there are lots of people out there using Win98 still. Heck, there are still people using Win95! But can you really expect a company to invest in support for a product that is 3 generations out of date? For each OS a company (regardless of whether they're Microsoft, RedHat or Apple) it is necessary to have a testing environment, testing staff, developers, marketing, and who knows what else. Microsoft currently support Windows ME, 2000, 2003 and XP. Surely that's an impressive amount of supported products?
Or perhaps we should demand they support everything they make forever. You never know, there might be one or two Windows 3.1 users out there who still want hotfixes released. I have some DOS 3 floppy disks lying around, surely I'm entitled to lifetime support for these!
Typically enough though, this is Slashdot - every decision by Microsoft has to be wrong, evil, unthinkably unfair. And the link to linux under the word "switch" is a good example of how biased this site has become. After all, I don't see the same level of screaming about me being forced to switch my RedHat 7.0 and 8.0 boxes over to Red Hat Enterprise Linux... surely that is a far more shameful lack of support?
You're correct that you don't have to throw away all the apps, but there is a non-trivial number that no longer funtion. I blue-screened W2k after a reinstall because of my burner software. I had a similar problem going to XP. But, despite the incompatibility of some apps, I agree that the 98 -> W2k migration will lead to a massive improvement in quality and reliability.
Note: I'm just comparing 98 and W2k. I still agree that OS X and/or Linux are better, but that's just MHO.
"It's too bad stupidity isn't painful." - A. S. LaVey
Why does everyone make a big stink and bi0tch at Microsoft for doing something like this? Very few companies provide any support at all for old versions of products. Many will cease support old versions the very instant a new version comes out, and will tell its users to upgrade to the newest version if they want support.
Microsoft, on the other hand, provides support for it's software for five (?) years, even after it's been succeeded by Windows 2000/XP!
I don't know if this is still true but I always found Windows 98 faster then Win2K and WinXP for games... It's probably because theres much less overhead. Does this mean no more DirectX support for Windows98?
Give me a fucking break!!! That's not the only option. I switched to OS X and have never been happier!
That's odd, because you sound decidely irritated.
Except that, Red Hat's source is open. If you have a computer that runs Red Hat 6, you can support yourself indefinitely. You cannot do that with WIndows 98. You will be required to upgrade to have support with Microsoft's OS. You should think about what I said before you mouth off like an idiot.
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. (Einstein)
Newer is not ALWAYS better!! Just look at winamp? I have no plans on giving up my winamp 2.90. Windows 98? Yeah, i agree, it sucked. I dumped that OS as soon as i got the thing. NT Pro treated me so well for so many years...
Really, who actually calls Microsoft for support anymore? It's both expensive and usually an act of futility. Even the non-computer savvy usually call Dell or whoever they bought their PCs from instead.
The real problem is there will be no new patches and maybe old patches will no longer be available from windows update. The big reason it's a problem is people *won't* upgrade just because of this. Most hardly care about patches now, but may at least be coaxed into running windows update now and again.
This won't push the holdouts over to XP (which they probably don't even have a new enough computer to run well) - it'll just result in even *more* unpatched trojan-friendly PC out there.
Hmm..
Quite a few people still use Windows 98. I wonder if someone could make some money by doing third-party support of Windows98.
It would be a bit hard to roll out patches as a third-party, but if you supplied people with some sort of firewall package (to shield users from security holes that can't be patched otherwise) and migrated MSIE/Outlook Express users over to Mozilla, it seems like something that could be done.
Windows Media Player users could also be migrated to Winamp.. Pretty much anything that wouldn't be Microsoft supported could be replaced with still-developed Open Source alternatives.
It seems like businesses who don't have their own IT department and run a lot of Win98 PCs who have no other need to upgrade could benefit from this.
Do Win98 users really need official support from MS? I know nothing about M$ world, but if it is anything like the Mac world, then there should be a healthy range of thriving independent online support forums for obsolete hardware and software (You can even get support for ancient 68k Macs at places like Applefritter and 68k Mac Liberation Army. Official support from the official vendor is not really needed as long as someone out there has the answer to your question or can help point you in the right direction.
The only reason a computer user needs "official" support is if they have a pinhead boss or are worried about patches for security holes...... Oh, I see the problem now. Even so Win98 should be "usable" for decades to come if its users form a devoted community that provides mutual support.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
yeah, my grandparents will be recompiling their Red Hat 6 kernel on their own from now! sheesh...
Open Source or not, you have no argument.
-my other sig is your mom
I know that everyone is going to this is all just a ploy by M$ to force people to upgrade to newer, expensive software (and is almost certainly so), but no software company is required to support obsolete versions of their software forever, this is not a reasonable idea. The /.'ers frothing at the mouth about this are the same ones who are first to also froth about how bad an OS Windows 98 is.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
This is no longer the case. Instead hardware designers will be required to get bogged down in driver developement, just to get the first few bits into and out of their systems. In my limited experience with MS Windows driver development, DDK information is 'restricted' and 'quick and dirty' tests are no longer possible.
It looks like I will be learning how to write a linux device driver (or reverting to a DOS replacement).
There are several issues with that:
* First, as others have mentioned, this may imply buying a new computer. Yes, US$200 can buy a computer well capable of running Windows XP. That is not much for a typical US household. A poor student in a third world country may have more of a problem.
* Some software, that runs on Windows 98, does not run successfully on Windows XP (and especially on Windows 2000). Sure, such software is usually woefully written but, if users rely on it, so what?
* Windows 98 SE came out in various language versions. In many cases, equivalent comfort levels for non English speakers are not readily available in Windows 2000 or XP. While the NT based systems allow input and output of the appropriate characters, this is not the same as having menus and error messages in ones native language. With 2000 and XP, multilingual user interface packs exist for many of the languages with specific language Windows 98 versions. These packs are only available to corporate customers.
* There is the cost of buying the new Windows version.
Obviously, Microsoft's priority is to make the maximum amount of money. Fair enough. But, the users need to consider how to get the functionality they need at minimum long term cost. If they need to change their operating system and some of their other software, perhaps they should consider an operating system that allows them to keep their existing hardware and that is less likely to require disruptive changes in the future.
I believe that 98 is still the most used OS, that the 27%-35% that it has exceeds that of any of the other variants. If not, it's close. It's odd for a product to become a non-entity when it's at the top of the heap.
For example, if you develop software for home or school use, you are cutting your throat if it won't run on 98, but MS won't help you keep a 98 machine to test that it works for those 50 million potential users. Yecch!
Support yourself? Sounds like lack of support to me... sounds like you are trying to justify Red Hat's position by saying that open source is The Answer.
But what's with the lack of driver support? Sounds like it's 50/50 wherever you go. But I'm the idiot, you know, wanting my webcam and scanner to work with my OS.
evil adrian
For older hardware, this is not an option as winxp requires far more resources than win98.
I have a dell laptop. It's a 300mhz pentium 2 and had 128 megs of RAM in it, and it ran windows 98... poorly. So I put 256 more megs of PC100 RAM in (that's what it takes... total cost: $20 on sale at the wiz closing event) and installed XP. Then I turned off eye candy. Now it runs beautifully.
...and that's all there is to it.
But the /. community seems to be once again forgetting... we're a very small slize of the whole of people that actually use a computer.
a very small slice.
For most people, rebooting Win9x is just fine for them, becuase they use their machines for fucking around for an hour a day. It works, they know how to use it, its got solitare.
These people are not only afraid of fucking something up by installing a new Windows OS on their machine, but they're simply afraid of doing it, period. People fear their machines; and if the elves in the magic box are still willing to work, well, we just dont want to fuck that up.
Then consider the fact that for many people, paying $300 or $200 or $100 or even only $40 to upgrade their operating system is simply more money than they [ can afford | are willing ] to spend on their computer.
On top of that, they probably werent even aware there was support for Win98 in the first place.
i'm just sayin.
s'wut i sed.
No, because redhat is open source he does have an argument.
unofficial redhat patches nr. 1
unofficial redhat patches nr. 2
Now, where are those unofficial windows patches?
All these posts about the "idiots who use windows 98 should be shot" or "they should all switch to linux so they can fix their own bugs" is stupid and it misses the point. People who use windows 98 have old computers. They would buy a nice shiny new computer but they don't have the money or desire. They could find a pirate copy of windows xp but their hardware couldn't handle it. Support for windows 98 has gone on a long time. I'd rather the time be put into longhorn development to make it more stable and secure than time put into patching windows 98.
