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."

Comments

Sadly Enough

[j0keralpha]

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...

Re:Sadly Enough

[GeckoFood]

Corporate usage of this OS is still widespread...

Not just in the office, but the home user market still has a huge installed base for Win98. To completely drop Win98 would further anger a large number of customers. I am no fan of Microsoft, but I would have to say that keeping support alive for another couple of years if a wise choice if they don't want to further upset their customers.

Some will leave Microsoft anyway, and that's unavoidable. However, this way they have time to evaluate a little better what transition to make. Microsoft will of course hope that they will all go for XP or whatever is next.

Re:Sadly Enough

[zerocool^]

Well I think MS realizes that if they start a push towards upgrades there is the possibility that the fees involved might push the coporates to free alternatives... Maybe by pushing for upgrades only with Office and backend items they can leave 98 on the desktops and save themselves from companies going with a mass conversion to Linux?

:%s/MS/RedHat/g

How is it that the devil can decide to extend the end-of-life of a 6 year old operating system for another 2 years, and yet we blast them for not thinking of it earlier and point out how many would have been burned by this abandonment, yet Our Neighborhood Hero decides to end-of-life an operating system that's slightly more than a year old, which many people just adopted, and which they didn't even have to write, just published, and we forgive them their tresspasses and blame it on the economy or whatever?

I'd say that the end of life of redhat 7.3 and 9 is going to hit me much harder than the end of life of Windows98. My customers, too.

But, whatever, go ahead and tell me how extending the life of an essentially dead OS just barely saved them in the zero hour from a mass exodus to linux, even though the historically most-popular linux distro wants to charge people almost twice the amount - per year - that windows costs in a one time charge (that includes, appearantly, 6 years of updates). Oh, and that verson of linux only comes with... wait for it... zero hours of tech support, and.... quarterly updates and... in downloadable format, with no physical media!

Tell them what they've won, Bob!
Well, Johnny, today's contestants will receive a lifetime supply of "Microsoft is not stupid", in addition to a chance to appear on the lightning round "Companies that can do no good versus companies that can do no evil". Runners up will receive Rice-A-Roni, the san francisco treat.

~Will

Re:Sadly Enough

[Trurl's Machine]

Not just in the office, but the home user market still has a huge installed base for Win98. To completely drop Win98 would further anger a large number of customers. I am no fan of Microsoft, but I would have to say that keeping support alive for another couple of years if a wise choice if they don't want to further upset their customers.

On the other hand, people who bought your product once in last century and do not plan to buy another in next two years... are not exactly the kind of customer base you proudly display on shareholders meeting. Looks like Microsoft has reached a dead-end. They don't know how to persuade their user base to upgrade - but they cannot make them do it by enforcing it. From the Microsoft's point of view, people running Win 98 are almost as evil as people running Linux - one way or another, they don't buy Win XP.

Re:Almost 10 years of a crappy OS

[mhesseltine]

• Because if it isn't broken, it doesn't need fixed.
• Because it saves money by not spending it on unneccesary hardware/software upgrades.
• Because I don't want to give Microsoft any more money than I have to.
• Because I'm working on transitioning to Linux desktops, but still have a couple of sticking points.

Other than that, no reason.

This is bad for Microsoft

[Synesthesiatic]

The holdouts are really squeezing a lot out of Microsoft

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.

That is a long, long period of support

[ChrisWong]

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.

Re:Well I still use Win98

[locknloll]

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...