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Creaky Operating Systems Form IT Foundations

Posted by Zonk on from the *shudder* dept.

maotx writes "The Washington Post has an article on how aging operating systems are still widely used. The article states that "The research firm IDC estimates that of the roughly 514 million paid-for copies of Windows on desktops and laptops worldwide at the end of 2004, almost 21 percent were the aging Win 95, 98 and Millennium Edition releases." That equates to around 108 million copies being used."

13 of 478 comments (clear)

  1. Maybe a wake up for the OS Companies? by PepeGSay · · Score: 4, Interesting

    This sounds like a message for the users, but maybe it is a wakeup for the OS makers. If that many people still see their OS as viable and are willing to use it... then should the OS companies really be holding a gun to their head in what can only be an attempt to wring more money from them?

    1. Re:Maybe a wake up for the OS Companies? by typhoonius · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I was thinking about this earlier. It's a common karma-grab to post something about how software today is bloated and worthless and how all the interim upgrades have just been shoved down our throats. But in defense of the software giants, modern operating systems really are quite a bit better than the ones from ten years ago.

      Windows, for instance, moved its low-level internals to a much more clean and stable codebase. Longhorn has the potential to do the same for the high-level components (and maybe even provide some fascimile of security).

      Compared to its "Classic" releases, Mac OS has arguably regressed in terms of speed and UI consistency, but it's rock-solid stable now (and it's getting faster, and it's constantly getting useful new features such as Expose and Spotlight).

      And on the Unix side, we didn't even have KDE or GNOME ten years ago.

      And across the board, we have niceties such as USB, wi-fi, and journaling file systems that we take for granted now.

      If an old system still works, then, by all means, keep using it, but personally, I'm glad I don't have to reboot my computer every day anymore.

  2. Not everyone is a geek by FunWithHeadlines · · Score: 4, Interesting
    And there is a sizable portion of the computer-user population that views their computer as a simple tool for a specific job. Grandma wants her email, and so to her it's an email receiver and not much else. Any ol' OS will do the job for her, so whatever she has is what she's used to is what she'll keep. Forever. It's not as if machines break down all that often. And if all you use the machine for is one simple job, it doesn't seem slow to the user. It's good enough.

    It's like the toaster to them. Who buys a new toaster or blender until the old one breaks? Same with computers for a surprising number of people. I've seen it with my relatives, I've seen it with friends. I've been appalled by what some of them use, but talk to them about upgrading and it's "No thanks, it works just fine."

  3. I used NT 4.0 for a long time because by Anonymous+Cowdog · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I used NT 4.0 forever because it just had such a workmanlike user interface.

    Actually, ObOnTopic, the most interesting thing to me about this topic is how easily Microsoft killed NT 4.0 by simply witholding support for USB. NT4 actually was, ah, very workable, if not workmanlike, except for that crucial missing USB connectivity in the later years.

  4. I still use win 98s by Turn-X+Alphonse · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I still use Wndows 98 because I don't want to pay for an OS I won't use for more then a few months. I'm switching to Ubuntu Linux soon and if my modem wasn't a winmodem I'd already be using it.

    --
    I like muppets.
  5. you want believe what some government agencies ... by porky_pig_jr · · Score: 3, Interesting

    are using.

    I used to work for the company that wrote a software for IBM mainframes. We had to deal with the different agencies. each used something REALLY old, I had to maintain virtual machine environment, so we can bring up some of those older OS versions if necessary for debugging. I remember one funny case when someone called from the agency I won't give a name (but you can figure it out), the guy said he had the software crashed, but he DID NOT WANT to give any details of what was wrong, neither to tell which operating system he was using. We had to deal with his boss and his boss' boss to get the information we needed to debug the problem.

    Well, there were two reasons why they've used OS'es that old. First, if it works, don't upgrade it. It ain't broken so don't fix it. Second, upgrade may require bigger hardware, and you have to justify the cost of upgrade, so why bother?

    For those familiar with the history of IBM mainframe-based OS'es, we had to maintain OS/VS1 (or something like that). blah.

  6. So what about Linux? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Look at that - a hundred million+ machines running Win9x. This should be exactly where Linux shines, revamping old machines with new desktop life. Except, of course, that combos of KDE/GNOME + OpenOffice.org + Mozilla are even weightier than their Windows equivalents, thus destroying an upgrade path.

    It's very frustrating. Yeah, you can use Fluxbox and Dillo and stuff like that, but it's hardly an enterprise desktop, is it?

