Microsoft says goodbye to Windows 98 - but some users still can't

[Mark Holtz]

From Computerworld Blogs:

Microsoft says goodbye to Windows 98 - but some users still can'tTuesday is D-Day for Windows 98, 98 SE and ME users. After some extensions, Microsoft is finally ending its association with the eight-year-old Windows 98 operating system by dropping all support and updates on July 11th (see the details here).

It's too bad that many users can't do the same. FULL ARTICLE HERE (http://www.computerworld.com/blogs/node/2919)

Hmmmm.... I just replaced my mothers system from a Win98 to a WinXP system simply because of end-of-life. Meanwhile, one of the firewall products that I recommend, ZoneAlarm, has discontinued support for Win 98/Me.

As for printer... do I have the oldest printer that is still operational on this board? My HP Laserjet 4 which I purchased in 1993 is still chugging along. All it needs is replacement roller parts from Printer Works (http://www.printerworks.com/Printers/LaserJet4_4Plus.html). I even have a postscript SIMM and a NIC card in there for network printing.

[Gremraf]

You beat me, my Laserjet 5P is still going but had to dump the Laserjet II last year. It was taking up just too much room.

[philhu]

You beat me, my Laserjet 5P is still going but had to dump the Laserjet II last year. It was taking up just too much room.

Couldn't resist. Apple Laserwriter connected to a 1meg Macintosh (512k upgraded to 1meg, with 23meg hard drive in it!) Running Finder 1.11g

(It was my farewell gift when I left Apple in 1985)

phil

[Gremraf]

My 1st job in the computer industry was upgrading Apple II's to II+ by taking out the ram and a eprom and replacing them with a new set. It made the unit also use what they called a Single sided floppy disk. It was great no more cassette tape players. I miss those good old days.

[harsh]

Meanwhile, one of the firewall products that I recommend, ZoneAlarm, has discontinued support for Win 98/Me.This is the only aspect that concerns me about using Windows 98. I don't bother with a firewall behind a router, but antivirus software may be an issue. Some companies still support antivirus clients all the way back to Windows 95.

The part that I get the biggest kick out of is that Microsoft will also drop support for XP with outdated service packs too.

It is important to note that support for the five current versions of Windows (XP Tablet Edition, XP Home, XP Pro, XP Pro x64 and Media Center Edition) will be dropped at 12 months after general availability of Vista.

Microsoft has silently been replacing their utility programs with ones that have installer checks that won't install in Windows 98 or Me. I haven't actually tried installing the Word viewer by alternate means, but I'd give it a better than even chance of working as expected.

I don't care what Microsoft's support policy for Windows 98 is (up to including the part about not fixing one of the significant security issues). I've never been able to get any support from them anyway.

I'm going to wait and see what the licensing policy is for Vista before I even start looking at the specifications. If the policy is too onerous, I'll do something else (or nothing at all).

As was lamented by the Apple people, personal computing is neither fun nor interesting anymore.

[Steve Mehs]

Zone Alarm should be just discontinued altogether, it's nothing but bloatware now. I always ran ZA Pro behind my Linksys router, now it's the Windows Firewall behind the router. After installing 6.5.722 on both computers, they got reformatted, tried it again and my old computer got reformatted a second time, and I still have to do this one again. I though with ZA.

[James Long]

I'm actually planning on building a Win98SE machine this week. Would have built it Monday but got busy on other things.

I've built two 98 machines in the past month for special projects. I also have a DOS 6.22 box that has been in near continuous service for the past 10 years that I have known it.

[Geronimo]

How did ZA reformat a computer?

[Bogy]

As for printer... do I have the oldest printer that is still operational on this board? My HP Laserjet 4 which I purchased in 1993 is still chugging along. All it needs is replacement roller parts from Printer Works (http://www.printerworks.com/Printers/LaserJet4_4Plus.html). I even have a postscript SIMM and a NIC card in there for network printing.
I am still using a Canon LBP-430, the Canon version of the one they made for HP with the Laserjet 4L label on it. I finally bought a new laser to speed things up, but found it hard to dump a functioning laser. When I got here I had an inkjet in my office, with network connection to the laser in my secretary's office. I brought the 430 to my office so I would have a laser closer to hand.

Earlier this year I finally upgraded the last computer in the house that was still using 98 to xp. At least its the last one around here that is currently being used.

[LtMunst]

It's horse***t Microsoft is dumping support for Windows ME at the same time as 95/98. New computers were shipping with Windows ME as early as 5 years ago.

[James Long]

M E was a mistake.

[Nick]

I have two sets of virgin Win 3.1 floppies, just in case.

Sometimes I even miss DOS. Ah, those were the days! :p

[Nick]

M E was a mistake.No you weren't, James, and I don't think you mother would want to hear you say that. :feelbette

[Bogy]

I have two sets of virgin Win 3.1 floppies, just in case.

Sometimes I even miss DOS. Ah, those were the days! :p
Yeah, right. :lol:
What do you miss most? Being part of a much smaller group of people who used computers, because normal people weren't masochistic enough to put up with trying to make the damn system work? :D

[James Long]

Being able to write an entire program that did something on a 4k machine (that I eventually upgraded to 16k and eventually 256k before moving to the "PC" world). Everything seems bigger now.

Yeah it is cool that the cheap hard drives are 80-200gb and the expensive ones are measured in tetrabytes instead of megabytes. It is cool that 1gb RAM is trivial on a motherboard and 1gb processor cache is normal (and being passed). Modern machines are supercomputers compared to the best machines we thought we would own 25 years ago.

But the down side is that for every increase in memory and power developers have still found a way to suck the life out of the machine. Unfortunately those developers have taken a platform approach of making the OS do more and more - building in more routines for programs to call on instead of having application programmers write their own interfaces. Which leads to OSs with "too much stuff" that doesn't get used on work machines (and can even get in the way of professional level applications) and programs that only work on the latest OS.

The numbers keep getting better yet it seems that so much is overhead.

As noted, I've got a DOS 6.22 machine still in daily use at work. There is no need for a bloated operating system for the task it has been assigned (text capture and archive to a server).

[Geronimo]

I have two sets of virgin Win 3.1 floppies, just in case.

Sometimes I even miss DOS. Ah, those were the days! :p

As amatter of fact I sometimes do miss the days when you could just typea command and get a computer to do what you want. the simple elegance of the C: prompt.

But then again I miss being able to walk up to my TV and turn a dial to adjust the volume or color instead of navigating through 3 layers of menus.

[BaldEagle]

Oh no! Does this mean those of us that still have a computer with Windows 95 are toast?

[harsh]

It's horse***t Microsoft is dumping support for Windows ME at the same time as 95/98. New computers were shipping with Windows ME as early as 5 years ago.Windows Me was such an atrocity, relatively few people were running it anyway. Windows 98 held on because it would run on a very lightweight machine, ran almost all the available Windows titles and it was relatively solid.

[LtMunst]

Windows Me was such an atrocity, relatively few people were running it anyway. Windows 98 held on because it would run on a very lightweight machine, ran almost all the available Windows titles and it was relatively solid.

My old Dell with Windows ME is still humming along. I have yet to have found any compatibility problems with games (except of course those designed only for XP). Lost count of the number of friends that had to reload XP due to one system crash or another.

I'll hold out for Vista. :grin: