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Why Windows 98 will not die (sooner)?

News Type: Opinion — Fri Jun 16, 2006 10:49 AM EDT

Live Poll

Windows 98 & You

  • Not seen a machine running it in recent times
    50%
  • Use it occasionally (not on my machine)
    30%
  • My other machine runs it.
    20%
  • My only machine runs it.
    0%

Total Votes: 10

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Despite the decision from Microsoft to end support, Windows 98 (family) is not going to be out of existence sooner, at least in the developing countries.

Microsoft is going to end support for Windows 98, Windows 98 Second Edition, and Windows Me from July 11, 2006 as part of their Product Life Cycle Policy. This means that there will no longer be any technical support (including security updates) from Microsoft for those operating systems. This is probably no news for many of us because most of the computers in the world today are not run on the above operating systems. But, there are still many users in the developing countries.

What can Windows 98 users do?

Upgrade or Switch

There are possibly two other options available for Windows 98 users. One, upgrade to Windows XP or Vista (when it is out). Two, switch to Linux. However, both these options are not so feasible.

The major reason why people will not upgrade to Windows XP or Vista is the cost of upgrade (both software and hardware). Most of the computers that currently run on Windows 98 are not suitable to upgrade to XP.

The second option (switching to Linux) is not feasible for two reasons: hardware upgradation and general attitude towards Linux among computer users that are not so tech-savvy. (Some do not even know what is Linux, or for that matter what is an OS.) Hardware upgradation is not a problem if one chooses a Linux distro is like Xubuntu.

Stay with Windows 98

Those who still decide (for whatever reason) to stay on Windows 98 can do so at their own risk. (However, if their machines became spambots, we all will affect.) However, there does not seem to be any announcements (at least to my knowledge) from software makers that they stop support for Windows 98 family. (Did you hear anything from anti-virus companies, yet?)

This will also be interesting from the perspective of software and web service providers. There is only one tough decision they have to make: Should they support Windows 98 or not? This decision has the following outcomes: If they choose to support, how much additional development effort will it take? If they choose not to support, how much market (or, revenue) they would lose?

Other Voices: The late '98, by Gervase Markham, of Mozilla Foundation, on Times Online.

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{"commentId":165406,"authorDomain":"sieb"}
sieb

A decade later, I believe it is time 9x died, you can't support everything forever. Legacy support is the Achilles heel of Windows. XP machines can be found on the cheap nowadays so there is no real excuse to not upgrade.

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    Reply#1 - Sat Jun 17, 2006 3:29 AM EDT
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