Should Windows 98/ME still be supported by hardware and software manufacturers?

[rcolbert]

I think that 98 and, if necessary, ME should be supported because people paid money for the OSes that might not be able to afford/want a newer OS

I disagree with that line of reasoning. Paying money for an OS doesn't imply that you are entitled to ongoing support in perpetuity for it. There is an implicit understanding with any computer-related purchase that every product has a lifecycle, and eventually each product will reach it's end-of-life.

Also, people paid money to Microsoft for the OS, not to 3rd parties who produce the vast majority of drivers and software that are required to provide the support that is being sought. 3rd party vendors have every right to use market forces to decide whether or not to support 98/ME.

 

[Super Mario]

The bottom line is, Windows 98/ME are such piece of junk operating systems to begin with that they should have never been made!! That in of itself is enough reason to not support them. If Windows 98/ME were actually based on Windows NT, I'd be all for continued support of them. It would have been outstanding had almost all games and programs written the last three years were native Windows NT based, and didn't provide any support for piece of JUNK Windows 9X/ME.

Is it really true that almost all programs that are compatible with Windows 98/ME/2000/XP are really written as native Windows 9X/ME programs, but are just tested on Windows 2000/XP because Windows 2000/XP contain backwards compatibility for running Windows 9X programs? SOmene told me that's how two completely different operating systems are able to run the same applications because applications are just written to run on Windows 98, and it will work on both platforms because Windows XP and 2000 contain backwards compatibility for Windows 98 programs. Another words, if that is true, almost all programs written today aren't native versions for the OS on most modern computers!! That really would slow down the progress of the PC industry.

Or am I missing something. Is that not really true? I mean Windows 2000/XP are completely different from Windows 98/ME, but programs can easily be made comptaible with them both using the same files. However, Linux and Windows 2000/XP are completely different operating systems, but no program can be made to run natively on both platforms using the same files?

If all programs that are comptible with Windows 98/ME/2000/XP are really just written to run on Windows 98/ME based OS and the developers rely on the fact that Windows 2000/XP have backwards comptaibility for running Windows 9X applications, that is a really sad thing to here, and a big reason why support for Windows 9X/ME should have been dicthed 3 years ago.

What's the reality of this situation? Can programs be written that will run on both Windows 98/ME as well as Windows 2000/XP using the same files and be considered a native Windows 2000/XP application that runs better on 2000/XP than it would on 98/ME?

 

[SJConsultant]

The bottom line is, Windows 98/ME are such piece of junk operating systems to begin with that they should have never been made!! That in of itself is enough reason to not support them. If Windows 98/ME were actually based on Windows NT, I'd be all for continued support of them. It would have been outstanding had almost all games and programs written the last three years were native Windows NT based, and didn't provide any support for piece of JUNK Windows 9X/ME.

Have you even worked with Windows NT 3.5 or NT 4.0? If you did then you would know that even the NT based OSs were not all that great to begin with and had their fair share of problems.

NT 4 and below did not provide for plug and play like 98,98SE, and ME. You were required to manually configure each and every piece of hardware in order for it to work. Even then there were glitches with drivers that would cause BSOD's in a heartbeat.

NT4 applications did not run on 9X platforms and vice versa, if you did get one to run, you were very lucky.

Sounds like you have minimal experience with dealing with the older operating systems like NT4 based on your heavy handed opinoins and complete lack of regard for the timeline in which those operating systems were developed and put to market.

 

[DamienThorn]

I disagree with that line of reasoning. Paying money for an OS doesn't imply that you are entitled to ongoing support in perpetuity for it. There is an implicit understanding with any computer-related purchase that every product has a lifecycle, and eventually each product will reach it's end-of-life.

Also, people paid money to Microsoft for the OS, not to 3rd parties who produce the vast majority of drivers and software that are required to provide the support that is being sought. 3rd party vendors have every right to use market forces to decide whether or not to support 98/ME.

Yes, but in purchasing their OS they likely weren't expecting to have to spend another couple hundred dollars so that the new parts work! Microsoft plays a big role in leveraging the current driver releases; to get certified they should be required to work on all OSes. While the some western countries have citizens that can a) get ahold of and b) afford to upgrade their OS every couple of years, that's an incredibly priveleged position. If a HW manufacturer wants to remain concerned for their total market share, they should be considering the state of markets that are still developing and build brand loyalty. "Market Forces" should not be a term that is simply applied to 1st world buying tendencies.

 

[Super Mario]

Have you even worked with Windows NT 3.5 or NT 4.0? If you did then you would know that even the NT based OSs were not all that great to begin with and had their fair share of problems.

NT 4 and below did not provide for plug and play like 98,98SE, and ME. You were required to manually configure each and every piece of hardware in order for it to work. Even then there were glitches with drivers that would cause BSOD's in a heartbeat.

NT4 applications did not run on 9X platforms and vice versa, if you did get one to run, you were very lucky.

Sounds like you have minimal experience with dealing with the older operating systems like NT4 based on your heavy handed opinoins and complete lack of regard for the timeline in which those operating systems were developed and put to market.

Actually, ever since Windows NT 3.51, Windows NT has been pretty reliavle. Maybe it was harder to configure, but still much more reliable than POS Windows 9X. Have you ever worked with OS/2 WARP. The code base for OS/2 WARP is what should have been used to develope next generation operating systems 10 years ago. The problem was that Windows NT was Microsoft's own real 32-bit OS built from grounds up and wasn't able to be designed with enough compatibility for DOS or ease of use (like plug and play, and etc...). OS/2 on the other hand was IBM's implementation of a real 32-bit OS and was ready because it had great compatibility with DOS games and didn't need such a robust system to run like Windows NT needed. Since IBM owned the code for OS/2, Microsoft couldn't use it and thus they had to come up with their own real 32-bit OS Windows NT, which wasn't ready for home users yet. SInce Microsoft wanted to dominate the home OS desktop market, they had to build 32-bit opertaing systems from DOS code which was by far inferior to OS/2 which had no real DOS code. That is why the Windows 95/98/ME family of operating systems had given WIndows such a bad name for being such a crumby OS. If only Microsoft didn't have a monopoly in the OS desktop market, or they owned the rights to the OS/2 code base, we would have never had to deal with such awful piece of junk operating systems because we could have had a verson of Windows 10 years ago based on the OS/2 code base (which had no real DOS and was a real 32-bit OS with robust capabilities). Thayt is why I find Windws 95/98/ME unnaccetable operating systems to this day, and even years ago. OS/2 should have been the dominating OS for home computing ever since 10 years ago. But unfortunately because of Microsoft's anti-competetive practices, they dominated the market for the home desktop OS, even though their OS was by far inferior to what IBM had to offer, at least from a technical standpoint.

 

[Super Mario]

Yes, but in purchasing their OS they likely weren't expecting to have to spend another couple hundred dollars so that the new parts work! Microsoft plays a big role in leveraging the current driver releases; to get certified they should be required to work on all OSes. While the some western countries have citizens that can a) get ahold of and b) afford to upgrade their OS every couple of years, that's an incredibly priveleged position. If a HW manufacturer wants to remain concerned for their total market share, they should be considering the state of markets that are still developing and build brand loyalty. "Market Forces" should not be a term that is simply applied to 1st world buying tendencies.

So, do you think someone who purchased Windows 95 nearly 10 years ago doesn't expect to have to buy a new OS so new parts will work? Why any different for piece of junk Windows 98/ME. The bottom line is, people should have to spend money or find some way to get a good quality OS in their system if they are buying new hardware, just so we can phase out those piece of junk Windows 98/ME operating systems from almost the whole computing world. Maybe drivers for modern hardware should still support Windows 98/ME, but only give the devices enough functionality just to run legacy programs that won't work Windows 2000/XP. There is NO WAY modern games and multimedia applications should support such awful piece of junk Windows 98/ME operating systems.

Also, I think Microsoft should just offer everyone who owns a licensed copy of Windows 98/ME a free upgrade to Windows 2000 or XP. Microsoft and the whole IT industry would save money if support was ditched all together for Windows 98/ME and everyone was offered a free upgrade to Windows 2000 or XP. If that were the case, no excuse to say I won't upgrade from Windows 98/ME because it costs too much money.

 

[DamienThorn]

So, do you think someone who purchased Windows 95 nearly 10 years ago doesn't expect to have to buy a new OS so new parts will work? Why any different for piece of junk Windows 98/ME. The bottom line is, people should have to spend money or find some way to get a good quality OS in their system if they are buying new hardware, just so we can phase out those piece of junk Windows 98/ME operating systems from almost the whole computing world. Maybe drivers for modern hardware should still support Windows 98/ME, but only give the devices enough functionality just to run legacy programs that won't work Windows 2000/XP. There is NO WAY modern games and multimedia applications should support such awful piece of junk Windows 98/ME operating systems.

