Microsoft
rings down the curtain on Windows 98
by
Alan Zisman (c) 2006 First published in
Business
in Vancouver Microsoft rings down the curtain on
Windows 98
High Tech Office column; Issue #870, June 27- July 3, 2006
As
far as Microsoft’s concerned, for Windows 98 and ME users, it’s finally
the end of the road, or in Micro-speak, EOL: End of Lifecycle. The
curtains close on July 11, when Microsoft finally ends paid extended
support for those two operating systems and will no longer be providing
security patches or updates for them.
Windows
98 was originally released in August 1998. It was widely used by home
users and to a lesser extent in business systems. Windows ME was
released in mid-2000, but saw much less widespread use. It was targeted
primarily at home users. Business users were much more likely to make
use of Windows 2000, which was released a few months earlier.
Microsoft
is promising that Windows 2000 extended support is not due to be
“retired” until July 13, 2010. For the company’s current mainstream
business operating system version, Windows XP Professional, Microsoft
notes that “mainstream support will end two years after the next
version of this product is released. Extended support will end five
years after mainstream support ends.” The next version, Windows Vista,
is expected early in 2007.
It’s
not entirely clear how many copies of Windows 98 or ME are still in
use. Recent published estimates, based on statistics gathered by
website logs vary from 3.8 per cent to seven per cent for Win98 and
from two per cent to four per cent for ME. This data, however, misses
what could be large numbers of older computers that are not used online.
And
for those older computers, Microsoft’s end-of-lifecycle date might be a
non-event. It’s not as if computers that were working satisfactorily on
July 10 will suddenly stop working (or suddenly be targeted by hackers)
on July 12. But Windows 98 (and to a lesser extent ME) has been
increasingly a non-contender over the past few years.
These
versions may look relatively similar to Windows 2000 and XP – they all
have a taskbar along the bottom with a start button in the corner and
icons for My Computer and the like – but under the hood, Win 98 and ME
are the last versions of a line of operating systems that stretches
backwards through Windows 95 and 3.1 with roots in 1981’s MS-DOS.
Windows
2000 and XP are part of a different family tree, evolving from Windows
NT, Microsoft’s “New Technology” of the mid-1990s.
It
takes extra work for software developers to build in support for both
Windows families. Recent versions of Microsoft products like Office
will no longer install onto computers running Windows 98 or ME. While
some may see that as part of a grand conspiracy by Microsoft to force
users to update to newer Windows versions, third party software ranging
from the latest Word Perfect to Apple’s iTunes to Google Earth also
demand Windows 2000 or better.
Ironically
though, the hacker community is also starting to ignore Windows 98 and
its ilk. Recent security vulnerabilities have also tended to affect
Windows 2000 and XP systems.
If
your tried and true older Windows system is getting the job done,
Microsoft’s July 11 deadline is no reason to rush out and replace it.
If
it’s being used online, it probably should be protected behind a
firewall, but you should be doing that anyway – even if you’re running
a newer, more up-to-date system.