end of Win 98 support

[paul roberts]

Hey there. As you all know well, Microsoft announced that it will be
ending paid support for Windows 98 SE in mid January '04.

I'm looking for information for a story I'm writing on how various
companies or individuals are preparing for that eventuality.

Are people planning upgrades to later OSs -- namely, Win 2K and XP --
or are you just planning on getting by with '98 until there's no
choice but to move? What's driving your decision to stay or to
upgrade? Cost? Security? Mission critical applications that aren't
forward compatible?

I'm particularly interested in the perspectives of corporate IT folks,
but feedback from home users is welcome, as well.

Your thoughts and comments are much appreciated.

Thanks,

Paul Roberts
***@comcast.net

[Ugly]

On 21 Oct 2003 13:37:25 -0700, paul roberts babbled on about end of Win 98 support
proclaiming:

-}Hey there. As you all know well, Microsoft announced that it will be
-}ending paid support for Windows 98 SE in mid January '04.

I guess we'll just have to force them to do it for free. Does that mean Windoze 98 is
going freeware? Abandonware?

[FlyBoy]

Post by paul roberts
Hey there. As you all know well, Microsoft announced that it will be
ending paid support for Windows 98 SE in mid January '04.
I'm looking for information for a story I'm writing on how various
companies or individuals are preparing for that eventuality.
Are people planning upgrades to later OSs -- namely, Win 2K and XP --
or are you just planning on getting by with '98 until there's no
choice but to move? What's driving your decision to stay or to
upgrade? Cost? Security? Mission critical applications that aren't
forward compatible?

When XP arrived 18 months after I bought an expensive Matrox
G400-Marvel card Matrox felt it apparently perfectly acceptible to
announce they would not be releasing drivers for the video capture
functions of this card for XP.

This has caused two things.

1. I will give it a second (and third and fourth) thought before ever
buying a Matrox product again.

2. It has caused me to stick to Win98SE when otherwise I would have
migrated to XP because of better support for modern hardware.

When I buy from a company that wants to claim being of an "A"-category
I expect A-quality support. So if they don't give A-quality support,
they're not an A-category company.

What does this tell you about Matrox and Microsoft?

Don't forget to ask people hof often (percentagewise) they got support
from Microsoft that actually solved the problem they experienced.

Would they score 10%? I doubt it.

Good luck with your story.

[cquirke (MVP Win9x)]

Post by FlyBoy

Post by paul roberts
Hey there. As you all know well, Microsoft announced that it will be
ending paid support for Windows 98 SE in mid January '04.
I'm looking for information for a story I'm writing on how various
companies or individuals are preparing for that eventuality.
What's driving your decision to stay or to upgrade?

Until modems come with bundleware that works when taking voice
messages under XP, the PC that answers the phone has to stay 9x.

Post by FlyBoy

Post by paul roberts
Mission critical applications that aren't forward compatible?

There you go.

Post by FlyBoy
When XP arrived 18 months after I bought an expensive Matrox
G400-Marvel card Matrox felt it apparently perfectly acceptible to
announce they would not be releasing drivers for the video capture
functions of this card for XP.
I will give it a second (and third and fourth) thought before ever
buying a Matrox product again.
When I buy from a company that wants to claim being of an "A"-category
I expect A-quality support. So if they don't give A-quality support,
they're not an A-category company.

Yup. Matrox have never been shy to charge the earth, and now that
flat SVGA performance is seldom an issue, one wonders what the point
of Matrox is unless it's Perelia or image quality on huge monitors.

Post by FlyBoy
What does this tell you about Matrox and Microsoft?

Well, it's not MS's job to write drivers for oddball hardware...

Win98 is probably the largest slice of the userbase pie here, with
prolly as much Win95xx as XP and Win2000.

No support from MS means very little to users in direct terms. But
this also means no MS support to developers, who take this as the cue
to drop driver support for the OS when shipping hardware - and that's
what will eventually crunch the user, along with the security/safety
risks of any unpatched software defects still to be found.

As long as you keep an old PC within its time bubble (no new hardware,
no new significant software), it should work as well as it did when
new, until the hardware fails. But such machines may become difficult
to protect against malware, so may not be useable online.

Post by FlyBoy
--------------- ----- ---- --- -- - - -

Error Messages Are Your Friends

Post by FlyBoy
--------------- ----- ---- --- -- - - -

[Anthropy]

Flyboy wrote.....

Post by paul roberts
Hey there. As you all know well, Microsoft announced that it will be

Post by paul roberts
ending paid support for Windows 98 SE in mid January '04.

I think it's outrageous. I don't remember Microsoft stating "buy Win98
but in a few years we're going to stop all support therefore forcing
you to buy one of our new products"
I'm going to Linux as are a lot of friends. When Microsoft gets
Palladium or whatever they've changed its name to, your online
experience is going to be a very passive one. These new MS OS's are
not about giving the consumer a better deal, they are about tightening
security for the major manufacturers.
Vote with your wallet. Get Linux or any OS that's not Microsoft. Billy
Gates can kiss my arse.