Also, I think Microsoft should just offer everyone who owns a licensed copy of Windows 98/ME a free upgrade to Windows 2000 or XP. Microsoft and the whole IT industry would save money if support was ditched all together for Windows 98/ME and everyone was offered a free upgrade to Windows 2000 or XP. If that were the case, no excuse to say I won't upgrade from Windows 98/ME because it costs too much money.

I'm not thinking that the latest and greatest games should run on an older OS - if you can afford gaming, your a very privileged social class, and you SHOULD upgrade. I'm thinking of situations where government administrations can't afford to spend thousands of dollars licencing XP or 2000, and so use older OSes to run their older programs, with the upgrade required to do things like statistical analysis, or because old parts flat out break down.

If MS wants to offer free upgrade packages, that AREN'T crippled, then I'm all for it. That said, I have my doubts that that's going to happen any time in the near future.

 

[ccotenj]

if you think nt4 was/is stable, you haven't used it much... from my 'sperience, nt crashed far more often than 98 ever did for me...

again, 98 isn't "junk"... is it everything YOU think it should be? obviously not... did it do everything (and then some) that most people needed it to do... most certainly it did...

gaming isn't the only thing computers are made for, y'know...

 

[Super Mario]

if you think nt4 was/is stable, you haven't used it much... from my 'sperience, nt crashed far more often than 98 ever did for me...

again, 98 isn't "junk"... is it everything YOU think it should be? obviously not... did it do everything (and then some) that most people needed it to do... most certainly it did...

gaming isn't the only thing computers are made for, y'know...

That's your experience. I have used NT a bit before and it was pretty stable. In fact, the Web browsing machines at the place I work used to have Windows 98 on them, and they always had a lot of problems. They recently swicthed them to Windows NT 4.0 SP6a, and they are very stable and don't have problems anymore. If you have had more stability problems with NT 4 than 98, you probably just had bad luck with NT 4 and good luck with 98. Heck, there are people who say they thought Windows 98 is more stable than Windows XP. I mean eveyr system is different and everyone has a different experience. But from a general perspective, anything Windows NT based is by far more stable than anything Windows 9X based! Windows NT 4.0 is much more stable than Windows 98 as long as you have stable drivers and hardware. Perhaps you didn't have the most stable drivers for NT4. Windows 98 will crash just because of an application, where as in Windows NT4/2000/XP, an application won't bring the system down. The bottom line is, any 32-bit pre-emptive multitasking OS that doesn't use a true memory management scheme is an utter PIECE OF JUNK!! The mere thought I have that if only Microsoft didn't dominate the OS desktop market, we could have been using a far superior OS the last 10 years on home computers that would be comptible with all our hardware, apps, and games. That would have been OS/2 WARP. For all those years, everyone in the IT field always talked about how awful Windows was compared to other operating systems like MAC OS, OS/2, UNIX/Linux. And it was always because of Windows 95/98/ME, the family of Windows that gave Windows such a bad name for being an insecure crash prone OS no matter how stable your drivers and hardware was. As far as I am concerned, those reasons in of themselves are enough for me to consider Windows 98/ME a PIECE OF JUNK!!!

 

[Party2go9820]

What about "Non-Applications". I've got several sets of customers who are using everything from Win 96 to XP as a dumb terminal. All the PC gets used for is running telnet into a unix server. All the "work" is done at the server. Should these people be forced to upgrade their systems?

I've said yes specificly from a security standpoint. There are holes in Win 9x that won't ever be patched and thats not acceptable.

 

[Super Mario]

What about "Non-Applications". I've got several sets of customers who are using everything from Win 96 to XP as a dumb terminal. All the PC gets used for is running telnet into a unix server. All the "work" is done at the server. Should these people be forced to upgrade their systems?

I've said yes specificly from a security standpoint. There are holes in Win 9x that won't ever be patched and thats not acceptable.

In that case no, they shouldn't be forced to upgrade. But for almost all applications produced now a days, I think support for Windows 98/ME should be ditched.

 

[Ranma_Sao]

There is a lot of mininformation on this thread, so I'll try to clear it up as best I know.

First, IBM didn't want OS/2 to compete with their mainframe market, go read your history books, and PC Servers definatly compete with mainframes now adays. (For the avg user, or company, they don't compete in the have to be fast as possible market for those who are about to jump on me)

SJC:
For your serial problem, that is interesting, since it shouldn't matter, since the baudrate is all that should matter, unless I'm missing something obvious. But virtualization is great for solving a lot of those old programs won't work on newer O/S because they do something stupid that NT won't allow. Send me a message with more detail if you can, I am interested.

For The Small Biz Owner:
I understand buying a NEW O/S is expensive and 98 does everything you want it to, until you lose data, and that is the problem with 9x operating systems, the architecure of 9x isn't designed to keep data intact. FAT is a terrible, terrible file system, but it was easy to design. I have several small biz owners in the family, and they are all running XP, cause I made them. I was tired of diagnosing 9x screwups, and them losing data. Now I probably have one support call a year, and it's from them doing something I told them not to, like disabling the firewall to play a game, and wonder why they're getting messenger popups. Yes, it sucks, Yes it isn't cheap, but if your data is important to you, and I don't know a small biz owner who it isn't, the cost/benefit ratio is there.

Why 9x/NT programs work:
Is cause NT puts a lot of effort into making them work. NT API's are proper unicode API sets, 9x is ASCII and a lot of the API sets are antiquated.=( Look for appcompat on google and you'll find out more then you ever wanted to, on why 9x apps work on NT so well. And the reason Microsoft spends a lot of money on appcompat is simple, the user had the app work on 9x fine, upgrades to NT and now the application no longer works. Who do you blame? Microsoft of the vendor of the application. Most people blame Microsoft.

 

[Super Mario]

So is it true that all programs written that function on Windows 98/ME as well as Windows 2000/XP really are Windows 9X apps that just work so well on Windows 2000/XP as long as they are written properly?

If that is the case, then how come some programs like Doom 3 that support only Windows 2000/XP, have been tested by some to actually work on Windows 98? Do WIndows 2000/XP generally have the same API calls as Windows 9X/ME, but much advanced and built ontop of a completely different architecture?

 

[Ranma_Sao]

So is it true that all programs written that function on Windows 98/ME as well as Windows 2000/XP really are Windows 9X apps that just work so well on Windows 2000/XP as long as they are written properly?

If that is the case, then how come some programs like Doom 3 that support only Windows 2000/XP, have been tested by some to actually work on Windows 98? Do WIndows 2000/XP generally have the same API calls as Windows 9X/ME, but much advanced and built ontop of a completely different architecture?

This is not rocket science my friend. Goto msdn.microsoft.com and look up API sets. MessageBox is a Unicode only API, however, using UNICAL.dll it will work on 9x. This dll exports certain unicode functions to work on 9x.

There a couple of reason stuff written for 9x won't work on NT:
1. Requires a driver, or system access. NT doesn't allow you direct access to hardware
2. Assumes System privs, will work on NT, just requires you to be logged in as an admin
3. Does some wanky wanky stuff, like calling into structs at certain offsets where in NT they were moved. This is an application being stupid. Again look up Appcompat on google.

(Note: I am not an appcompat wizard, I work on setup.)

Reason stuff won't work on 9x when written for NT:
1. Statically links to API's that aren't available on 9x, or doesn't have a fallback if the API isn't there.
2. Uses unicode functions that aren't exported
3. Does some wanky wanky stuff like looking into offsets, etc...

msdn,microsoft.com will tell you all you need to know to write a 9x vs NT application.

 

[mikeblas]

MessageBox is a Unicode only API, however, using UNICAL.dll it will work on 9x. This dll exports certain unicode functions to work on 9x.

In Windows 95? I don't remember that being the case at all. I think it's the same as Windows XP, where there's -A and -W exports:

C:\WINDOWS\system32>dumpbin -exports user32.dll | find "MessageBox"
        477  1DC 0004050B MessageBoxA
        478  1DD 0004057D MessageBoxExA
        479  1DE 00040559 MessageBoxExW
        480  1DF 0002AEF1 MessageBoxIndirectA
        481  1E0 000560B7 MessageBoxIndirectW
        482  1E1 00055FE8 MessageBoxTimeoutA
        483  1E2 00055F65 MessageBoxTimeoutW
        484  1E3 00056116 MessageBoxW
        661  294 0002B14E SoftModalMessageBox

 

[Ranma_Sao]

Your right I'm sorry. MessageBoxA is for 9x. MessageBoxW is for NT, however on 9x (I don't know what versions UNICALS is on) MessageBoxW will work.

 

[mikeblas]

Yeah; it's there just so a unicode-only app can post a message box that says L"I'm unicode only!"

 

[HvyMtl]

perhaps if Microsoft would tell you IN ADVANCE of purchase that as of Y date you will have X years support and make it obvious for all users (including the "Joe Sixpacks" of the world who buy the lowest end stuff) as well as application/hardware makers - then this would not be an issue.
However, their choice of not letting their customer know until after the decision is made and well after purchase leads to the present problems discussed in this thread.

 

[Patman]

I say it depends on the circumstances. One of my clients is a glass manufacturer who uses software that only runs in a 9x environment.

Program capability wizard dosen't work?

 

[Gorankar]

Program capability wizard dosen't work?

In his case I don't know.. Bet he tried.... In my experiance program compatibility wizard works, PROPERLY=(without serious issue or erroneous results), about 1 time in 3 on software written b4 1999.. It seems to work better on anything written after.. Of course shortly after that, sofware devs were writing code with 2k in mind..

 

[rcolbert]

perhaps if Microsoft would tell you IN ADVANCE of purchase that as of Y date you will have X years support and make it obvious for all users (including the "Joe Sixpacks" of the world who buy the lowest end stuff) as well as application/hardware makers - then this would not be an issue.
However, their choice of not letting their customer know until after the decision is made and well after purchase leads to the present problems discussed in this thread.

If I thought Microsoft dumped support too quickly I might be inclined to agree. The fact that we're in the year 2005 and we're talking about an OS that's almost 7 years old (or around 25 years old depending upon your point of view) has me inclined to think that support has been available for longer than any reasonable person should have expected it in the first place. No one should have made their decision to purchase Windows 98 in a vacuum. It was well known at that moment in time that the DOS based flavor of Windows was on its last legs, and that the NT based OS was soon going to become the only Windows flavor available. Honestly, ME should have been renamed Windows 98FE as in "Final Edition."

Considering the cost of the OS and the length of time involved, this seems a lot like people who bought a $79 VCR three years ago complaining that VHS tapes don't seem to have much of a future in the home entertainment industry.

Get with the program people.

 

[ccotenj]

For The Small Biz Owner:
I understand buying a NEW O/S is expensive and 98 does everything you want it to, until you lose data, and that is the problem with 9x operating systems, the architecure of 9x isn't designed to keep data intact. FAT is a terrible, terrible file system, but it was easy to design. I have several small biz owners in the family, and they are all running XP, cause I made them. I was tired of diagnosing 9x screwups, and them losing data. Now I probably have one support call a year, and it's from them doing something I told them not to, like disabling the firewall to play a game, and wonder why they're getting messenger popups. Yes, it sucks, Yes it isn't cheap, but if your data is important to you, and I don't know a small biz owner who it isn't, the cost/benefit ratio is there.

y'know, i HEAR a lot about "lost data"...

but i used 98 since it's inception... and never once experienced this phenomenon... not on my office machines nor my home machines... and i have processed the proverbial boatload of data through them...

dunno... maybe i'm just lucky...

 

[Wiseguy2001]

In a perfect world every body would have the recent hardware and software and upto date patches. But in a perfect world security would not be a concern.

Their are cases were companies have invested a great deal of money in specialist software which is working fine on old pc's. Why fix something that is not broken?

What does annoy me is when somebody has trouble installing something simple like a new modem. Phones the ISP's technical support for help and being told in order to get it working they need to install windows XP (from using 2000). I've seen this a few times. Last case - the client was on the phone with them for nearly 45mins and being told stuff like they have too many USB controllers and worse still "the only solution left is to get upgrade to winXP". Cut to the chase, the modem driver wasn’t installed and I got it working within 2mins. Client nearly fell over "when i said "there you go, sorted". Tech support should have known better after dealing with the same issues every day. No excuse!

 

[delusion_2005]

Yeah why not?... some people still uses window 98 and ME once in a while, but i don't think ME is necessay, cause its not a very stable OS.

 

[Komataguri]

Yeah why not?... some people still uses window 98 and ME once in a while, but i don't think ME is necessay, cause its not a very stable OS.

Precisely.

Theres alot of people out there who still use Win98.


My mother for example, Its all she knows, and its all her comp will run, and she refuses to upgrade beyond a 400Mhz celeron.

 

[Ranma_Sao]

y'know, i HEAR a lot about "lost data"...

but i used 98 since it's inception... and never once experienced this phenomenon... not on my office machines nor my home machines... and i have processed the proverbial boatload of data through them...

dunno... maybe i'm just lucky...

Hey man, its your machine. However, 9x is not a stable operating period. There is no such concept as protected memory, user and kernel division space, user isolation etc... Yeah it might be good enough, but I wouldn't trust my relatives important biz information to good enough.

 

[GreNME]

Do you think there are still millions of systems running Windows 3.1 or Windows 95?

