On the heels of yesterday’s launch of Windows 8’s preview, new statistics show that Microsoft’s decade-old Windows XP again plummeted in usage share and will be surpassed by Windows 7 in June.
On the heels of yesterday’s launch of Windows 8’s preview, new statistics show that Microsoft’s decade-old Windows XP again plummeted in usage share and will be surpassed by Windows 7 in June.
I wonder what the percentage is for Win98 installs.
The maintenance company that does our cooling system has placed 2 PC that control their system and they run Windows 98.
They aren’t connected to our network, just to the cooling system and are accessed by modem.
Still, it does seem strange to have Windows 98 being used as a server OS, but apparently it stays up 24/7.
My father has informed me that they have 386 DOS machines at his workplace for certain CAM machines … apparently these machines have survived 20 years of living in a workshop an are regularly cleaned of filth such as oil, filings etc.
I think about these things on a semi-regular basis.
Because I don’t think we always need these multi-core multi-Ghz machines loaded with 64 bits operating systems.
A DOS machines runs very fast on a, well any CPU I guess. There are a number of computers around that only perform a single task, DOS can do that quite nicely.
A few years ago I came across a magazine in the attic that reviewed the first 386. The reviewer didn’t really see the need for a 386, because it wasn’t that much faster and the 286 was going to be developed way in to the late 1990s.
Well, he got that wrong, but the 286/386/486 CPUs were pretty fast depending on what they needed to do.
Imagine how fast DOS would run on a 33 Mhz 386 and a solid state disk.
it would be more efficient and durable to just port the code to a RaspberryPi.
I think the problem with some software, like our cooling software, is that it’s old and the people who made it died and took the source code with them in to their grave.
It’s ancient code and because it just works nobody has touched it in years.
When some companies come up with a Windows version of their ancient product it looks and smells a lot like a DOS program running in a window.
Our cooling software is a DOS program running on Windows 98, remote access is done using analogue modems.
It’s wicked, but it works.
We have some systems in the same boat in my company too. We’ve a couple of machines which run 386s and DOS 6.22, a couple of GEM desktop machines, and even a few QNX machines from the early ’90s with Pentium Overdrive ships in them!
The thing about DOS (and Windows 98) is that it allows direct hardware access in a way which isn’t possible with the NT kernel without a complete rewrite and possible hardware redesign. This means that any software which needs to access old-style hardware boards (which I suspect your cooling system does) or other hardware features directly can’t be run on anything NT-based.
P.S. I could be wrong, but wasn’t ME the last version of Windows to be based on DOS? Maybe it’s just that nobody ever wants to remember that one…
I’m not sure about ME, in part because it’s the only Windows version I have never installed or used myself. Only a few times did I visit people at home to fix their Windows ME PC.
ME is the last of the 95 line, yes. The GUI hid the fact a bit better than in 95 and 98, but the architecture was the same. (In fairness, Win95 and up did most of their work without depending on DOS; it was mostly a bootloader unless you specifically booted into it.)
Yeah, “a number of computers around that only perform a single task” …usually we call them embedded – not necessarily x86, and their OS (if the kind of software they typically run can be even called like that) relatively rarely related to DOS.
With that 386 reviewer and his 286 – thing is, currently people are doing on PCs much more and/or different things (“the” PC essentially reinvented itself few times – back then it very much wasn’t for multimedia communication, consumption, production – and often as a ~terminal to worldwide network).
Now, sure, a 386 can be some fairly nice machine ( http://www.osnews.com/permalink?509494 ), but too many things are very CPU intensive; even audio (proper lossy one) essentially had to wait for Pentium.
And since many things require certain processing power – others (not necessarily requiring it) could use the economies of scale brought by certain requirements, to make things easier for them (so that’s also why operating systems or software in general might seem slightly “bloated” at times, vs. past equivalents – which in the end doesn’t make that much of a difference)
The rail network near me uses networked DOS systems to manage all the information screens across every station owned by them (which is several hundred stations alone – let alone the number of display screens on each platform of each station).
correct me if i’m wrong, but wasn’t the dos-version in win98 the best they ever released?
It may very well be considering Windows 98 was the last version to run on top of DOS (I think).
For years I assumed 6.22 was the last DOS version, but apparently they went up to 7.x.
While Windows still features a DOS prompt it seems you can do less and less with it. Favorite commands like ‘telnet’ and ‘edit’ seem to have been dropped.
I still prefer to do file management using the CLI, certainly if it involves moving files using wild cards. It’s not a Windows thing, I do the same on OS X and Linux.
It’s interesting how they’re pushing powershell for server administration and the like. I think it’s even installed by default on the desktop preview of Win8. It’s not DOS as we know it, but it is a command-line interface that lets you do more or less everything.
