‘Bye-bye Win98/95
If you’re one of the millions of people still running Windows 98 or 95 and you have a problem after January, don’t look to Microsoft for help.
That’s when Bill and the Boyze will stop offering support, although the company said it might still release security patches if "threats appear serious enough," says an Associated Press report here, also quoting International Data Corp as saying about 20% of all Windows-based computers still run Windows 95 or 98.
That’s a lot of computers.
"Online assistance will still be available for Windows 98, but Microsoft spokesman Matt Pilla would not say whether it will continue for Windows 95 – he said only that it is possible," the story says, continuing that Jupiter Research analyst Joe Wilcox doesn’t think, "anybody’s freaking out about it. One, the operating systems are very old and I don’t believe a large number of businesses are using (them) in critical areas. Two … there’s an ample warning that these products are end-of-life."
That’s OK, then.
Wilcox also, "argued that consumers have better reasons to upgrade than the approaching end of support".
Like, force them into it …
"Those older operating systems, as long as they’re kicking around, they’re potential security problems for every company that uses them," Wilcox said. "They weren’t built with encryption of data in mind. A lot of information is transmitted, passwords and things, as clear text. If you’re looking for a good way to allow a virus on a network or allow it to be hacked, keep running these older operating systems."
Who cares about home users. Right? But never mind. As of December 15, most versions of Windows 98 won’t be distributed by Micro$oft anyway.
October 4th, 2007 at 11:11 pm
Where was this blog a year ago? Great article (Bye-bye Win98/95)! Can you believe I was searching for Operating Systems when I fond this post Friday.