Business reasons aside(and yes I know that throws reality out the door thank you) I agree with Link, Win9x support should have been cut off long ago.
The 9x family is a complete and utter POS, always way and always will be.
WinNT 4 is still a fine OS in many ways, though there are of course better options.
Win9x is not.
The 9x family is a complete and utter POS, always way and always will be.
WinNT 4 is still a fine OS in many ways, though there are of course better options.
Win9x is not.
Jeff7
Lifer
- Jan 4, 2001
- 41,596
- 20
- 81
Remember too that the users of this forum aren't your typical computer users. We tend to like quick, responsive systems, and if it's not the way we want it, it gets tweaked until it is. In my experience, your average user just accepts the system the way it is, because anything they do seems to either not work right, or else mess up something. So they really don't try anything wild - like seeing what the right mouse button does. Or double-clicking on the clock in the taskbar. They don't need speed, because most of what they do doesn't require a CPU over 1GHz. A 500MHz PC, but with 256MB+ of RAM, and a 7200rpm hard drive, can be made to be fast and responsive, even on Win98.
Right Jeff7. I didn't mean to imply that a fast CPU and lots of RAM are needed to run Win 98. On my dual boot system, my hardware specs are really geared toward what I want for Win XP, not Win 98. Heck, I still have an old 200 MHz Pentium with 128MB of RAM and a 7200 rpm HD, with Win 98SE on it. Starts up in about a minute and a half. Word 97 and Excel 97 only take about 2 seconds to launch on it.
Just a few months ago, I finally got rid of a 100 MHz 486 with 36MB of RAM, with Win 95. I made some upgrades to it back in 2000 for a student whose family had no computer of their own. He used it through 3 school years (00-01, 01-02, and 02-03, or grades 7, 8, and 9). Had Office 97 installed so that he would have a decent word processor for school papers. I also found 3 encyclopedias that would run on it; as I recall, they were Encarta 99, Groliers (or was it Colliers) Encyclopedia 2000, and World Book Encyclopedia 2000. Also installed a talking dictionary. Sure, it was a slow machine, but it served him well for school papers.
Quoted by Rob Pegoraro in the WP on 2/27/05: " The research firm IDC estimates that of the roughly 514 million paid-for copies of Windows on desktops and laptops worldwide at the end of 2004, almost 21 percent were the aging Win 95, 98 and Millennium Edition releases. Among the 19 million Mac OS desktop and laptop installations IDC surveyed, just about half were running releases predating Mac OS X."
At work I have 20 PCs running everything from W95,98,ME,NT3.5,NT4,2000Pro to XP, and the reason is they run other software costing 000's$, which would have to be upgraded if we switch OSs. At home, I have 3PCs running win98, Win98SE and they are 2+Mhz processors with good video cards, 512 Mb mem etc and so ATI and NVidia support is valuable to me.
At work I have 20 PCs running everything from W95,98,ME,NT3.5,NT4,2000Pro to XP, and the reason is they run other software costing 000's$, which would have to be upgraded if we switch OSs. At home, I have 3PCs running win98, Win98SE and they are 2+Mhz processors with good video cards, 512 Mb mem etc and so ATI and NVidia support is valuable to me.
How good are the video cards. I mean why would you want to use a high end video card in a high end system and run such an awful POS OS on it? I mean lets face it. Windows 98/ME are absolutely awful POS operating systems. Windows 95/98/ME are the laughing stock of all 32-bit operating systems. I mean Windows 98/ME are completely different platforms than Windows 2000/XP. Why should developers continued to be forced with the hassle of supporting such POS operating systems in addition to quality operating systems. I mean the Windows world should be anything only based off NT thse days. Why doesn't Microsoft just cease support for Windows 98/ME all together, and offer all home PC users who have Windows 98 or ME a free upgrade to Windows XP? Heck it probably costs more money for Microsoft to continue and support POS Windows 98/ME than it would for them to just ditch support completely for those POS operating systems and offer all Windows 98/ME users a free upgrade to Windows XP. It would also save the whole IT industry a lot of money too.
You own a company. Your company has been doing business since the early 1980's. All your company data and customer history is stored in a DOS based accounting software. To pull the data out of this DOS program is going to cost you $10,000 from the software company - because that's the price they demand. Do you (A) spend $10,000+ to upgrade to WinXP, or (B) hope Win98 stays around for a good while longer?
Link19, you ever going to open your eyes to what is actually going on in the real world? It's called backwards compatibility, and NT ditched that.
I work with a company that has a mission critical machine running Windows 3.1.
Buying a new PC that runs XP would be a relatively minor expense - maybe $1,000 or so.
Buying the neccesary production software and up-to-date machinery would cost a small fortune for that company - money they don't have allocated for such a project. Obviously, there is virtually no support for that hardware or software. All I can do is give gentle reminders that at very least they need a quote and deployment tiemframe for a new system in case of catastrophic failure.
I have another client that runs some 12+ year old DOS/Novell monstrosity. Again, buying the new client PCs is nothing pricewise compared with other aspects of the eventual upgrade like data migration and the like.
If these companies had large budgets and could afford a siginificant interuption in business continuity, then sure, they should actively retire the old in favor of what is presumably better/faster/more efficient. But that scenario is a fantasy in the business world.
Buying a new PC that runs XP would be a relatively minor expense - maybe $1,000 or so.
Buying the neccesary production software and up-to-date machinery would cost a small fortune for that company - money they don't have allocated for such a project. Obviously, there is virtually no support for that hardware or software. All I can do is give gentle reminders that at very least they need a quote and deployment tiemframe for a new system in case of catastrophic failure.
I have another client that runs some 12+ year old DOS/Novell monstrosity. Again, buying the new client PCs is nothing pricewise compared with other aspects of the eventual upgrade like data migration and the like.
If these companies had large budgets and could afford a siginificant interuption in business continuity, then sure, they should actively retire the old in favor of what is presumably better/faster/more efficient. But that scenario is a fantasy in the business world.
Schadenfroh
Elite Member
- Mar 8, 2003
- 38,416
- 4
- 0
I just built my new comp a few months ago.. Before that I was using my 700 pentium 3 w/256 ram and windows 98 that I built back in 2000. It ran better than most of my friends computers that they just bought. I'll never knock on 98, but ME is a different story. Why at OS came out is still a mystery to me. As soon as I installed XP Pro on my machine, I had to change it back to classic windows look. Then I went to SuSe Linux and wondered why I didn't make the change to Linux a long time ago...
As for Windows 95...no computers using it at home or at work. I haven't seen any in a while. I remember the old Packard Bell days w/the 133 pentium and win95.
As for Windows 95...no computers using it at home or at work. I haven't seen any in a while. I remember the old Packard Bell days w/the 133 pentium and win95.
Trick question! Trick question!
And the correct answer is:
C, none of the above.
You run the program in a virtual machine either using MSDOS or FreeDOS on a Linux server somewere, then you hire somebody to rewrite the program in Java/C#/Mono/.NET/python/whatever and then you run away screaming/laughing/crying from the unstable and untrustworthy horror that is Windows 9x. Also you fire whoever made the decision to get the company depending on a peice of software that requires such things, if you haven't already.
[q=drag]Trick question! Trick question!
And the correct answer is:
C, none of the above.
You run the program in a virtual machine either using MSDOS or FreeDOS on a Linux server somewere, then you hire somebody to rewrite the program in Java/C#/Mono/.NET/python/whatever and then you run away screaming/laughing/crying from the unstable and untrustworthy horror that is Windows 9x. Also you fire whoever made the decision to get the company depending on a peice of software that requires such things, if you haven't already.
[/quote]
Exactly!! Therefore Windows 95/98/ME should have been ditched all together 3 years ago!! Windows 95/98/ME should have never been made and domainted the desktop OS market!!! Insead, OS/2 should have been the primary OS for 32-bit computing when it went mainstream in the homes 9 years ago. OS/2 WARP 3 and 4 were based on real 32-bit code, had superior and effiecient memory management techniques, and were very stable, reliable, and flexible!! And OS/2 had great backwards compatibility with DOS and 16-bit Windows programs even though it had no real DOS in it. OS/2 was a superior OS to any version of Windows. The only reason everyone used Windows is because of Microsoft's superior marketting strategy and everyone who knew nothing about computers believed that WIndows was the only OS that had an easy to use click and point interface. So WIndows became the dominate OS, and OS/2 didn't have a chance even though WIndows was by far an inferior OS compared to OS/2 WARP. And Microsoft's own creation of a real 32-bit OS (Windows NT) wasn't ready or able to be made easy enoughg or compatible enough with legacy programs and hardware back then for the home user. So Microsoft decides to build a fake 32-bit OS basdicallyt just a GUI with 32-bit extensions ontop of a DOS shell for the home computer market. That is the only reason why we ever had to deal with such POS non-real fake 32-bit multi tasking operating systems!! For someone to say those operating systems were ok back in their heyday, I don't think they were ever ok even in their heydays considering that there was already a real 32-bit OS in OS/2 WARP that was ready for prime time and had great backwards compatibility with legacy programs and DOS, but just got defeated by pure marketting power and anti-competitive practices by Microsoft. Therefore, we should have never had to put up with suc POS operating systems in Windows 95/98/ME!! If only Microsoft didn't form a dominating monopoly in the desktop OS market!
And the correct answer is:
C, none of the above.