And these people aren't going to switch to linux. Didn't you see that 1% piece of the pie? I found suse and mandrake to seem a lot slower than windows xp on my p4 1.8 so I don't think on older pentium 2 hardware anyone's going to enjoy the performance of kde over windows 98.
Yeah, a lot of people here spend a lot of their time on computers. They love to hunt out bugs and recompile their kernels. But a lot of people don't and it's very elitest to put them down for doing so. Just because you're gentoo installation runs 8% faster than my windows xp installation, doesn't mean you'll have anymore insight into how computers work for people.
Open source is the answer. If the source is available, you can 1) write your own drivers, or repair problems that appear with the OS after official support ends; 2) pay another person to provide you with support; or 3) a combination of the two. Without the source, you can do none of the above, and must upgrade if you want support. The fact that any given scanner and webcam don't work with the OS is a minor impediment, at best, as is evidenced by the thousands of drivers available for hardware in Linux, for example, that do not have official drivers for Linux. Winmodems, for crying out loud, many of them anyway, have drivers for Linux. This is a direct consequence of open source.
Microsoft addicted those users to Windows 98, and is responsible for their care and feeding. If they don't feel they can do it profitably, then they should release the source for the OS so that others can provide them with support that Microsoft won't. Ford may not officially support repairs on the '65 Mustang anymore, but the open nature of vehicles generally makes a huge, huge after-market economy possible. Hell, even if Microsoft doesn't open the source via any FSF-compatible license, they could easily both make a ton of extra money, and foster a huge after-market profit source for a new sector of the tech economy by making the source available. Whatever way you look at it, it's a mistake, and there are better ways for Microsoft to handle it.
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. (Einstein)
Wasn't the an article posted within the last month? This is a way to force corporate desktops into XP or 2k. That's where the real money is anyway. Mom and Pop pay once for the os, the business world has MIS depts or pays support. Great way to insure migration.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B - D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
Win95 wasn't nearly as bloated as later versions. I was impressed to see it run on a 386 with 4mb of ram with minimal problems and a fast response speed. But I found Win98SE to be quite stable and user friendly, although bloated, and was only forced to upgrade when I wanted to install Visual Studio .NET. It even came with a stripped down version of IIS, Personal Web Server, which they took out of XP Home.
I think they felt they put too much into Win98. Possibly done to encourage people to upgrade to 2000 or XP Pro, a quick trip to Windows Update with a Win98 PC will now impair it so that you can no longer install Personal Web Server from the Windows install CD, requiring you to manually find and install an additional update, or upgrade to a newer version of Windows.
Many independent websites -- such as mine -- keep downloads such as those. http://www.oldos.org
Jason Faulkner
Old Os Administrator
jason@oldos.org
oldos.
The reason they'll be forced to is because if they don't, within a year putting your win98 box on the internet means it bluescreening instantly from viruses. Blaster caused enough havok, what if a script kiddie can creat new blasters? There are tons of win98 boxes still running, not patching them may creat a gigantic hemmorage for the internet itself.
As for redhat, you can upgrade for free. Most of the time, upgrading a linux cluster means you get one machine, test out the kernel and whatnot on it for a week or so, and if it works you update the rest of the cluster. Besides, althogh I am a novice with linux I really don't see any reason why you wouldn't want to update your software unless you are lazy.
And finally, why don't you give the flaming a rest? It does nothing but offend the parent poster and creat a bunch of nitpicky people. We're all in this together remember, it's better if you make peace with people than tear their heads off.
Candy-Coated Knowledge
isn't there a stanza that requires that when microsoft wishes to terminate the liscence you must destroy all copies of said software(windows 98) and delete it off your hard drive? i mean, really who actually reads and follows eula, but isn't this a reason to switch somewhere else? I Thought that microsoft had cancelled all the win98 liscences long ago, mabye about a year ago, but if i was mistaken and they are doing it just now, perhaps that could be right too(i was trying to set my modem/internet account up with local telco sasktel, and they told me that they would not even set an account up for me unless i had something higher than windows 98...and i was running either dos shell on top of MSDOS 6.2 or windows 3.1 ...).
GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
From the Article:
Extended Support: June 30, 2002 - January 16, 2004 (Extended hotfix support ends June 30, 2003. After January 16, 2004, this product will be obsolete and assisted support will no longer be available from Microsoft. Online self-help support will continue to be available until at least June 30, 2006.)
Does "online self-help support" include security fixes? Who knows, there's certainly no useful contextual information.
Oh, wait -- they're not forced to upgrade!
Wait until you ask for an XP activation code after MS has end-of-lifed it.
-------- This space intentionally left blank --------
Fire up VMWare or Bochs, install Windows 98 with everything on it. Download and install all the patches. Copy that VM--you now have a fully (to date) patched master copy. If you're feeling really ambitious, grab all the updates from the Corporate Windows Update site (which naturally requires IE) and burn a CD or two of them.
Call (206) 338-5780 COLLECT for information about a genuine BA, BS, MA, MS, MBA, or Ph.D.
I the unfortunate person in the family that has to fix friends/familys computers, and 90% of them still use 98. How would one go about saving all the win98 updates? Can it bee done if i don't have a machine running 98?
Hey, January 16 is my birthday. Way to go Bill. Thanks for a great pressie.
Does this mean that new peripherals such as printers will not be compatible with Windows 98? I guess those that write printer drivers or suchlike need help from MS, or at least need the option to get help from MS.
everyone would be going- who gives a f***
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
How old?
I happily had XP running on my Dual PII 350@400 (only one PII 350 in some cases).
And that was with FULL visual effects etc.
Okay, well I've got several kids games (for the kids) and one or two older strategy games that just won't work on Win2K - anyone know if the W98 emulation setting on WinXPHome shortcuts works with old, "dirty" (peek and poke, is my guess) code?
drat it, I was so worked up about correcting a piece of misinformation that I introduced a piece of my own:
Full virtual-mode addressing (enabled by the existance of a hardware Memory Management Unit (MMU) ) allows PROTECTED MEMORY, not Preemptive Multitasking (although the two are related.)
What is the difference between a small revolutionary change and a large evolutionary change?
Looking for older versions of IE for your older machines? Check out evolt's archive of old broswers. They even have 16-bit versions of Netscape and IE.
When I install windows 98, and get MSIE 4, I have the upgrade burned to CD, for MSIE 6, and that takes about 10 minutes to install. Trick is, don't set up an internet connection until you do the upgrade, or the upgrade installer will try and phone home. (hundreds of times, if you let it.). I also have Netscape 4.79, and MozillaFirebird, Eudora, and Pegasus, to round out the installation of Windows 98. I always have Linux, usually Redhat, or perhaps SuSE, or Debian, and Mandrake on the box also. I use a menu to select the OS on bootup, and if already in Windows 98, I have Icons on the desktop to run linux.bat/loadlin for the distro I want.
Windows 98 closes, and my Linux boots up.
I can just use the original Windows 98 for that, without any upgrades, but I like to compare the Linux distro's to Windows 98 on the same box. Windows 98 does a fair job, still. I always run a firewall on it to be safe if going online. For Linux, I like Firestarter firewall.
"You're just grabbing at straws trying to find things to bitch about regarding Microsoft. Red Hat drops support WAY sooner than Microsoft ever does (it's been 5 years for Windows 98 -- Redhat discontinued support for Redhat 7.3 at the end of last year and that's way newer than Windows 98.)" There are a lot of posts regarding the fact that Linux companies don't support as long as Microsoft, but the thing is, if I want to upgrade to Redhat 9 I can just download an ISO or, worst case, buy the OS for $40. If, on the other hand, I want to upgrade to Windows XP, it's going to cost me over $150, plus a lot more in hardware upgrades.
Windows 98 has largely been ignored by the virus writers for the past two years. The superworms this year that took down my school districts entire network of w2k machines didnt harm the windows 98 machines at all.
They used MovieOS, of course.
--
the strongest word is still the word "free"
I find it to have the best mix of stability, security (with anti-virus and such) and user friendly-ness of most windows OSes. 2000 was primarily server/coprate, ME failed at a basic level. XP is fair, but with an insane number of worms, you doubt microsoft will ever get another winner like 98 in it's day.
