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Microsoft Extends Win98/SE Support
An anonymous reader writes "ZDNet reports that Microsoft is extending technical support for Windows 98 till 30 June 2006, despite being days away from switching support to a CD. It seems Windows 98 will also have all necessary security updates till the new expiry date." The article states that Microsoft will have "...During that time paid over-the-phone support will be available, and "critical" security issues will be reviewed and "appropriate steps" taken."
This is good news for the people that provide support for friends and familys that have not gone to XP, don't have to worry about new holes that will not be patched I still think some one that does not know computers should really go MAC OS X.
Corporate usage of this OS is still widespread, mainly due to inertia more than anything else. Microsoft is desperately trying to get companies to switch, but getting Officer Level peeps to understand the inherent benefits is proving to be... difficult...
I find that all the time I've used Windows (since 3.1), I've never had to call tech support, and most users would be fine without ever calling. Most users will just stay with the older, outdated systems then upgrade, so Microsoft can get even more money from the few people that do call in with Windows 98 issues as last I checked they still made you pay by the minute. It doesn't require as much effort to patch an issue in 98, and the amount of money from tech support that you could rake in from keeping it supported could be a very considerable amount.
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Seriously. Ignoring all other concerns, if they extend the release date of their next OS a couple of years, they should extend the same treatment to their last supported. If anything, this is the most solid admission (in public terms) I've seen of the admission of a very delayed Longhorn release date.
Other than that, no reason.
Overrated / Underrated : Moderation
This may have been a nice thing to do, but it's a bad business move IMHO. Companies still using Windows 98 have been shown that if they're stubborn enough, they'll get their way. Not only did Microsoft lose out on the Windows 2000/XP licenses they would've bought, they have to continue to pay to patch up the old workhorse.
A similar thing happened with NT 4, although Microsoft didn't give in. I think they'll have a hell of a time when it comes time to EOL Windows 2000.
Continued security updates for ... 8 years? You will be lucky get 8 months from Fedora. Somebody please point me to a Linux distribution that offers that duration of support at any price. Wow.
This is an extremely good thing for people who use Microsoft products, both in terms of what it will do now, and in terms of what it seems to hint at regarding how Microsoft will support its discontinued products.
This means it's a horrible thing for the rest of us, because it will slow the rate at which people are becoming disillusioned and ultimately fed up with Microsoft. I had always thought that Microsoft's stringent policy of bullying and abandoning anyone who won't go along with their periodic forced upgrades is the best gift MS's competitors could have possibly recieved; now the chance to take advantage of that gift is to a certain extent gone.
After all, it's hard to give people reasons to switch away from something they're used to, and hard to convince people to switch away from something they're used to. It's just so much easier when Microsoft creates the reasons and does the convincing for us. If they stopped doing that, we'd have to win on the actual merits of our products, and we don't want that, do we? This is a black day indeed.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
If a new vulnerability were to surface, and MS refuses to provide an update for the millions of Win98 users, and this causes a lot of trouble for them, it just looks bad for MS. Fair or not, given the way they are portrayed, saying, "hey, we told you, we aren't supporting that anymore" isn't going to stick. It's going to be another case of how Microsoft is responsible for another security problem.
Perhaps they're extending it to 2k6 because of Longhorn? I mean, it makes sense. Just before they released XP they stopped support of 95. They probably want to wait for Longhorn before they drop support of 98. I can't see any other reason they'd support an OS for so long. (Let's ignore the fact that perhaps they should support all of their OS's regardless. Though that'd be some task.)
Who doesn't like free music?
I think Microsoft has forgotten over the last few years that people still keep their old computers, and businesses don't like upgrading their operating systems every 18 months. Any reasonably large systems platform, be it Windows or Linux, requires huge amounts of effort to correctly integrate applications. And once you get it right, changing things is a very tough sell.
I've been a Windows admin for quite a while, and I've worked in some very complex environments. In some cases, we're talking about over 50 "supported" applications that the IT department has to ensure work with each other and the OS. The other end of the spectrum, of course, is small business and home users, who don't want to change until they absolutely have to.
The thing that has had me most upset with MS in the last 4 years or so (besides all the security holes and worms...) has been their assumption that everyone will instantly upgrade to the next version of the OS as soon as it comes out. Lots of places still use NT 4.0, both on the client and server side. Try getting support for it now...Microsoft couldn't be bothered. I know you can't extend support indefinitely, but Microsoft should at least acknowledge that there are thousands of copies of Win9x and WinNT still in production.
I don't think it has anything to do with them not promoting XP. I think MS has simply realized that many people who use Win98 simply don't care enough or don't have a need to move to XP. Once they made that realization, it couldn't have taken long for them to see the money they could make in an extra two years of support.