    Much as I love Linux, it's painful to see massive Microsoftian bloat in the major desktops and apps, all the time removing an incentive to upgrade. Or, in cases like this, eliminating an upgrade path altogether!

    If Linux was slim, fast and snappy, it'd be an absolutely perfect solution. But while it offers barely any perfomance advantages over XP/MSO, it's not so attractive.

    These 100 million machines could and should be running Linux, if we'd paid attention to elegant code and performance. But instead we're seeing ever more newcomers turned off by the weight and sluggish performance. It's distressing.

  7. Qemu, vmware, bochs as archival software. by dameron · · Score: 4, Interesting

    About six months ago I had to access some information on an aging (as in 13 year old) PICK server. The multiport board was fried years ago and I couldn't raise a terminal on the serial port. After a few hours of trying to capture the data I had the person who needed access to it copy it to a pad of paper from the screen.

    Not good, to say the least, but the server in question hadn't been fired up in years.

    Since then I've been putting disk images of our currently running database software on a Qemu image along with a copy of the qemu source and binaries on a DVD (and in the future the media might change, but you get the idea).

    For emergency situations I can put a dvd into any available machine and have a "live" version of our DB running in minutes. I'd have loved it if I could've booted that PICK server in an emulator.

    -dameron

  8. Re:If it's not broken.. by techno-vampire · · Score: 3, Interesting

    One of the less obvious advantages of not using either Win2k or XP is that many of the more recent worms are designed specifically with them in mind. Even if one enters your system, it probably can't run, and the vulnerabilities it's looking for aren't there. Win98 is more mature than either, and has less openings remaining to exploit.

    --
    Good, inexpensive web hosting
  9. Re:There are many good reasons to run an "expired" by trans_err · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Upgrading the jag machines won't slow them down-- Panther will actually dramtically speed them up. I did similiar upgrades in an education setting and the difference was quite palpable. Apple releases (for the most part) only speed up (esp. since X was first announced). As far as the ancient macs, let 'em be. You're right in that case if it's broke don't fix it, but if you're looking to upgrade functionality while mantianing speed-- Linux may be an option.

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    transmission_err

  10. Re:Insurance company. by TykeClone · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Fedline is the old (and still used) system used by banks to communicate with the Fed. It's used to originate and receive wires, ACH, MICR Files (check information), and other stuff. Security was "job 1" for this software and it was apparently developed sometime in the 1980's.

    The system uses an ISA hardware encryption board and runs on DOS.

    In the late 90's, the Fed was working on developing a Fedline system for Windows (NT at the time), but was unable to deliver it.

    They are now working on a web based solution (not sure about how much more secure that will be than an NT based solution...) which, if adequately secure, will be much nicer to work with than the old Fedline solution.

    The one nice thing about Fedline is that it gives you a place to put old, out of service machines. My most current Fedline machine is a Pentium-90 with a bunch of RAM - horribly over performing for the task, but it met the specs required to run Fedline (ISA slot, DOS compatible) when the last one died.

    --
    A fine is a tax you pay for doing wrong and a tax is a fine you pay for doing all right.
  11. Re:Single app, single task - no need for newer OS by kisielk · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The problem with using legacy systems like that, is what happens when they need to be updated? Or the hardware fails? It's possible the software will no longer run on modern systems..

    Even working hardware should be refreshed every few years just to keep up with the times and decrease the possibility of losing the whole operation because of outdated hardware and software. Sure it's not as cheap as keeping the old junk, but I think ultimately it's a better practice.

    You can then donate the old hardware and write it off for tax purposes... not bad at all...

  12. Re:Single app, single task - no need for newer OS by TheLink · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Uh.

    Once the standard hardware stops support their DOS stuff they can get/buy the cheapest hardware, and run their app using emulation/virtualization. VMware or something similar - see MAME32 for evidence of old hardware being emulated.

    Could even be better = snapshots etc.

    AFAIK you can also run many DOS apps on one of those DOS emulators on Linux. Not games. But I'm sure most business apps are OK.

    I dare say many plain data entry stuff is fine with DOS.

    "Refreshed to keep with the times".

    LOL. This IT. Not the fashion industry. As long has they have backups and don't do crazy stuff - like improper power and cooling, they'll be fine.

    Old hardware isn't a problem in itself. Crappy faulty hardware is. Whilst some old stuff is crap, lots of new stuff is crap too. In fact, if you have 4 year old hardware that still works within specs, it's likely to work for as long as brand new hardware. Most new stuff fails soon after the warranty ;) - so what's left are the "golden oldies".

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