SAILING MISHAP
Odd, why not? A decent free firewall like Agnitum Outpost, a decent free antivirus program like AVG, and Firebird as a browser, and away you go.
I get useful work (haha) done on my Libretto running w95, for heaven's sake. 16 Mb of RAM and a P120 processor. Still works fine for most internet stuff that I do.
according to this article, retiring Win98 is to comply with a court order in regard to java. NS is retiring older products because it isn't worth the hassle to update them to comply with the court order. If you want to blame someone because Win98 is being retired, blame Sun and the US court system, not MS.
Vote for Pedro
Such as? I have been running 2k for 3 years now, never crashed or gave me any nuisances. Please back up your claims or do not say them.
So lets here it from someone on the inside. What kind of party is being planned in the tech support offices now that you can put the beast to bed?
So far no one has mentioned Microsoft's official excuse for terminating Windows 98--the termination was included as part of their settlement of a lawsuit with Sun. This is actually an excellent example of Microsoft's diabolical cleverness. They basically lost the lawsuit, but they used the settlement to kill off 98 so they can make more money on that XP garbage. You call that "punishment"? Hard to believe that Sun's lawyers were dumb enough to fall for that:
Brer Rabbit Microsoft: "Whatever you do, Brer Fox Sun, please don't throw me in that briar patch of dropping Windows 98 support!"
Anyway, my own timing is almost impeccable, which isn't so common. I hope it's a good sign for the new year. My last pure Windows 98 box apparently croaked last night (and all the data had been pulled off a while ago). I still have a couple of cross-booters just in case.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
Just upgrade to Windows ME which is still supported.
Umm, no, wait.. never mind...
I'm a perfectionist but I'm trying to cut back.
Sure, it sucks supporting old software, but when January 16 rolls around, the two Microsoft 98 machines I own will switch to one Microsoft XP machine and one Debian GNU/Linux machine.
For my personal use, I'm not willing to pay for updates when F/OSS software does what I need. The only reason why I'm even upgrading one machine to XP is that I'm not the primary user.
Sigh...
If Microsoft is "forcing" them to upgrade to something more stable and secure, then what is the problem? If the problem is really as big as you say it is, we should all be happy.
As for Red Hat, sure, upgrade for free, if you know what you're doing. I don't know what the percentage is, but I would venture that roughly MOST of the people using computers wouldn't know what to do with Linux -- how to configure it, how to upgrade it, how to get their webcam to work with it. So while everyone is bitching about "forcing" Windows users to upgrade, why aren't they bitching about Linux developers "forcing" users to work with needlessly arcane interface to extend and upgrade, a shitty GUI, and no driver support?
Oh, wait, because "Micro$oft" is "evil" for trying to make money. My bad.
I don't want to make peace with people that are stupid. I'd rather point out their stupidity in a fashion that makes them stop posting, or makes them post more intelligently. I'm sick of making "nice" posts and then getting flamed by a bunch of 14 year olds that think it's their inalienable right to violate other people's rights.
evil adrian
Buy a mac, play games on your mac, and dump your Win98 partition. I did and now I'm Microsoft free! A little KOffice, Keynote, and Safari, and I don't have a stitch of MS anywhere now that I've got Warcraft III for the Mac. A commercial operating system with commercial programs, with a BSD core. Happiness is OS-X and FreeBSD interoperability. Now to purge the world of that nasty little penguin and dolphin database and computing will be a place again.
-- Sean Chittenden
I recently built myself a new box,athlon2600,512 of DDR,video card w/tv out,not bleeding edge but up to date.Better than my last 1 gig athlon box.
Which OS did I use? Win98! "Why use THAT?" everyone asked. Because it boots every time,never a BSOD like the 2000Pro that my wife HAS to use because the company sent her home with it."Security Concerns with 98" they said. BS!!
I never run any AV software,I did a online scan for the first time last week,been running 3 years now with 1 "trojan reported",just cain/abel.Now remember, I don't download/install everything that comes down the pike AND I am behind an old 350Mhz box w/ Suse on it,Slackware before that.
But real point is this: I reading about the spoofing of the address bar recently and the OS/IE combo that I'm running wasn't vulnerable to this attack.What else can I say?
Security through Obscurity!!!
Guess there's no money left in 98 anymore.
Too Bad.
Seriously, who would expect MS to fix them?
For any specific bug, there is absolutely no guarantee that Microsoft will ever fix it -- no matter how serious it may be to your organization.
Microsoft fixes bugs only when their internal calculus (i.e. marketing-benefit minus engineering-cost) exceeds a certain threshhold.
There are plenty of severe bugs in Windows that never have, and never will be fixed.
For example, all MS file systems have a serious design defect that makes it impossible to reliably delete or rename a file without rebooting the machine first. (Zombie processes can hold a file open forever, preventing any deleting or renaming.)
20 years of people pleading with MS to fix that bug has had no effect, yet it's a "showstopper" by any reasonable definition.
When it comes to quality, Microsoft is a huge, faceless, bureaucratic brick wall.
There is only one reasonable strategy: If you want to make sure that bugs get fixed in the OS, then make damn sure you have all the source-code for it.
Windows 2000 won't play my games
For those who can't get old games to work on Windows 2000, you can use the ACT. I was frustrated that I couldn't run games like TIE Fighter and X-Wing on Win2k, but this program seems to emulate 95/98 so they magically work. I don't know if it works with everything, but it's at least a start.
1) I agree there's no reason Microsoft should be obligated to support their OSes forever. Were you guys complaining when they dropped support for WFW3.11? For comparisons sake - as a Powerbook owner, should I be incensed that OS 6 is not maintained by Apple?
2) The comparisons between MS's support lifetime policy and Red Hat's is ludicrous. When Red Hat ends support for a product line, upgrading to the newer comparable version of the product is free. When version 9 support runs out this spring, you can upgrade to Fedora at no cost. Last I looked, MS wasn't donating any variant of XP or 2000.
#DeleteChrome
I still have an old computer running a PII 233MhZ, 4GB hard drive dual-booting on Mandrake Linux and Windows 98. What OS do you think I'll be more inclined to use when M$ drops support on W98? I bought the Mandrake 7.0 distro at Best Buy for twenty bucks, so it included support and I STILL GET support. (I bought it a few years ago when I had dialup and it made no sense to download it). When Windows 98 would have come at the hefty price of $100, and they drop support now? Maybe not all of us want to upgrade to XP, or can't because we have old PCs lying around that need updates. Microsoft isn't REQUIRING the upgrades, but they're doing a damned nice job of forcing them on us.
Domain name registration for $8.79 per year
879domains.co
how about people, like myself, that have hardware that will NOT run anything after Win98? I have a p133 laptop that I use for web, email, etc, that cannot run Win2k
How about it? You're running a 5-year-old operating system on 8-year-old hardware. What do you expect? The pace of software and hardware evolution will not slow down just for you. Sooner or later, you will have to upgrade.
Looks like MS is forcing me to upgrade my hardware too? Not cool.
Not cool? Neither is complaining about lack of support for something produced last century. Suck it up and buy something that'll run a newer operating system. Used laptops are cheap.
People on slashdot whine way too much.
- A.P.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
Darn that Micro$oft. They're ending support for a long-discontinued product that plenty of people are still using!
I'm just glad that General Motors still manufactures genuine GM replacement parts for my '85 Chevy. Oh, wait; no, they don't, even though I still occasionally see people driving '85 Chevies around (especially since I live near a college town).
Now please excuse me while I bring my Model T to my local Ford dealership for a tuneup and a shiny new black paint job.
Seriously, no company in any industry will offer eternal support of discontinued products. And while Windows 98 might not seem that old, the computer industry's product lifecycles do move at a substantially faster rate than most others'.
Sure, I'll be running to archive some patches to CD, and so will a lot of other people who are reading this; I do have friends and relatives still on 98. But I still don't fault Microsoft for choosing not to flush their support and development dollars down the toilet. I'd much rather see the significant resources needed to commercially support an old operating system go towards improving current and future versions of Windows. After all, Windows XP SP2 will be much more useful to me than Windows 98 Third Edition would be.