Slightly stereotypical observation: People that use older OS's don't mind having to or think they have to pay support fees, because they don't want to change what already works for them.
I can't believe we didn't hear this news sooner, Win98 is by far the largest userbase of all the MS systems, especially at home/school. Looks like they finally realised that they cant force things onto people... yet
TheHustler
http://www.elmarko.org/ - Useless bilge
http://www.asylum-games.co.uk/ - Co-Founder
2) The system runs fairly stable (not quite as stable as XP, but I crash maybe 1x per week).
Note how Windows has changed our way of looking at computer systems & technology in general - something that only breaks down about once a week is considered fairly stable. Makes me shiver...
-- Power corrupts, but PowerPoint corrupts absolutely.
Someone, quick, find out how this makes Microsoft... bad and Red Hat... good....?!
Someone quick, find out who has a copy of the Win98 source code so we fix it ourselves or contract with with someone that does. Oh wait.. One vendor and no source. Damn, locked in again.
Bad boys rape our young girls but Violet gives willingly.
Because there is nothing that can be done in anything beyond Windwoes 98 that can't be done in Windwoes 98 or Linux.
Why upgrade to newer more buggy Sw with more bloated and less productive features just to put up with more bugs?
Windows 98SE is stable enough to justify it's use. Windows XP has nothing at all to justify it's expense, M$ invasion of privacy, and putting up with more bugs that inevitably exist with new bloated feature laden and bug laden SW.
-- Mean People Suck
MS may "support" their customers in the sense that they still provide security updates, but they sure don't give free tech support.
Oh but they do. Kind of. The KB and MSDN articles are available for free. There are also many MVPs (and many more non-MVPs who just want to help people out) who respond to questions in the microsoft.public.* newsgroup hierarchy. Technically that's not MS support but many MS employees, some more knowledgeable than any support hotline rep could ever be, also frequent these forums.
If the Linux "community" counts as support then so does the Microsoft "community". You don't necessarily need open source to take advantage of a large community of users sharing their knowledge.
Windows 95 I'd agree with you. But not really with any of the other two.
Win2K still works fine. Apart from a few issues, there's very little in XP over Win2K. And the improvements which are there aren't really worth the hefty price-tag. And that's just for home use.
Corporately, why should companies have to spend stacks of money on replacing software that not only does it's job, but would require newer hardware to support the change.
Hell, where I work I'd dearly love to be able to switch them out of Win98. But the money isn't there. Plus for everything which shifting from Win9X fixes, switching to NT-based throws up another problem.
And that's not even talking about bugs. More in the way that Windows NT/2K/XP works. Not to mention the fact that I dread to think how I'd get it to work with NetWare. (Again, not my choice)
But the simple fact is that older versions still work. And they work on hardware that newer versions simply wouldn't run on. And when you add software and hardware costs, there's very often very little justification to upgrade.
Tiggs
"120 chars should be enough for everyone..."
The problem for Microsoft is that Average Joe home users, by and large, do not upgrade their OS.
If you think back a few years to when the public were really starting to get turned on to the Internet - this would be the time of Win98 or its SE sequel.
It was also at this time that PCs started to reach the speed and capacity that gave most people what they would want for ever more - Web, Email, Word etc.
Quite a few of my friends and family bought computers for the first time around this period and not a single one of them is even thinking about upgrading. It's just not something that comes into their heads. They switch their computers on, check email, write a letter, book a ticket etc. and then switch them off again.
Ergo, the home user market for Win98/SE is huge and will probably remain so for a long time to come.
In what sense? If someone purchased a machine with win98 installed, is it suddenly going to stop working? Will the screen go blank, the printer stop?
Microsoft has an obligation to issue security patches for these older systems, as these correct faults in the package as supplied years ago. If the systems were shipped with sloppy code and buffer overruns they were not fully fit for the intended use.
Speak for yourself. We bought plenty of copies of Red Hat Linux 9 with support contracts. Little did we know support meant 12 months and then time to upgrade again. I wish I would've known that before I deployed a new RH Linux 9 box into production 2 months ago.
Typical scenario:
*ring ring*
Me: Hello?
Grandparent: My Microsoft's gone funny again.
Me: (Grits teeth, wondering, what the hell...) OK, what exactly is the problem?
Grandparent: I've tried every option / checkbox / dropdown / thingumy I could find, still not fixed.
Me: (I suppose I *could* tell them to call MS support, but even if they are monopolistic scum, I couldn't possibly subject them to my grandparents... ;) Ok, drag the window with your mouse...
Grandparent: Mouse?!
Me: (sigh)
Stuck down a hole! In the middle of the night! With an owl!
Either way Microsoft has a problem.
