MS extends support for older win versions

[Negative]

Microsoft Corp. on Monday capitulated to customer pressure and announced that it would now continue extended support for Windows 98, Windows 98 Second Edition and for Windows Millennium Edition (ME) until June 30, 2006.

Microsoft recently said that support for Windows 98 and 98 SE would be phased out this Friday—January 16, while support for Windows Me was due to stop on December 31, 2004.

Full article here.

[MrLinus]

Ok. That's just silly.

These OSes are pretty useless in a lot of ways. MS has got to start limiting their legacy support sooner if they want people to use their more "stable" and more "secure" OSes.

[rcgreen]

Like it or not, backward compatibility is why Microsoft has so
much market share. I don't wanna squeeze XP onto my PIII 800
and slow it down. I have become good at tweaking it to a finely tuned
racing machine

[nihil]

Hmmm

These OSes are pretty useless in a lot of ways. MS has got to start limiting their legacy support sooner if they want people to use their more "stable" and more "secure" OSes

Excuse me! MsM but Microsoft have never, ever produced such a thing in their entire corporate lives.

There are laws over here in Europe that say things have to be supported 10 years........OK, only hardware at the moment, but Micro$oft have got the general message Just like the printer manufacturers who tried to impose illegal restrictions on trade, by preventing re-filling cartridges................Hey if I buy a Winchester, does that mean I have to use Winchester ammo, when Ely, Lapua, Raufoss and several others are by far superior?

They (M$) were on the £$$%^& you joe consumer trip? and have been slapped across the legs with a wet kipper for it? "His Holiness" Bill Gates, or his minions think it would be nice if they only had to support XP?..............fine, but their greed led them to the consumer market, so the NT family ran alongside the 9x one...............they now have to repay?

It amuses me that they don't have the testicles to have a go at the commercial market, and have basically backed down because they have suddenly discovered that this stuff is being quite heavily used by the commercial market

There is always Linux? which I understand the County in which Gates has his mansion have adopted as their OS?

Running scared is how I read it

Cheers

BTW: I have no problems with Windows (well no more than anyone else ) just the M$ business model

[gold eagle]

It might be useful to point out that the official reason given was to help certain countries whose economies are often referred to as third world, get phone support and patches until they can come aboard a more recent os version.