D-Day Announced For Windows 98 And Millenium Edition Users

Mike Howes 4 Jul, 2006 at 4:06pm ET Article published in Tech

From July 11, Windows 98 and Millenium Edition users will no longer be supported by Microsoft.

An estimated 70 million users will no longer be supported by Microsoft. Security vendors are following Microsoft’s lead and phasing out support for the ageing Windows versions, leaving users open to possible virus attacks.

Microsoft had planned to stop supporting the older versions in January 2004, but it extended support to give customers and businesses more time to upgrade to newer versions of Windows.
Al Gillen, an analyst with IDC, expects machines running Windows 98 and ME to account for just 6 percent of all Windows installations by the end of this year, and that the loss of security patches for those operating systems will probably not be a major concern for users.

Analysts seem to feel that Windows 98 and ME are becoming risky propositions to run, due to the dwindling support for them in the security space. Microsoft is under pressure to boost growth in its stagnating operating system sales and there are at least 70 million users out there who are long overdue for an upgrade.

Comments

4 Jul 2006 ~ 4:26pm airbornflght

Winga wrote:

there are at least 70 million users out there who are long overdue for an upgrade.

No kidding, not to mention that I hate it when someone calls me to work on their computer, and they give me win 98, which isnt much worse than ME.:-/ Hopefully everyone will at least get xp home in the near future.:o
4 Jul 2006 ~ 5:18pm Enverex People like posting this in the news don't they...

http://www.short-media.com/forum/showthread.php?t=47193&highlight=support
http://www.short-media.com/forum/showthread.php?t=44631&highlight=support
4 Jul 2006 ~ 5:50pm RWB I actually don't mind 98, it has support for games that don't work at all under 2000 or XP. IE Mechwarrior 2.

Plus I have run 98 on modern systems without any problems. I just don't have 98 anymore, and it is showing it's age with SATA and stuff.
4 Jul 2006 ~ 7:59pm airbornflght yeh, and also the hd size limit, and i dont like networking with it, xp makes it much easier.
4 Jul 2006 ~ 8:08pm Enverex True, but if you're using a machine which is low spec and has 256MB or less RAM then it's easier to use 98 (especially if you want to play any old DOS games too, DOSBOX doesn't always cut the mustard).
5 Jul 2006 ~ 12:21pm RADA

airbornflght wrote:

No kidding, not to mention that I hate it when someone calls me to work on their computer, and they give me win 98, which isnt much worse than ME.:-/ Hopefully everyone will at least get xp home in the near future.:o

I agree,

The 1st thing I do when someone gives me a Win 98 machine is tell them to go buy the XP home upgrade, or I cannot guarantee any of fixes I do will be complete.
5 Jul 2006 ~ 4:00pm GHoosdum Jeez, only eight years and MS is already forcing people to upgrade!
5 Jul 2006 ~ 4:35pm airbornflght

GHoosdum wrote:

Jeez, only eight years and MS is already forcing people to upgrade!

Yeh, I hope they dont plan on pulling that crap with XP, I plan on using it AT LEAST until 2014.

j/k
7 Jul 2006 ~ 12:33am macdude425 Microsoft won't be the only ones abandoning it...
7 Jul 2006 ~ 12:34am sfleuriet Sweet! Well they dont deserve using OUR Firefox with their ancient technology anyways :tongue2: