Microsoft can stop selling older operating systems, and it can even stop supporting them, but that doesn’t mean that customers won’t still use them.
Users Cling to Old Microsoft Operating Systems
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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What I wanna know is, why does Windows 98 SE still cost $200 at CompUSA. You think after six years they might lower the cost a little bit.
MS *doesn’t want* you to get it, so why would they make it cheaper? also, they might figure anyone who wants it must absolutley need it (for some reason), so they’d be willing to pay the higher price.
Well you can get it for less. You may need to shop around for it on the Internet.
I still use Windows 98 as my main operating system as well. My own reason for the OS use, was Windows 2000 was costlier. Spending an average of $200 plus dollars, verses $100 or so dollars.
What is interesting is the way Microsoft likes to say can’t support their OS’s anymore. Very bothersome at least to me, because you create it, you should be responsible to support it.
Win98 is no longer supported … WinME user base should be a couple of machines on MS Test Lab’s. I think MS is really interested to move everyone into NT code base. Not because it is specially secure, but because it will reduce new applications, drivers and security patches development costs. Following MS, hardware companies should be setting and end date for 9x driver development. May be is a good thing as they will have resources to develop drivers to other OS’s (to dream costs nothing
).
i keep Win98se installed to a 1 gig disk partition that i gutted with a tool named “Revenge of Mozilla” http://www.ifrance.com/snoopy81/ROM2.htm
this tool guts Win98 & Win98se stripping out IE & OE & Windows Media Player, and replaces the Windows kernel32 with the one from Win95(OSR2) and replaces Windows Explorer with the one from Win95 which is not internet aware.
if anyone decides to use this in Win98 & or Win98se i recomend doing it to a fresh/clean install only AFTER all device drivers are installed but BEFORE any other extra software applications are installed…
As soon as the current hardware its installed on dies.
If MS would offer XP at a reasonable price possibly $89.00 or $49.00 wich is what you get back if you don’t purchase it with a system and no registering like some places overseas, they might intice me to give it a try. I’m fairly happy with Win 2000, but do most with ASP-Linux 9.0 and only keep MS for programs like PSP 8.0,AWICONS PRO and COMPACT DRAW. I do like my desktops customized to suit myself.
…which is not a big surprise considering their huge it-came-preinstalled userbase. Technically win9x is a horrible, unstable operating system, but most of its current users wouldn’t consider upgrading. They will simply use it until the hardware running it completely dies; does someone actually still buy the retail version?
And then for something completely offtopic: I got my first Apple, a 12″ Powerbook, yesterday. I love it.
[/i]If MS would offer XP at a reasonable price possibly $89.00 or $49.00 wich is what you get back if you don’t purchase it with a system and no registering like some places overseas, they might intice me to give it a try. I’m fairly happy with Win 2000, but do most with ASP-Linux 9.0 and only keep MS for programs like PSP 8.0,AWICONS PRO and COMPACT DRAW. I do like my desktops customized to suit myself.[i]
Here you go.
http://saveateaglestore.site.yahoo.net/micwinxphome1.html
XP Home is $89, XP Pro is $136.
The reason Windows 98 is so expesnive at CompUSA is because CompUSA doesn’t want to change the price. Microsoft doesn’t have pricing control over 3rd parties. I mean they can sell if to a company for a certain price and give them a MRP but it is up to the 3rd party to decide on the price to sell the product at. You guys really have to stop looking at Microsoft as if they control the world.
One of the main issues, O’Halloran said, is the security risk Internet-attached PCs running the older OS pose.
“Now, there is a way to get into the infrastructure,” he said. “Your buddies down the hall on Windows XP or Windows 2000 might be fine, but you become the Typhoid Mary for the company.”
Right, because goodness knows new Microsoft operating systems are far more secure. Typhoid Mary is a great example, because worms like Blaster can only infect older OSes, like Windows 95 and 98.
:rolls eyes:
Oh wait! That’s not the case at all, and this Typhoid Mary malarkey is backwards, if anything. Maybe I am wrong, but can someone explain to me how this make any sense at all? How is the lone Windows 98 machine going to serve as some sort of Internet Gateway of Evil?
I own a small computer shop where I support a wide variety of systems. We build new systems and only install XP or Windows 2000 on them. Win98 bombs out on anything higher than a 1.5GHZ processor. The reason I chose XP or 2000 is that it works with the hardware.
Microsoft has every right to pull the plug on any of its old software. I personally gave up on Win98 in 2001 when I migrated to Windows 2000. Major hardware vendors have given up on it and moved on.
I know that many would not but consider this, if you want new hardware, you have to go to a new OS.
Who the heck still sells this? If other computer stores want to keep it that high then they will have it on the shelf for a long time. Consider that Windows 98SE is over four years old and Windows ME over three, it’s old stuff.
actually most of the users of older OSes have not upgraded to later offerings by M$ ;
and since their hardware is still usable, wouldnt they be willing to move on to better supported OSes?
is this a good sign for linuxes?
especially so because now there are more linux aware ppl to help them make such a decision?
what do you think?
98 isnt that bad. I used it all the time before i got debian and it hardly ever crashed
Although i did take care of it with regular filesystem cleans and defrags.
I’d agree, if there could be an “easy” way to move to Linux for the Win98 crowd they’d take it in a heartbeat.