I don't think it, I know it. Did you know Eckerd Drugs runs many store registers on an OS/2 install? Manufacturers still run DOS for some headless interfaces. It's not about Microsoft (or IBM) supporting the OS (IBM doesn't really support OS/2, that portion was sold, if I recall correctly). It's about the companies who make this critical software not working on making newer versions that must be run on modern OSes. If anything, the push is going toward embedded kernels.

That said, I voted heck no. Everyone else doesn't need to suffer for that.

 

[Ranma_Sao]

There are millions of systems running embedded Dos. Why? Cause it's easy, and if you don't do a lot, DOS works. Fortunatly, a lot of these old dos embedded systems are being faded out for WinCE, or XP embedded systems, since maintaining an xp embedded system is 10 times easier.

 

[rcolbert]

Embedded systems are usually tied to very specific hardware configurations. I don't think that much of the argument here applies to embedded systems because their lifecycle is very different from a normal PC. IMO the companies that provide embedded systems have a different level of accountability to determine the lifecycle of a given OS and hardware platform than your average Joe who buys an off-the-shelf PC for home use.

In any case, embedded systems are a different animal altogether, and I think we should agree that we're talking about regular home and business PC's for the sake of this discussion.

 

[HvyMtl]

Quote:
Originally Posted by HvyMtl
perhaps if Microsoft would tell you IN ADVANCE of purchase that as of Y date you will have X years support and make it obvious for all users (including the "Joe Sixpacks" of the world who buy the lowest end stuff) as well as application/hardware makers - then this would not be an issue.
However, their choice of not letting their customer know until after the decision is made and well after purchase leads to the present problems discussed in this thread.
Originally posted by rcolbert
If I thought Microsoft dumped support too quickly I might be inclined to agree. The fact that we're in the year 2005 and we're talking about an OS that's almost 7 years old (or around 25 years old depending upon your point of view) has me inclined to think that support has been available for longer than any reasonable person should have expected it in the first place. No one should have made their decision to purchase Windows 98 in a vacuum. It was well known at that moment in time that the DOS based flavor of Windows was on its last legs, and that the NT based OS was soon going to become the only Windows flavor available. Honestly, ME should have been renamed Windows 98FE as in "Final Edition."
So, 98SE is 7 years old, and was sold on oem equipment until until ME popped up (year 2000ish) Both 98SE/ME were still available off the shelf long after that -Microsoft stopped selling the retail edition June 30, 2002 (98se)/Dec 31, 2003 (Me) - and allowed system builders licenses 9-12 months after that. In effect, that is a product that has been sold within the last year. (don't believe me click on Windows life cycle policy link pages back.)
Does this change your opinion on support? Microsoft should not be allowed to have their cake and eat it too. Here they were making $$$ off of a soon to be non-supported OS and
leaving those who for what ever reason, purchased this OS (lack of system that could support XP?) late in its life span - in the lurch. Worse, they did not advise many of these purchasers that support was going away until after purchase. ( A mere sticker on the cd could have fixed all this...) The point is this - say for example longhorn comes out - when will XP's support end? No one outside of Microsoft could tell you - they can guess- but they do not know when the end is near. So, what happens if you buy XP and then 3 months later are told you support will end 6 months from now - would you be happy?
As for ME - it was not even supposed to come out - we were supposed to go directly from 98SE to NT based OSes. It was a mini release/stop gap.
Considering the cost of the OS and the length of time involved, this seems a lot like people who bought a $79 VCR three years ago complaining that VHS tapes don't seem to have much of a future in the home entertainment industry.
Apples to Oranges comparo there - sure the VCR will die out soon, but the warranties/support on newly purchased VCR's are a known quantity. So, when is the end date for XP support? Give me the exact date. You cannot, because Microsoft either has not decided, or knows and is just not telling. Would you rather know when your support for a product would end, at the time of purchase, or be at Microsoft's mercy?

 

[rcolbert]

You are entitled to your opinion. However the facts you present don't change the fact that the writing has been on the wall for a long time now. Since the release of Windows 2000 until present, we've had more than 5 years of Microsoft providing two support paths. The overlap and cross-platform functionality between the DOS and NT kernel versions of Windows IMO has been outstanding. The DOS based products that have been available on store shelves for this long have not been profit centers for Microsoft, they have been liabilities. Microsoft simply kept those products available as a courtesy for the die-hard holdouts who couldn't put forth the effort to get with the program. Holding Microsoft accountable for ongoing support based on the availability of the OS on store shelves doesn't take into account any sales data. IMO they've done more than enough for those people who quite frankly are simply too stubborn to change. Give me one good reason why someone should be entitled to future improvements of the OS? There is all sorts of talk about agreements and contracts, but you do realize that the OS license agreement indicates that the OS is sold as-is, right?

