MS Windows '98?? . . . support grinds to a halt - SOON!

[TheSlashFiveTourer]

Users of the Windows 98 platform - LISTEN UP!

"END OF SUPPORT FOR WINDOWS 98 AND WINDOWS ME"

Microsoft is soon to cease support for WINDOWS 98 (http://www.microsoft.com/windows/support/endofsupport.mspx) and Windows ME. :cry
Time to upgrade to XP I guess - or buy an Apple.

[RTRandy]

You got that right. :) :)

[BubbaZanetti]

Microsoft is soon to cease support for WINDOWS 98


this would be like bmw ending support for the /5 :D

[riderR1150GSAdv]

this would be like bmw ending support for the /5 :D

Now THAT would be bad.. :uhoh

[kbasa]

98? Let it die. A move to W2K or XP is a good thing. The blue screen of death will cease to be a regular occurrence.

[Mar]

98? Let it die. The blue screen of death will cease to be a regular occurrence.

We still have Windows 98 on our home desktop and it rarely crashes. Dunno why. Just lucky I guess. These days my husband and I mostly use our laptops instead of the desktop but the desktop saw a lot of use in the past.

[BradfordBenn]

There is always Linux... I turned a Windoze ME box into a Fedora Core 4 box and it works much better.

[The_Veg]

How much actual support do you need? I ran 98 for ages without any problem that needed MicroShaft's help or ontervention. I've had far less reliability with XP.

[Montana]

(With apologies to ABBA):

No more carefree laughter
Silence ever after
Surfing through an empty disk, tears in my eyes
Here is where the story ends, this is goodbye

Windows ME, Ninety-eight too (ah-haa)
There is nothing we can do
Windows ME, Ninety-eight too (ah-haa)
We just have to face it, this time we’re through
(this time we’re through, this time we’re through
This time we’re through, we’re really through)
Breaking up is never easy, I know but you have to go
(You have to go this time
You have to go, this time I know)
Windows ME, leaving you
Is not the worst I can do

Mem’ries (mem’ries), good days (good days), bad days (bad days)
They’ll be (they’ll be), with me (with me) always (always)
In these old familiar screens icons would play
Now there’s only emptiness, nothing to display

Windows ME, Ninety-eight too (ah-haa)
There is nothing we can do
Windows ME, Ninety-eight too (ah-haa)
We just have to face it, this time we’re through
(this time we’re through, this time we’re through
This time we’re through, we’re really through)
Breaking up is never easy, I know but you have to go
(You have to go this time
You have to go, this time I know)
Knowing me, not knowing you
Is the best I can do

[TheSlashFiveTourer]

(With apologies to ABBA):

No more carefree laughter
Silence ever after
Surfing through an empty disk, tears in my eyes
Here is where the story ends, this is goodbye

Windows ME, Ninety-eight too (ah-haa)
There is nothing we can do
Windows ME, Ninety-eight too (ah-haa)
We just have to face it, this time we’re through
(this time we’re through, this time we’re through
This time we’re through, we’re really through)
Breaking up is never easy, I know but you have to go
(You have to go this time
You have to go, this time I know)
Windows ME, leaving you
Is not the worst I can do

Mem’ries (mem’ries), good days (good days), bad days (bad days)
They’ll be (they’ll be), with me (with me) always (always)
In these old familiar screens icons would play
Now there’s only emptiness, nothing to display

Windows ME, Ninety-eight too (ah-haa)
There is nothing we can do
Windows ME, Ninety-eight too (ah-haa)
We just have to face it, this time we’re through
(this time we’re through, this time we’re through
This time we’re through, we’re really through)
Breaking up is never easy, I know but you have to go
(You have to go this time
You have to go, this time I know)
Knowing me, not knowing you
Is the best I can do

MAMMA MIA, MONTANA!
Nicely done. . . nicely done! :thumb

Windows '98 aside for the moment, can you believe that ABBA turned down an offer of ONE BILLION DOLLARS for a comeback tour? Saw that on a documentary and fell clear out of my rocker when I heard the figure from Frida Lyngstad. A BILLION with a "B"!

MAMMA MIA! :twirl

[DarrylRi]

Alas...

I'm guessing that there's just about none of my code left running in the current releases of the OS. My team did the Network Control Panel for Win 95, network plug and play, and the network install and upgrade. My plug and play design does live on, but not the code we wrote for it.

In Win 98, I wrote the USB support for keyboards and joysticks. Maybe a bit of that code still exists in XP. The joystick code was completely device independent, but most manufacturers have their own driver. I doubt that code, if it's still in the release, gets executed much.

But you should all be happy to get away at last from the curse of the VxDs. Those VxDs kept a lot of stuff from the DOS days running, but was a nightmare for testing and compatibility. Any random 3rd party could find a possibly good spot to hook the machine code in a VxD and rearrange how things worked; if you touched the code - to fix a bug or add a feature - who knew what might break, out in the real world? The keyboard code, in particular, was verboten to mess around with, because it was so routinely hooked. Still, it had to change somewhat for USB keyboard support.

I recall that 6 months before the release of Win95, Dave Cutler drove around to every store in Seattle that sold software, and bought every distinct title he could find. Then he brought them back to Building 5 and distributed them and told everyone to try them out and find any problems. This is not the engineering way to test compatibility, but it was the only practical way in those bad, old days.