Which reminds me, I need to look at how powershell actually works one day. So far I’ve only noticed with interest that it exists.
Well you’ll have to apply the cure for the 49 days bug.
Early versions of Windows 98 crash every 49 days like Windows 95. If you used it as a desktop you would never notice it but when it runs only one program 24/7 it lock’s up eventually
Edited 2012-03-05 19:43 UTC
Regarding win-9x hanging after 49 days:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/216641
This was an issue for win-95 and win-98FE (first edition aka standard edition). This kb article gives a fix for win-95/98. Win-98se did not need the fix because it did not have this problem.
Oh – as for the comment about 95 or 98 being “dos based” – that’s an urban myth. The 9x/me line were full win32 OS’s that put the CPU in protected 32-bit mode (something DOS doesn’t do). 9x/me is *launched* or started / booted from DOS, but immediately puts the CPU into protected mode and wipes DOS from memory (or, more specifically, it creates a virtual environment for DOS so it can run as a virtual process that can be used by any legacy software that needs to run 16-bit code).
Win-9x/me itself will use 16-bit DOS functions if called for by any hardware drivers – but this is a “handicap” or deficiency of the driver not the OS. It was anticipated that during the transition from DOS and Win-3.x that Win-9x would have to be compatible with legacy 16-bit software – including drivers. Naturally this situation disappeared in a few years as all code became 32-bit.
The article has a link with the full figures
http://www.netmarketshare.com/operating-system-market-share.aspx?qp…
spoiler: 0.05%
Of course, that data will be useless for determining the usage share of Windows 98 since it is based upon browser statistics.
If I had to make a guess, this would artificially inflate Windows Vista/7 and Mac OS X results (i.e. consumers are far more likely to use web browsers on external websites) while making XP, 2000 (and to a limited degree 98) appear to have a lower share since corporate users are less likely to let their computers have unfettered access to the net.
I wonder if the number of systems that are not connected to the Internet would be less than 1%
And you would be wrong.
Computers are used for stuff other than browsing stuff on the internet.
Depends on your definition of “computer”, I guess. There’s a lot of CPU+RAM+storage devices not connected to the internet. There’s markedly fewer wintel PCs that aren’t.
I also know of several restaurants in my area who have their POS (Point-Of-Sale) systems running Windows 98… there is a company in town that still develops a Restaurant POS that doesn’t really work well on any NT version of Windows, even XP. The developers are a pair of greybeards that cut their teeth on punchcards, so I think that this is their retirement spending cash.
Still, their setups are smart — no floppy or cd-rom drives, USB ports disabled whenever possible, no network connections except between POS machines, touchscreen interface only (and older com-port touchscreens, too). It’s clear they know how dangerous connecting these fossils to the Internet would be, and they’ve warned their clients as such.
I used to do work for a restaurant that had a similar POS setup except with Win 95. They have since gone out of business but it wasn’t that long ago, in the last 3 or so years.
I wouldn’t mind knowing that myself, heck i know there are still DOS machines running industrial jobs as I built one for a company a few years back.
Microsoft is simply showing yet again that Ballmer simply isn’t got what it takes to run the company. it is NOT time for Windows 8 yet, he’s just now gotten momentum behind Win 7 and before the corps can even begin rollout of large deployments he’s already hawking Win 8, aka Wintab.
Ultimately he needs to go back to what they had with WinNT/Win9X, have the LTS business OS on a different timetable than consumer. i know that after getting the last of my customers switched to Win 7 neither they nor I will be in ANY hurry to even so much as discuss Win 8, heck Win 7 is barely 3 years old!
With the speed of modern computers the era of changing every 3 years is over, even many corps are hanging onto PCs longer because there is nothing that new quad is gonna do in a business setting that dual, triple, or quad from a few years back can’t do just as well. With the average machine having multicores and 2Gb+ of RAM there really isn’t a point in the upgrades anymore, but these companies got spoiled by the MHz wars and act like that is still the norm when it frankly isn’t. Heck I’m just now building new quads for my kids as their games are finally outgrowing their 6 year old dual cores!
Come back to sanity MSFT, if you want in mobile so badly spin off the division, nobody is gonna be happy when they buy a Win 8 tablet and find Windows don’t run Windows programs so just stop it. Go back to your core strengths, which is business and consumers desktop and laptop Operating systems, stop trying to get “synergy” between x86 and ARM (never gonna happen) and instead simply make sure that it all “just works” nicely together, keep major rollouts on a 5 year schedule and accept you are NEVER gonna be Apple and simply enjoy that money truck that backs up to your building every year. these new moves look for all the world like a lost company throwing poo at a wall and hoping something sticks.