 

[S1nF1xx]

Quote:
Originally Posted by HvyMtl
perhaps if Microsoft would tell you IN ADVANCE of purchase that as of Y date you will have X years support and make it obvious for all users (including the "Joe Sixpacks" of the world who buy the lowest end stuff) as well as application/hardware makers - then this would not be an issue.
However, their choice of not letting their customer know until after the decision is made and well after purchase leads to the present problems discussed in this thread.
Originally posted by rcolbert
If I thought Microsoft dumped support too quickly I might be inclined to agree. The fact that we're in the year 2005 and we're talking about an OS that's almost 7 years old (or around 25 years old depending upon your point of view) has me inclined to think that support has been available for longer than any reasonable person should have expected it in the first place. No one should have made their decision to purchase Windows 98 in a vacuum. It was well known at that moment in time that the DOS based flavor of Windows was on its last legs, and that the NT based OS was soon going to become the only Windows flavor available. Honestly, ME should have been renamed Windows 98FE as in "Final Edition."
So, 98SE is 7 years old, and was sold on oem equipment until until ME popped up (year 2000ish) Both 98SE/ME were still available off the shelf long after that -Microsoft stopped selling the retail edition June 30, 2002 (98se)/Dec 31, 2003 (Me) - and allowed system builders licenses 9-12 months after that. In effect, that is a product that has been sold within the last year. (don't believe me click on Windows life cycle policy link pages back.)
Does this change your opinion on support? Microsoft should not be allowed to have their cake and eat it too. Here they were making $$$ off of a soon to be non-supported OS and
leaving those who for what ever reason, purchased this OS (lack of system that could support XP?) late in its life span - in the lurch. Worse, they did not advise many of these purchasers that support was going away until after purchase. ( A mere sticker on the cd could have fixed all this...) The point is this - say for example longhorn comes out - when will XP's support end? No one outside of Microsoft could tell you - they can guess- but they do not know when the end is near. So, what happens if you buy XP and then 3 months later are told you support will end 6 months from now - would you be happy?
As for ME - it was not even supposed to come out - we were supposed to go directly from 98SE to NT based OSes. It was a mini release/stop gap.
Considering the cost of the OS and the length of time involved, this seems a lot like people who bought a $79 VCR three years ago complaining that VHS tapes don't seem to have much of a future in the home entertainment industry.
Apples to Oranges comparo there - sure the VCR will die out soon, but the warranties/support on newly purchased VCR's are a known quantity. So, when is the end date for XP support? Give me the exact date. You cannot, because Microsoft either has not decided, or knows and is just not telling. Would you rather know when your support for a product would end, at the time of purchase, or be at Microsoft's mercy?

The forum has a Quote option for a reason. I couldn't even read that whole post. It's horrible man.

MS has extended support for its old and dead OS's even after they said they wouldn't support them anymore. 98 is dead. As people said, it isn't stable, it is horribly unreliable, and just a plain nussance for anyone in the IT field to deal with. And because MS says they'll support it, and people keep releasing new drivers for it, that means we techs have to keep servicing the crap. If no one writes anything for it, and the damned thing just dies, we can tell our clients to bite the bullet because our hands are tied. That's how we got out of supporting dot matrix printers.

 

[slamgoku]

In a way I would agree with you on that, However, what I don't get is why would any modern programs or hardware that are somewhat resource intensive support those junky operating systems in Windows 98/ME. Support for Windows 98/ME should be minimal at most now a days. In fact, 2 years ago, Windows 98/ME support should have been ditched all together when it comes to hardware and software that is resource intensive. To this day, I don't understand why most newly released high end 3-D games still support those piece of junk operating systems. High end 3-D games produced 2 years ago should have ditched support for Windows 98/ME.

for those operating systems to simply be no longer supported and to be completely obsolete. you want them to ditch the support than YOU go out buy these people with win xp incapable machines and YOU go out and buy those whose machinese are good enough for WIN XP a copy of WINXP.

 

[seanmcd]

Do you think Windows 98/ME should still be supported by hardware and software manufacturers? Why or why not?

My opinion, I think Windows 98/ME should be dicthed all together if possible because they are such piece of junk operating systems. When it comes to Microsoft operating systems, it ought to be a Windows 2000/XP/2003 only computing world by now. Support for Windows 98/ME should at least be ditched for any software and hardware that requires a 1GHz or faster CPU. Maybe they should still be supported for hardware and software that doesn't require a decent PC (1GHz or faster CPU) to run.