Microsoft Windows is, fittingly, the official Desktop OS of Olig
Use PortTalk to access ports directly.
http://www.beyondlogic.org/porttalk/porttalk.htm
This is Microsoft's description from their Windows 98 Downloads page:
Download 'em all before January 16, them burn 'em onto a CD. We just don't know how long those updates will be available.To all the idiots that claim that OSS is the one and only way to "keep yourself supported" - consider this: Grandma's not going to learn C and kernel development just to get her webcam working, or to keep her dot matrix printer churning out recipies.
Imagine 2 sets of people - those still running Windows 98, *exclusively*, for day to day work and those who can fully, without-a-doubt understand their favorite OSS and code their way through a new printer driver (or whatever). Now, show me the intersection of those 2 sets. Not a big resultant set is it? Does that set even exist?
I'm unhappy about this because I like my win '98 box because it runs the software I need (Photoshop, games, dreamweaver) and unlike XP, it doesn't have product activation.
I can't really bitch too much at Microsoft, because 5+ years active support is much better than any commercial Linux distro.
If Linux could run Photoshop, Dreamweaver, and Europa Universalis II, this would prompt me to switch.
evanchik.net
Just because you might drive a 57 Chevy does NOT mean Chevrolet should still provide new parts for that car. If you really want to keep that car, then your only choice is to go with aftermarket parts (Linux as an OS for the PC) and/or parts from a junk yard or bought directly from someone else (EBay and computer swap meets)
Of course, it would just be more cost effective to buy a new car that comes backed by a warrenty. A shiny new PC with XP in this case from Dell.
Seriously, why should MS be forced to support there older software for as long as they do. I would say they are being more then fair about it with ample warning ahead of time. I doubt you can say the same thing for Apple. They are notorious for leaving their users high and dry when it comes to support after a few years of Mac ownership.
Life is not for the lazy.
first, get a copy of the xp pro cd. Dont worry if you dont have a cd key.
second, download
this
and run it on a fairly fast computer. Set it for windows xp corporate, find key, and the number of searches to 100. Let it run for an hour or two, and it should find you at least one working cd key. The cd key produced disables the bullshit activation. I've personally have tested this and it works wonders.
For the whiners who will scream piracy.....this has ABSOLUTELY legitimate uses for people who legally own win xp and dont want to have deal with M$ bullshit activation. Its really no different then bypassing css on a dvd you own.
Lawyers, MBA's, RIAA? A jedi fears not these things!
Your grandparents don't have to do it. Another company or group could come along, take RH's source and run with it and do all the work for your grandparents.
this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom. -- Lincoln, Gettysburg Address
This article reminds me of an old joke I just made up:
Why did they call it Windows?
Because it's easily broken.
Why do so many corporations still use Windows 98? It's because a copy of Windows 98 costs $180. Compare that to NT 4 which ran about $349. And NT didn't even support IDE! Your IDE drives showed up as SCSI. And drivers had always been an issue with NT.
Worried about security with Windows 98? Use a domain controller and set a group policy. Add the "MustBeValidated" policy and users can't log in without a being validated by a Windows NT domain.
Sure Windows 98 wasn't all that stable, but it was alot cheaper than NT. And if a workstation crashed or become problematic because of Windows, you reimage it. All the data is saved on the server anyway (at least it should be).
As far as upgrading from Windows 98 as a whole, sure hardware has vastly increased. But does that mean you need to have 2 GHz systems? Let's face it, buying a new computer for just Internet use is overkill anymore. Super fast systems aren't needed for things like web browsing an email. Just because you can go faster, doesn't mean you have to. Windows 98 fits the bill. It supports "legacy" hardware and that might be all some people need.
Windows 98 was simple and served the average user's needs.
Why should they do any such thing? They have no obligation to you to make your life easier. They've already provided an upgraded product, WinXP (or whatever their version of the month is at the moment), and you can just buy that. If you're too cheap to constantly upgrade to their latest-and-greatest, then what good are you as a customer?
You talk about MS as if they have some social obligation to the public. They have none; their only obligation is to make themselves obscenely wealthy, at any cost. If you don't like the way they do this, you're free to seek out alternatives.
You'd think that a convicted monopoly would have to follow slightly different rules than other "normal" businesses though.
There seems to be a lot of discussion in here about upgrading from Windows 98SE to Windows 2000, Windows XP, Linux, etc. etc. without taking into account the simple fact that most people on /. are probably in the IT industry anyway and have free and easy access to MSDN CDs that allow them to install and use the latest Windows OS and Office at home, free of charge.
The arguments on here follow the same arguments I frequently have with colleagues at work and friends at home when we discuss moving to Linux as an option of getting out of the Windows upgrade cycle (I'm the Linux user, the others all use Windows as their main OS) - they're all happy to stay in the Windows upgrade cycle until you remind them that if they didn't have access to MSDN CDs, they would end up parting with several hundred dollars to run the Microsoft software that they currently run - when you remind them of that, Linux (to them) then seems to be something worth considering...
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
You'd think, but here in the US corporate profits are more important to the current administration than anything else. So if you're a big monopoly doing illegal stuff to put others out of business and increase your bottom line, the DOJ will happily look away. Of course, a few hefty campaign contributions don't hurt either.
In the auto industry, any body shop can fix your door if it gets dented, and you don't face problems with patent owners preventing you from getting replacement parts.
With windows 95 (and likely 98 now), Microsoft is removing the availability of critical updates (equivalent factory recalls). They then wield the power via copyright law and DMCA to prevent anyone from making them available to people who run win 98, thus forcing a paid upgrade.
I don't care so much that they won't provide patches to any new exploits that are found after 5 years (providing they don't sue any white hats that fix them). I do care if they pull the patches and updates that already exist. It's like if you buy a car that ends up with a recall for the seat belt, you get it fixed, and ten years later when you bring it in for a new muffler, they put back in the original, defective seat belt.
BTW, if cars had as many defects and ran as poorly as windows, people would go back to riding horses. Luckily for them, microsoft fills their software with distracting bells and whistles.
After seeing Blaster wreak havoc, a lot of techno-Luddites are experiencing a warm sense of schadenfreude.
When I am king, you will be first against the wall.
And it's customers like you that lower the bar for corporate responsibility. Sure, no company is OBLIGATED to do it's customers well, but what I'm asking for is mostly in the name of housekeeping and general goodness. I try very hard to avoid companies that don't act in 'good faith' with their customers, it's a whole big market out there and I'd rather have a kinder, gentler vendor relationship than one where I get bent over and reamed.
Sure, sometimes it's unavoidable, like MS, there's no way my employer can ween some of the departments off their WinDell boxen, but Apple treats us more like 'family' than Dell, and it's very important to me that I have that sort of relationship with my vendors.
"Sometimes, I think Trent just needs a cup of hot chocolate and a blankie." -Tori Amos on Nine Inch Nails
When you have driver troubles, BSOD and spyware, in most cases a full reinstall of Windows fixes it. Theres little else you can do with a trashed Windows98 install since it doesnt really give processes their own closed space like Windows2000 and any other REAL OS.
So would you want to pay Microsoft for solutions they dont provide?
As an operating system after some 7 years (it came out first in 97), its pretty mature and most major fixable bugs have been fixed, and its unlikely in the next 3 years people will NEED a new version of IE or libraries. If they do anyway, any support for WindowsME will also likely work on Windows98, like most drivers made for WinME.
I believe Windows 2000 is mature enough now for people to switch away from Windows98, after Service Pack 4. I also support XP as a usable OS now, after Service Pack 2, but for most cases where stability is required, I go with Windows2000. A cheap ECS computer with a Duron 1.4GHz can easily run Windows 2000/XP so I wouldnt consider hardware to be the problem for switching.
For older hardware, this is good news. People will finally HAVE to use Linux and the likes. For cheaper hardware and poorer countries, Microsoft is actually shooting themselves in the foot.
"Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky
You can cut down win98 a heck of a lot:
:)
I can't see a way to do this quite so well with WinNT/2k/XP without buying an Xbox
It's useful because you can double-boot with your linux and keep Win98 cut down just for games or whatever.
A blog I run for the wealth
Finally, Windows 98SE upgraded and patched users can rest easy. Since Microsoft won't support it anymore, it will no longer be the target of malicious hackers. Another plus is an opportunity for a company to offer third party support.