If they don't extend the patch cutoff date on what is perhaps
still the most commonly used OS out there, they are sort of liable for
damages incurred by the PC's. ( and piss off a LOT of future upgrade
customers ) Perhaps not legally liable, but morally..
if they DO patch, then people will expect support forever on what
is outdated software, which isn't realistic, and wont upgrade to something
more current and 'supported'..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
they have a machine that cannot be upgraded to run Windows 2000 or XP. If they want to run 2000 or XP, they need to buy a brand new machine.
Ironically I still know people running Windows 3.X or Windows 95 or even DOS. They cannot afford to upgrade to a newer machine or newer software. They could; however, run Linux or *BSD Unix on their systems if they knew how. Not as fast as modern machines, but enough to limp along.
New machines can cost like $500USD to $600USD, and then they have to buy the modern software to run on them, as they cannot use the older software as the EULA usually does not allow them to switch it from one machine to another. Plus it may not run on the newer machine or use all the features.
An alternative is to head to Wal-Mart or some other place that sells a $400USD Lindows machine and use OpenOffice.Org etc. Then they need to be retrained for the new OS and software. Then use OSS software for everything else. This of course would require the assistance of someone like a Slashdotter who is Linux savvy and can train them.
Another alternative is to buy a used machine with 2000 or XP on it, or 2000/XP ready. Still the softare will need to be upgraded. The hardware costs will be less than the new machine.
Yet another alternative is if they have an ATX case, to just get a new ATX motherboard, CPU, Memory, and ATX power supply. Get an all-in-one motherboard with built in Video, Audio, LAN, Modem, etc. Like an NForce2 chipset motherboard. Still need to buy 2000/XP and the software upgrades. The hardware cost will be lower than a new machine, and may be lower than an used machine.
No matter what the option, the 98 user may have to buy new hardware to migrate to 2000/XP.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
For the same reason that people live in 100-year-old houses, use 20-year-old toasters, and ten-year-old refrigerators.
Because they continue to do the job that they were originally purchased for. Yes, they are not without problems, but when the problems are minor (or are just plain annoying) it is difficult for your average consumer to justify spending $500+ on a new computer.. not to mention the inconvenience of having to move everything from the old machine to the new one.
Heck, I'll even admit that I have an old Win98SE box sitting around here. Never got around to updating it to Win2k. It gets about 10 hours a month of use, so it hasn't been a high priority.
This isn't good for those of us that have been pushing customers away from Win98. Our points have been that other options are far more stable and easier to manage and that '98 is dead. Now MS backpeddles and we'll be stuck being the bad guys having to either support Win98 for another couple of years or creating a new support tier and charging a premium to support it since it doens't fit in any of our current support models (management/packaging/etc is all different).
What are the odds that this is related to the gain in popularity of Linux and OpenOffice.org as well as a revival of the Mac in the form of OS X???
I'm almost certain that M$ would rather lose a little cash than see users start jumping ship. What M$ is starting to realize is that when your customers are forced to upgrade, they can still choose your competitor's product.
The first proof that what you describe likely won't happen is that it *didn't* when MS axed Win95.
Second, While Bill has nightmares of Linux on servers, it's barely on his radar as a desktop option for your typical "productivity suite" user. Any corporations you mention who actually care about the cessation of '98 support would probably have found some copies of Win2k, which they should have done long ago anyway, win98 sucks so badly.
Bottom line is, I use linux too, but I don't harbor illusions of any exodus to linux when the masses "see the light" after support ends for a particular windows product.
And anyway, I dare say that anyone still crazy/incompetent to run a business on a win98 box isn't exactly patching it all that much. As such, I imagine the number of people this proposed obselescence will impact is few.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
I have 98 on my second pc so I believe this relates pretty well:
My second car is a 94 Ford Tarus, built in 93, and the company has put out an incompatible upgrade every year since the model's release.
But I can still get oem parts, support and even factory recall notices on this car.
Ford got a lump sum from me 10 years ago, no support contract, and yet they mailed me a notice about a free "patch" for a "bug" 8 years after the model was released. I took this car to the local dealer, and they fixed a potential problem completely free. My particular car did not have the defective part, but they replaced a perfectly good part just in case.
Yes they tried to sell me on a new car, but they still make model specific parts for this car and older models.
If M$ had actually written decent code, encouraging bug-free and secure design (ie firing anyone responsible for a buffer overflow bug), Joe sixpack-type people would have no reason to upgrade to 2k or XP.
So why do SuSE/Mandrake/RedHat/et. al. keep coming out with new versions of their products, then? Oh, silly me, I forgot -- you want to have it both ways. MS bringing out new versions = proof of terrible code. Linux vendors doing exactly the same thing = proof they listen to the customer.
So I should replace everything in my house if it's pre-1998? Using your logic, that appears to be the case.
If something works, why replace it? I have relatives who's most CPU intensive application is Solitaire and Email. I can't justify telling them they need to spend a minimum of $300 (board, cpu, memory) plus whatever an upgrade for XP cost, just so they can do the same level of computer usage.
I don't agree to MS extending the support though. At some point, the developer has to cut support (within a well documented support plan) and let the end users continue to use it at their own risk.
By supporting 98, Microsoft is, in essence, holding back part of the market. When old systems are still being used, new technology must support these systems.
The market can and will continue to move forward. Just think of how many web pages out there check for browser compatibility and return a message indicating an incompatible browser? A user who receives enough of these messages may be motivated then to catch up, and maybe at that point, I'll be dumping my AMD XP2100 system for a reasonably priced AMD XP10000 (or a future Sun Workstation), and the MS Win98 users can buy my old one on EBay.
If it ain't broke...
And I always thought that we had agreed long ago that it is in fact severely broken.
I am confused now....
I feel so sig.
Say what you want about Red Hat, but Microsoft is bad news.
You're right in that there can be big benefits to eliminating win 9x from the IT picture (whether it be with NT/2k/xp or a Linux distro). However, none of the benefits you mention are significant AT ALL in the SME space. And by benefits, I mean DIRECT $$ SAVINGS. If it does the job Win 9x will stay there until it is forced out (ie. old machines that break down are replaced and new ones added--and 9x licences are no longer sold) or manager types are scared into upgrading (y2k and all--that's how a surprising amount of DOS/Win 3.x was cleared out).
Better automated distribution of patches? BIG FRIGGIN DEAL if you have only a dozen or less PCs to support. Better security? As long as you have a good firewall and anti-virus, etc it is of little to no concern if everyone in the company sees each other every day and knows where everyone lives. Not saying there is NO reason to think about patching and security--just in those situations you've got a lot of extra convincing to do. Especially if you tell mom-and-pop that their computers will run much better with an upgrade, but you'll need to spend $5000 or more to do it. Oh yeah, and that neat little VB4 app your nephew wrote in 1996 that you've come to depend upon will never run quite right again...
Even in a very large organization there is a point where there is no convincing argument to upgrade. My employer, a VERY large, global corporation just completed migration to win2k about a year ago (erasing the last of the win9x) that's lamost THREE YEARS after the product was released!
Win2k has all the security and administative benefits of XP and took a LONG time to fully deploy. A four year support cycle would be ludicrous as it would keep the IT dept busy almost perpetually upgrading and MS is starting to see that.
That is why MS is running into roadblocks with its licinsing schemes--it compels companies to upgrade too frequently. For a large corporation or government, they count on a three year MINIMUM life cycle. ROI better be even quicker than that too.
My employer is significantly larger than 10k users and also has volume license arrangements wirh MS. It also costs us no different for CALs regardless of windows version, however that cost is miniscule compared to the effort and money it takes to upgrade on that scale. thus, Win2k is expected to be present in our company until about 2006--about the time Server 2003 is completely established (It doesn't look like XP will EVER be formally rolled out as an upgrade--it seems to be just floating in as the sales people get new machines or machines with a WinXP sticker on them are sent in for re-imaging, and our techie types must stick with 2k as the software we work with hasn't been proven to our satisfaction to operate safely with XP).
Longhorn won't see the light of day here until near the end of the DECADE provided MS doesn't fall behind in its release schedule...
The fact is, that is it is not of merchantable quality, or fit for the intended purpose, it has to be repaired, replaced (with what? XP will not run on most hardware that runs 98), or the purchase price refunded.
In the UK, a court case established that software is in fact goods. If someone has stitched them up with threats of a class action, which would result in them replacing or refunding every single copy of 98, all I can say is well done.
If it happened as a result of legal pressure somewhere else, again well done. The sad thing is that we may never know why, I sense the outcome of some out of court settlement with someone, somewhere, lying behind this.
Polite request to Bill: Can I please have my money back for the copy of ME which I purchased to try to get a bug fix for 98, but which in fact never worked properly? Or, do I have to take you to the UK Small Claims Court?
My experience has been that with Microsoft products in many applications, the OS puts the demands on the hardware configuration more than the applications themselves. So if you're using Win98 and it does what you need it to do, there is no motivation for upgrading. When I cannot get a Windows machine to perform adequately and its hardware isn't up to spec to run the latest, heavily-bloated version of Windows, that's the day the machine becomes a Unix box and has new life as a backup, firewall, syslogd, mail, DNS, web, ftp server or other workstation.
I suspect I'm not alone. Microsoft's desire to try to force users to upgrade will only backfire on them in this respect. The more useless older hardware becomes to their newer OS versions, the larger the market will be for the Unix and open-source community.