HELL F'inG NO. It's time for people to move on. Although all 4,000 PC's we support at work are still Windows 2000, when I have to work on a Windows 9x machine (we still have a handfull) I cringe with disgust. The OS is outdated, not secure, slow, and buggy. Period. Good ridance... (sp?)

 

[GreNME]

You are entitled to your opinion. However the facts you present don't change the fact that the writing has been on the wall for a long time now. Since the release of Windows 2000 until present, we've had more than 5 years of Microsoft providing two support paths. The overlap and cross-platform functionality between the DOS and NT kernel versions of Windows IMO has been outstanding. The DOS based products that have been available on store shelves for this long have not been profit centers for Microsoft, they have been liabilities. Microsoft simply kept those products available as a courtesy for the die-hard holdouts who couldn't put forth the effort to get with the program. Holding Microsoft accountable for ongoing support based on the availability of the OS on store shelves doesn't take into account any sales data. IMO they've done more than enough for those people who quite frankly are simply too stubborn to change. Give me one good reason why someone should be entitled to future improvements of the OS? There is all sorts of talk about agreements and contracts, but you do realize that the OS license agreement indicates that the OS is sold as-is, right?

[Fonzie} Exactamundo [/Fonzie]

There are millions of systems running embedded Dos. Why? Cause it's easy, and if you don't do a lot, DOS works. Fortunatly, a lot of these old dos embedded systems are being faded out for WinCE, or XP embedded systems, since maintaining an xp embedded system is 10 times easier.

That depends on the development level of the software makers who are writing things for businesses. However...

In any case, embedded systems are a different animal altogether, and I think we should agree that we're talking about regular home and business PC's for the sake of this discussion.

This has merit. After all, I don't use my Linksys router as a personal computer, even though it has a similar operating system as my Linux server (at least on a nuts-n-bolts level).

Though I do believe that the example I gave of the OS/2 machines still running many cash registers holds weight in this case. There is a visual interface and keyboard I/O (though on a much lower level than, say, the machine I'm typing this on). It does handle multiple different types of processes (though less than, say, the machine I'm typing this on). "Depending on the situation" really does come into play, but because typical end use is what is more prevalent, that is why I fall flatly in the "hell no" camp.

 

[FunkStar]

I havent read many of the previous posts but i get the jist of them.

Your calling it ME/98 where they should be seperate. 98SE is still an awesome OS, pretty much as good as XP where as ME is the gayest piece of terrible shit 'i pulled it from my arse' programming that wanker gates ever decided it was worth ripping people off for.

I reckon hardware/sofware manufacturers should stop win ME but leave 98, thats just me. It would be even better if they decided to get off their arses and nateively support Linux aswell but wankers will be wankers.

 

[Super Mario]

I havent read many of the previous posts but i get the jist of them.

Your calling it ME/98 where they should be seperate. 98SE is still an awesome OS, pretty much as good as XP where as ME is the gayest piece of terrible shit 'i pulled it from my arse' programming that wanker gates ever decided it was worth ripping people off for.

I reckon hardware/sofware manufacturers should stop win ME but leave 98, thats just me. It would be even better if they decided to get off their arses and nateively support Linux aswell but wankers will be wankers.

Uhm, NO. I don't think so!!! IN NO WAYS shape or form is Windows 98 as good as Windows XP. All of Windows 95/98/ME are a flar out piece of junk!! Maybe Windows 98SE was the best of that family, but they were all a pile of turd as far as I am concerned. Any Microsoft OS not based on NT is an utter POS and should have had support dicthed a while ago!! I like the results of this poll as by far the majority believe Windows 98/ME should be phased out. It is time for poeple to move on and get a real 32-bit OS that is quality.

 

[coffee33]

Nope, cause 98se is good enough now its time to move on. WTF is ME, I know that wasn't a REAL OS. hehe

 

[huxley]

lots of old pc's out there. Ask me in two years or maybe even one year and I will tell you to drop it. We have had win2k, now xp, once the new version is released we definately need to toss old support.

 

[Super Mario]

lots of old pc's out there. Ask me in two years or maybe even one year and I will tell you to drop it. We have had win2k, now xp, once the new version is released we definately need to toss old support.

I don't have ,uch of a problem supporting Windows 98/ME on old PC. But why in the heck should they be supported on applications that require 256MB or more RAM to run? I mena just look at all the games out there that require a minimum of 256MB of RAM that support those piece of junk Windows 98/ME operating systems. That's just crazy. Any game or application that requires a minimum of 256MB of RAM should IN NO WAY SUPPORT those piece of junk operating systems!!