You run the program in a virtual machine either using MSDOS or FreeDOS on a Linux server somewere, then you hire somebody to rewrite the program in Java/C#/Mono/.NET/python/whatever and then you run away screaming/laughing/crying from the unstable and untrustworthy horror that is Windows 9x. Also you fire whoever made the decision to get the company depending on a peice of software that requires such things, if you haven't already.
[/quote]
Exactly!! Therefore Windows 95/98/ME should have been ditched all together 3 years ago!! Windows 95/98/ME should have never been made and domainted the desktop OS market!!! Insead, OS/2 should have been the primary OS for 32-bit computing when it went mainstream in the homes 9 years ago. OS/2 WARP 3 and 4 were based on real 32-bit code, had superior and effiecient memory management techniques, and were very stable, reliable, and flexible!! And OS/2 had great backwards compatibility with DOS and 16-bit Windows programs even though it had no real DOS in it. OS/2 was a superior OS to any version of Windows. The only reason everyone used Windows is because of Microsoft's superior marketting strategy and everyone who knew nothing about computers believed that WIndows was the only OS that had an easy to use click and point interface. So WIndows became the dominate OS, and OS/2 didn't have a chance even though WIndows was by far an inferior OS compared to OS/2 WARP. And Microsoft's own creation of a real 32-bit OS (Windows NT) wasn't ready or able to be made easy enoughg or compatible enough with legacy programs and hardware back then for the home user. So Microsoft decides to build a fake 32-bit OS basdicallyt just a GUI with 32-bit extensions ontop of a DOS shell for the home computer market. That is the only reason why we ever had to deal with such POS non-real fake 32-bit multi tasking operating systems!! For someone to say those operating systems were ok back in their heyday, I don't think they were ever ok even in their heydays considering that there was already a real 32-bit OS in OS/2 WARP that was ready for prime time and had great backwards compatibility with legacy programs and DOS, but just got defeated by pure marketting power and anti-competitive practices by Microsoft. Therefore, we should have never had to put up with suc POS operating systems in Windows 95/98/ME!! If only Microsoft didn't form a dominating monopoly in the desktop OS market!
No, I won't be saying that. Windows 95/98/ME have always been a POS ever since they've existed. Windows ME has been out for less than 5 years where as Windows 2000 has already been out for 5 years. Windows NT 4.0 is almost 9 years old. I don't think Windows NT 4.0 is a POS. See, my decision isn't made based on the age of the OS. It's based on the type of OS it is. I still think Windows NT is a fine OS in many ways, but it is so old and outdated that it probably can't be supported anymore, although Windows NT should still be supported more than POS Windows 9X. However, Windows 2000 is much more modern even though it is 5 years old, and still is a quality OS that is respectable even to this day and should continue to be supported for a long time.
What I meant was computers running Windows 98 or ME as their one and only OS. The difference is, you still have Windows XP as well on your rig. I don't think there are many computers out there with CPUs faster than 600MHz that run WIndows 98 or ME as their primary and only OS. The only reason to support Windows 98/ME on modern hardware is so you can run legacy apps that flat out don't work in Windows 2000/XP. But the modern hardware chipset drivers and video card drivers for Windows 98/ME should just be made so they just provide enough funtionality and work with the OS only in legacy mode for legacy support on programs. For instance, video card drivers for the latest NVIDIA and ATI chipsets should make Windows 98/ME think the video card is a much older card and run a lot slower speeds with just enough functionality to run legacy DOS and Windows programs. But any programs or games that are resource intensive (require 1GHz or faster CPU) should ditch support for Windows 98/ME all together.
[cough] Bullshit [/cough]. I have to use that piece o' crap everyday on one machine at work.. As someone who started with Mac OS and then later went to Windows, When this crap showed up at our door (It was the only OS available to run the specific program we have), I barfed.. And I'm still barfing today. Yes, I've tried running OS/2 in Virtual machine and with little luck. It likes to break and $hit on itself real easy.
What version of OS/2 is it? The original version was terrible. But ever since version 2, OS/2 has been a very good OS. Any operating system can $hit on itself real easily if it's not set up proeperly or has unstable drivers or bad hardware. OS/2 WARP 3 and 4 were very stable operating systems when run on stable hardware with stable drivers. The problem with OS/2 is it never had much software made for it because there was never a market for it, even though it was an excellent OS. I have used it before and it was rock solid and stable. Even Windows XP can $hit on itself all the time if there is bad hardware, drivers, or corrupted OS files. But Windows 2000/XP, OS/2, and Linux should all be very stable and reliable if they are setup properly. WIndows 98/ME are NOT no matter how stable your drivers or hardware is.
WARP Version 3, Set up properly, Still a pile.. Give me OS9 or Win98 over it anyday. I've been using it for years now, This IS just my opinion. You may like it, I do not.
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