But that means you’d HAVE to have all the app support and GREAT game support too. Ability to use win98 drivers in any upgrade linux would be great too. Now that MS has offically “denounced” Win98, now’s the time to run in and snatch all those users!!! Even Knoppix is leaps and bounds better than win98…but it can’t support windows software….yet…That’s the key gottcha. You gotta support or replace the software for all those users. But with MS recent upgraded prices, there WILL be a market…and soon!
If something is doing what you want it to do, namely surf, read e-mails, and write .doc files, what benefit upgrading? Especially with the downturn in the economy, without real value many users won’t migrate. 5x as fast? To many users, that just means I.E. Opens in 1 second instead of 5…Security? Microsoft said Win98 was secure when users bought it, and people are going to hold them to that.
Personally, I’m happy to see many “old” machines staying around. It means they are fulfilling a need in someone’s life. Expecting users to upgrade their computer every 3 years is like expecting people to replace their television on a similar cycle. The new stuff may be shiny and new, but the old ones still work fine.
I think the problem is most people have been burned by the Microsoft stalling problem. Install new OS on old machine and machine turns into molasses. My mom has learned. Can’t get her off Win95.
As long as she doesn’t upgrade anything her machine runs just as snappy as the day she bought it. Upgrade and your machine turns into unusable junk. These people aren’t new to Microsoft’s performance problems any more. It ain’t 1987.
you know what?
win xp is full of headache. you have to, have to fix so many problem, i.e. it’s design is wrong
TOO heavy for nothing.
i am using win98/se without any kind of problem.
so i assume win98 maker(team) is different from winxp..
Microsoft generally supports their OSes/other software longer than companies like Redhat, Intuit, etc…
I transferred from OS/2 Warp 4 to WIN98SE about 4 yrs ago. It has always worked fine for me. I should add though that there is no company writing software for the computers I work on/with in any OS other than Windows, and previous to that it was DOS.
WIN98 commands ‘high’ prices because people are prepared to pay those prices. Anyway you can buy it for $60.00 or so at computer shows/fairs and over on ebay for even less.
I would bet good money that new packages of WIN98SE sell way much better than Linux for $50.00 at Office Depot.
To get people or businesses to migrate up the OS chain or transfer to a different OS you need to demonstrate compelling reasons for the change, especially when large sums of money come into play.
“In the Truth there is no news; in the News there is no truth.” Russian Krushchev-era comment on Pravda “Truth” and Izvestia “News”.
Open Letter to Bill Gates; About Obsolete MS OSes
http://www.freeos.com/articles/4674/
If you can’t carry on making money from them, Your Most Exalted Billness, you could at least try for some goodwill!
(And I used to be the only dimwit stupid enough and big-mouthed enough, to comment on this. Now I’ve got ZiffDavis backing me up. I suppose I should say thanks.)
From the article:
“Most (Windows 98 users) are probably like me and do not intend to be coerced into spending several hundred dollars every three years or so,” he said in an e-mail. “What this means is that the Internet viruses, worms, Trojans and who knows what else will have ‘free reign’ of the older machines compromising the entire Net.”
I think it is a bad idea of Microsoft to pull the plug on Windows 98 when there are so many users remaining out there. MS *will* be blamed when the worms strike, even though it’s not their fault. At least, MS ought to provide security patches.
The software I build is for installation on every Windows machine in a company. I’ve learnt the hard way this includes Windows 95, not just 98, and even, would you believe, Windows NT 3.51. It’s rare, but it’s still out there. I’ve seen it being a print server.
Fortunately, I’ve still got my old NT 3.1, 3.5 and 3.51 CDs, and old but working IBM kit to run it on. I’ve even got an original copy of Windows 1 on 5.25″ disks.
Might there be a market offering testing services using this kind of ancient stuff?
If you wanted to upgrade a typical Win98 machine to Win2k or a current Linux distribution, you would need to double or quadruple the installed RAM.
Where do you find the SIMMs?
If you find them, the 1 Gig (or smaller) drive turns out to be too small for the new OS. The 300MHz CPU turns out to be too slow.
It is all more trouble than it is worth. The practical, business answer is to keep the machine running the OS that it came with until the hardware dies. Any reasonably well made computer should go on working for ten or fifteen years (audio gear lasts twice as long).
I work for a County department that does three-quarters of a million-dollars of billing on a Pentium 100 with 40MB of RAM, two 1-gig SCSI drives, and runs Windows for Workgroups 3.11. The billing program runs on Access 2.0. I’ve finally convinced the boss we **NEED** to update it… Last winter, I spent a couple months tracking down the guy who wrote the program, and he’s taken all this year to update it. We’ll finish it off after New Year’s. Now all I need to do is update our older-than-dirt secretary to a newer version that can use a modern computer.
Windows XP gives very little extra functionality compared to winNT4, even less to win2k. Still the fee to upgrade the license is high. And that is not the worst part. While you upgrade you will loose valuable time as you will have to test and perhaps upgrade other software in your organization. You may also have to educate your employees in the use of the new system. This makes the total cost of an upgrade so hight that the slightly better funcktionality of the new version will never increase your efficincey enough to earn you enough money to break even.
No wonder people doesn’t upgrade.
The difference between MS and Red Hat is that when RH ends support, you still have the source and can buy support elsewhere or get an extended support contract from Redhat.
In MS would you have to upgrade no matter what or you will be exposed to all kinds of security problems. If you try to get support from sombody else they can’t do much as they do not have the code to patch in case some security problem should occur.
I won’t be able to get support for that new copy of Micro$oft BOB I just got off Ebay? LOL