Windows 98 Product Support

[cheesegoduk]

Hello

According to Microsoft product life cycle, Windows 98 like windows 95 was last year will no longer be supported on www.windowsupdate.com and also, programs will no longer have to be designed to work with it. http://www.microsoft.com/windows/lifecycleconsumer.asp
I can not see the point in this however because according to a recent Google.com finding, they discovered that over 50% of there users use windows 98
Does anybody know if microsoft intend to carry out this as planed, or do they intend to continue the support?

Thanks for any help reguarding this

[zigar]

you've heard of shotgun weddings?.....this is a shotgun upgrade...and they'll do it...

force 40% of users to upgrade to xp...and the rest to become a security risk to all of us due to an unpatched (errr...unpatchable) OS...

thanks m$...yer swell

[KorpDeath]

This is more like a shotgun labotomy......if you ask me.

M$!!

[cheesegoduk]

Yeap, I knew they would use this as an excuse to get us to us windows XP, For all the good thing that microsoft have done(yes there is some)There is still more bad things like this which are designed to make them money.
I could use windows ME, but a lot of people on here advised against it, and after a friend tried it at the weekend I tend to agree.

[slarty]

The thing to remember is that Windows 3.11 is still supported and that is actually over 8 years old. Windows 95 is no longer supported because Win98 is sufficiently similar that they think they can persuade any corporate win95 users to upgrade to that (not that there were that many anyway)

Win3.11 is a widely used operating system (surprisingly!) - as it is actually much more flexible than win95 (Used in embedded systems and restricted desktops like banks)

[Guus]

What's the life-cycle of an avarage computer? Three, four years? The life-span of Windows 98 has been longer than that. I can appreciate Microsoft wanting to stop throwing money at supporting an old, obsolete OS that was designed for (now) old hardware in the first place - and put that money to 'good' use elsewere: developing .NET, supporting OS'ses like 2000 and XP (which I personally prefer over 98 anyway) and developing brand new OS'ses. Remember, stop giving support doesn't mean all the machines will stop functioning alltogether.

[Terr]

"WtF! J00 suxorz! 98 r0x0rZ j00 #(%*(@#!!!"

But on a more serious note, I think the reason 98 has lived as long as it has is because A) It runs most windows programs. B) Great Legacy DOS support, because it runs over DOS. C) It is not infested with microsoft's marketing department and doesn't try to sell you things every five minutes.

I dunno, that's my shooting-my-mouth-off-without-thinking response.

[cheesegoduk]

Yeah I agree with you Terr, unlike Windows XP, you don't keep getting adverts for microsoft things every 30 seconds(I'l go mad next time the Join .net thing comes up on my laptop)
The problem I have with this product support thing is that this pc is only about 2 years old with windows 98. But then again I suppose this PC could do with a systems rebuild(The graphics card is pants and the whole system is starting to slow down), problem is it is my dad's and he won't really want to spend a lot of Money on sorting it out (eg buying Windows XP)
Hopefully for the time being Microsoft will continue to support it, like guus said above, At least until we can get Xp on this machine

[redgore]

there will always be support for old OS' one way or another. beOS still has support (Through bebits) Just because the producer doesnt support it doesnt mean their hardcore users will stop using and helping others use what are better OS' 2K rocks and i should really upgrade my version of 98 to it.

[darkes]

Originally posted here by Terr
"WtF! J00 suxorz! 98 r0x0rZ j00 #(%*(@#!!!"

But on a more serious note, I think the reason 98 has lived as long as it has is because A) It runs most windows programs. B) Great Legacy DOS support, because it runs over DOS. C) It is not infested with microsoft's marketing department and doesn't try to sell you things every five minutes.

I dunno, that's my shooting-my-mouth-off-without-thinking response.

Agree completely - my PC at home runs Win98 SE, and has done so for several years.
It's very stable (after I did a clean re-instal), and runs my old DOS games/applications perfectly, even though some of them are at least 10 years old! All games & serious applications I have purchased this year run with no problems.
IMHO it's pretty secure for net access with a decent firewall & AV scanner, and is more secure than WindowsXP (home edition) in this respect.
btw, it's not just MS who use this approach - IBM have been trying it on for at least 20 years with their various OS'.
MS (or anyone else) will continue to support an OS that is used by a significant number of people - after all does MS want everyone to switch to *nix?
Nothing against *nix (I use it amongst other things in a work environment), but it is not as easy to use for your average user.