How dangerous is it to have Win98 as your OS?

[Navid]

Either, I have to get a new laptop for my MOM, which will come with Vista on it, or let her continue to use her Win98 desktop, which she is happy with.

She only uses it to email.

Considering that there are no more updates to Win98, I feel that is very unsafe as far as security goes. Am I right?

Getting a laptop costs some money. I will do it. I just want to make sure I am not missing anything. Is it true that Win98 is not safe anymore?

Please do not tell me that Win98 has bugs or has memory leak or is not user-friendly or .....
She does not care about any of that for just emailing!

 

[Schadenfroh]

Is it true that Win98 is not safe anymore?

Well, on the plus side she will be immune to any worm that spreads using Windows NT based exploits. But yeh, it is a security risk. Set Vista to the classic mode theme and let her adapt, it should be close enough for comfort. Also, I am not sure if Windows 98 has a limited user account ability, which is another security risk (her running as admin).

 

[stash]

The lack of updates is only one reason why 98 is an extremely dangerous OS to use. There is no way to not run as an administrator, so everything she runs will be run with the highest privilege. The newer, more secure email apps probably won't run on 98, which will open her up to huge vulnerabilities.

Email is one of the biggest avenues of attack these days, so saying she will use the machine "only for email" understates the risk involved.

This is a no brainer, she should use Vista.

 

[Arkaign]

I have a number of customers in the area still on 98se, and they have very little trouble, even just using the free AVG antivirus software. There has been a significant reduction in 'in the wild' threats that target the 9x series. You almost never (it's been years for me) see ancient viruses out there (eg; Klez) that affect 98. Of course, spyware is a different story, and pretty much anything that will affect IE will happily jump on all over that 98 box.

If she's still happy with 98, and hasn't run into any significant problems, I'd hold off, save $$ until the thing finally dies. Just show her how to back up her docs and emails in the meantime. It's really easy in Outlook Express or Outlook, either by backing up the .wab, and the appropriate folders, or by exporting to a .pst in Outlook. Also make a note of all server settings/ports/username/password and keep it somewhere safe, because you will need this either to reload, or to move her stuff to Vista.

Vista is fine, but it'd be silly to spend all that money if she's still happily typing away with what she's got.

BIG CAVEAT : If she does *ANY* kind of online bill pay, banking, or anything she is concerned about the privacy of, go ahead and take her to Vista.

 

[Noema]

My parent's have an ancient laptop (PIII@600MHz; 64MB of RAM, now running Linux, thank God) with Win98SE. It used to be infested with virii and spyware, so I did a clean install of Win98SE with the recovery disk and then used as much security as I could: NAT router, software firewall, Avir, Firefox and Thunderbird. They used for over a year after that and they had no problems whatsoever. They now run XP SP2 on what used to be my main rig, since I gave it to them when I build myself a C2D rig.

Now, I'm not saying Win98SE is the best choice. I'd avoid it if possible. But in this case, they were really broke and couldn't afford something better, and newer versions of Windows wouldn't have run on such old hardware. So Win98SE, with the right security measures, isn't necessarily a death trap and can be functional on older machines as long as the user has been 'trained' to not commit the foolish mistakes end up compromising security. In the end it's the user, not the OS, which determines this.

However, if you have the possibility of moving to newer hardware with a newer, more stable and secure OS, don't hesitate: do it as soon as possible.

 

[Smilin]

Very.

 

[lxskllr]

I really like the Linux idea in this case. As long as you don't have troublesome hardware, Linux is very easy to setup and use. If it really is email only, you shouldn't have any support calls to worry about, and even if you aren't familiar with Linux, you should be able to get email setup in a couple of hours(worst case scenario). If she's using 56k, or wireless that could be a problem. You'll have to check out the actual hardware on the web to see if there's support for it.

 

[stash]

So Win98SE, with the right security measures, isn't necessarily a death trap and can be functional on older machines as long as the user has been 'trained' to not commit the foolish mistakes end up compromising security. In the end it's the user, not the OS, which determines this.

98 is much more prone to drive-by attacks, where the user doesn't have to do anything. And since the user can only run as admin, they will be owned before they know what hits them. Firewalls won't help here, AV might. But it's a big risk to take.

 

[Canterwood]

I would say get one of the Linux distributions and install it on ther old laptop, especially if its just for email and web browsing.

Much more stable than Win98, wouldn't be as vulnerable to attack and would save a load of money being wasted on a new laptop.

 

[bsobel]

Originally posted by: Navid
Either, I have to get a new laptop for my MOM, which will come with Vista on it, or let her continue to use her Win98 desktop, which she is happy with.

She only uses it to email.

Considering that there are no more updates to Win98, I feel that is very unsafe as far as security goes. Am I right?

Getting a laptop costs some money. I will do it. I just want to make sure I am not missing anything. Is it true that Win98 is not safe anymore?

Please do not tell me that Win98 has bugs or has memory leak or is not user-friendly or .....
She does not care about any of that for just emailing!

At some point it will probably be time to update. When you do you can use her current machine in a VirtualPC to help migrate her over.

 

[hans007]

win 98 doesnt support a lot of calls in visual c++ anyway that all the NT variants use. so I suppose in a way that makes it safer since most people have moved on to NT based OSes and malware writers wont bother with 98 since some programs wont even run depending on if you make a call that is NT specific and its just not worth the hassle to write a 98 specific thing.


just buy a router and block all the ports besides the ones you need and i think you'd be ok.

 

[bsobel]

Just buy a router and block all the ports besides the ones you need and i think you'd be ok.

His mom's bigger thread is going to be from email born attacks and phishing (not that the router is a bad idea, but lets not suggest that network attacks are her primary concern...)

 

[Smilin]

I think everyone should stop waffling around on this. It's a really bad idea to run Windows 98 these days.

It's not a matter of "will she get a virus/malware/spyware/rootkit, personal information stolen, or computer turned into a zombie?". It's a matter of when and how bad.

Many people on this board could run Win98 and with the right precautions probably be just fine. I wouldn't trust my mom to do the same.

 

[tcsenter]

I would seriously question whether Win98 is even going to install/run worth a hoot on any laptop manufactured within the past two years, due to the majority of hardware vendors retiring all driver and BIOS support for 9x a full two years ago. A refurbed or used laptop of 2003~2004 vintage *might* have a BIOS that received some miminal testing with Win98 and should have drivers for the hardware.

What about Windows XP? XP can be made to look and feel even more Win98-ish than Vista by using the Classic desktop, start menu, folder options, and the like. And XP would be much better performance wise if you were planning to get an affordable laptop that might be lacking a bit in CPU, RAM, and GPU power, in addition to refined driver support.

But supposing the laptop will run it, 98SE with all the patches running FireFox (not MSIE!) and a good antivirus/firewall solution would be fairly safe as long as your Mum is informed enough to take basic precautions (e.g. not opening suspect unsolicited file attachments, not installing the free Coupon Saver or Weather Tracker adware/spyware programs, et. al.).

You can get all the 98/SE updates and patches from a single 'autopatcher' style updater:

UNOFFICIAL Windows98 Second Edition Service Pack

 

[bsobel]

Originally posted by: tcsenter
I would seriously question whether Win98 is even going to install/run worth a hoot on any laptop manufactured within the past two years, due to the majority of hardware vendors retiring all driver and BIOS support for 9x a full two years ago. A refurbed or used laptop of 2003~2004 vintage *might* have a BIOS that received some miminal testing with Win98 and should have drivers for the hardware.

He said "Either, I have to get a new laptop for my MOM, which will come with Vista on it, or let her continue to use her Win98 desktop, which she is happy with"

I dont think he wanted to install 98 on the new laptop....

 

[tcsenter]

Originally posted by: bsobel
I dont think he wanted to install 98 on the new laptop....

lol...whoops. Thanks for the clarification. My recommendation still applies to running Win98 on a desktop PC, though.

But supposing the PC will run it, 98SE with all the patches running FireFox (not MSIE!) and a good antivirus/firewall solution would be fairly safe as long as your Mum is informed enough to take basic precautions (e.g. not opening suspect unsolicited file attachments, not installing the free Coupon Saver or Weather Tracker adware/spyware programs, et. al.).

 

[Navid]

Thanks guys for all the tips. I needed to make sure I was not overdoing it. I was already thinking seriously about Vista.

I got this laptop, which came with Vista home premium, which I am typing this from right now.
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfr...roduct=3379120&lang=en

Thanks again

 

[Brazen]

You coulda just saved her money and slammed Xubuntu down on it. Just using email would be almost the exact same experience to the user, and would have been a snap to setup.