That is exactly the main problem for Microsoft and the majority of computer manufacturers.
For the type of tasks most people do, even a 10 year old computer is more than up to the task.
Which means there is a tendency to have a decline in sales, as only gamers and the type of people that want to have the latest hardware/software, will be upgrading.
I completely agree. I still have a G4 Sawtooth. It’s been beefed up (1.42 ghz CPU upgrade, and maxed out with RAM) but it’s getting on for 13 years old and is still entirely capable. In fact, I have not long decided to re-install OS 9 on this machine, to make it feel even more responsive, ironically because in part I had heard that browser support is getting better but now (because this computer will be nowhere near an ethernet cable, and won’t have wireless just yet) because I may end up being more productive on it as a standalone. I have tons of serviceable software still from a previous existence.
Why OS 9? Well, apart from the speed increase, has anyone gone back to look even at OS X Tiger recently – really the only Apple alternative – which I have just done in resurrecting this piece of kit? Shockingly basic in navigability (I am not a keyboard whiz) and visual appeal. For me in that sense, OS 9 represents a mature system, for all its final technical shortcomings compared to more ‘modern’ systems. I for one am going to enjoy this ‘retro’ experience….
10 yo is stretching it, at this point. I do keep kinda such machine around, with an Athlon XP 1700+ (debuted at the end of 2001, got mine in the middle of 2002 …though in fact, this PC was largely born in 2000, with a Duron 600).
Yes, it can keep up – but it absolutely wouldn’t be able to do so with its original amount of RAM.
(back then between typical and somewhat high; generally, that machine is a bit of a “ship of Theseus” – not many original parts left: first major overhaul when replacing SDR mobo with DDR one, then some parts dying along the way …a buddy had unneeded, retired spares; but notably, its even older GFX card – Matrox G400 from 99-2000 – keeps on going)
And that’s still largely thanks to keeping only snappy software on it…
(which can also mean recent, with very visible benefits from ~recent browser improvement – optimisations targeting mostly x86 after all, so without the quirks of, say, orfanum’s Powermac)
…also remembering that there are just some things it won’t do.
(HD video most notably; though I successfully toyed with editing an HD video project, via proxy editing: working on a low-res copy of the footage, then exporting & saving the edits on HD original; basically just to prove somebody that it can be done :> …but exporting took a long time, needed to run overnight, and the poor thing wasn’t able to play the file it spew out :> )
“Most people” are possibly unable to be careful in those regards.
BTW I wouldn’t be too surprised if, in 5 years or so, games settle so much on the architecture and power provided by Intel integrated GFX, that there won’t be much point also for gamers.
(and anyway, what are “gamers”? FB and generally browser games? Pebble? WoW? Such are the most popular…)
I’ve never stopped running win-98 on most of my office PC’s as well as my home PC. I upgrade the hardware once in a while but still keel using 98. I’m currently running 98 on a Core2 3.5 ghz pc with 1 gb ram and 1.5 tb SATA hard drive and Nvidia 6200 AGP8x video card (and yes, I have win-98 drivers for all hardware components).
Using the KernelEx API helper allows me to run the latest version of Java JRE, Flash player, Opera browser, etc.
Win-98 is inherently more secure to access the web vs any NT-based OS (always has been – just look at the history of Win-2k and XP back during the years 2001 through 2004 – every worm ever released hit NT hard, but win-98 was immune).
NT-based OS’s have far too many vulnerabilities from a web or network pov to be considered secure. Way too many processes running by default, open ports, services, etc. XP has historically been more vulnerable to IE-based heap buffer overflow exploits, worms, etc vs 9x/me.
Go to Secunia.org to see how many security issues any given product has ever had – win-98 beats 2k/XP hands down.
Note that many win-98 systems still in use probably identify themselves as some other OS – because of the use of browser user-agent switcher that prevents websites from throwing up error messages that “your browser or OS is too old” yada yada yada. I install the latest flash player by changing a registry key that makes Flash think I’m running win-2k.
I wonder how many people have 2000 still installed.
I know of at least one: A law enforcement agency that I left for my current post in 2004, they were using it then and I’ve heard from a friend there that they still do.
I still make use of Windows 2000 for a mail server.
I use hMailServer along with SQL Server 2005 on a Windows 2000 box. Why Win2K? Well, for no other reason than I could.
The box itself is pretty low end (2GB RAM max, 2.2Ghz Athlon XP processor, consumer-grade parts, etc.) but it manages to handle 20,000 – 60,000 pieces of spam per day, reporting about 99.98% of spam to SpamCop automagically. IMHO, not too shabby for a machine that has been chugging along for six years now with all of about twenty minutes of downtime (when I had to swap out a BFG nVidia 5500OC video card whose fan practically melted off of it… suffice it to say, the backup was an identical sister card with the stock heatsink replaced with a massive passive heatsink).
Of course, not only is the box behind a very strongly configured router/firewall, but it also has its TCP/IP and UDP ports manually locked down so only two ports – 25 & 110 – are actually open. The rest refuse all communication.
Why would you even put into such thing a Nvidia 4-digit-number anything? Some old PCI card from a dumpster seems like a better fit for mail server… (most likely using much less power too; probably extending the lifetime of motherboard and/or the PSU, thanks to smaller strain on them)
I know of a company that does. They have no Windows site license and it was easier to image Windows 2000 than dealing with Windows XP OEM licenses.
We’ve still got a few Windows 2000 server systems in production including one running SQL Server 2000.
That means Mac OS X is growing faster than iOS. Hell, not only faster than iOS, but pretty much gaining a quarter of the iOS user base in one month.
In other words, the metric is fucked, and month by month changes in measured usage share mean pretty much nothing. Except, of course, if you’re an Apple fan site and need some hard numbers to make your readers stronger in their faith. It happens among Linux enthusiasts as well: http://royal.pingdom.com/2012/02/28/linux-is-the-worlds-fastest-gro…
Last week I came across the first Win2K box being used by a customer (Medical sector) that I wasn’t in the process of pulling out and replacing the same day. Works quite well, was a very late 2K install, 2003 or so, so the machine isn’t brutally slow. No intention of replacing it till it dies.
I have however replaced fully functioning Windows 95 RTM machines (with Win7 machines!) within the last 12 months in the same environment. The most recent setup went from Win95 and 98 workstations off a WXP “server” to Server 2008 and W7 in one go.
Actually, I found this site (netmarketshare.com) to be pretty interesting and I thank OSNews for linking to it.
Aside from desktop, you can set it to show marketshare for mobile devices, or consoles. Curiously, it has no info about server marketshare. I’m wondering if anyone here can recommend a good web site to find out that info? TIA.
Not that curious; They measure the marketshare trough website visits, not that many people visit websites from a server.
Yes, I know. But I’m looking for some web server statistics and was hoping someone had a suggestion. I did go googling for answers and found a number of references to total market share (Windows and Linux both have slightly over 1/3, the remainder being other Unix operating systems (FreeBSD, AIX, etc). But netmarketshare.com is unique in that it lets you set filters to see market share in individual countries, and I was looking for a site that would do that for servers, not just desktop, mobile and gaming consoles.
I found this for you. Sorry can’t find a more recent one:
https://secure1.securityspace.com/s_survey/data/man.200907/apacheos….
I visit websites from a server. Call it a quirk of unusual hardware that has forced this particular choice of software.
For my primary daily-driver workstation (my heavy lifter is a different story) I have a server-class dual-processor Xeon 603/604 motherboard, but it can only take two 32-bit hyperthreaded Xeon processors for a total of 4 “cores†(the Intel chipset has the 1MB L3 cache limit for processors). Let me be clear: It CANNOT take 64-bit Xeon processors, due to chipset limitations. On the other hand, it can take up to 12GB of memory (6×2GB PC3200 ECC Reg RAM), and I’ve actually installed that.
XP can only see up to 3.5GB at the most, but Windows Server 2003 R2 Enterprise Edition can see up to 16GB of RAM. Ergo, I have Win2k3r2 installed so that I can make use of the full amount of RAM.
The big bonus is that Win2k3r2 is the first Windows O/S that has been able to successfully handle my ATI Radeon HD 4650 AGP video card in dual-head (2 monitor) mode through a 4-port, 2-head KVM without blowing its cookies every time it tries to install the driver. No other version of Windows to date has been able to handle that video setup successfully, especially after changing KVM channels or switching back after a Remote Desktop session. As such, I am ***VERY*** pleased with its performance to date.
And yes, this is my “daily driver†workstation. I clock in at least five hours of surfing a day on this unit, including OSNews.com.
Hm, no you don’t. You visit them from a workstation (and the work-label might even be generous, for a “daily driver†browsing machine ;p ), as you call it yourself few times.
Components and operating system marketed for servers don’t change that – it’s not used as a server (http one for example, as mentioned by parent posters); in fact, Win2k3 is essentially the same OS as XP 64bit.
(and BTW if those are P4-based Xeons, like it sounds – by unloading on somebody “in need” such amount of ECC RAM / spare mobo / such late AGP card, you could possibly finance or almost finance something built around, say, current entry-level Celeron …which would most likely give much better browsing performance, and significantly lower noise & power consumption)