MS chooses to leave critical security hole unfixed.

[piratePenguin]

I doubt they planned for a security fix to be impossible to add without breaking the system even more. Given that, I would have dropped support for this particular patch as well.

They should always plan for that (and reduce the time they say they'll support stuff for in future).

[xyle_one]

They should always plan for that (and reduce the time they say they'll support stuff for in future).

Yeah, sure. Plan for every conceivable exploit and bug that could possibly come into existence. That is totally feasible :rolleyes:

[piratePenguin]

Yeah, sure. Plan for every conceivable exploit and bug that could possibly come into existence. That is totally feasible :rolleyes:

Well look what fucking happened! They broke their promise.

Don't make promises you can't keep. It would've made more sense for them to say "We'll try and support this for X years but if something crops up that we can't fix w/o breaking other stuff coming towards the end of X years, we won't fix it and we'll end support early" - or so. Afterall, this is obviously what they were thinking - it's just not what they promised (and I see exactly why they didn't say it).

[mobrien_12]

I paid for Win98.  I paid for it, they OWE me for their support lifecycle.

[Pathos]

...hmmmm, commercial businesses can't support products forever.

Sure you paid for Win98 but did you pay directly for eternal support ?

When I buy a motorbike the company only manufactures a finite number of spare parts that they charge for. When those have run out too bad.

Redhat will do the same thing.

I would never recommend anyone in this day and age to have a non nt based version of windows connected to the net.

[Jack2000]

"you better upgrade. To XP."
wtf did i see correct are we telling people to swich to xp !
wtf man Xp is part of the stupid NT family not the 9* one !
and another thing i do not need updates and i do not care about support
i can support my own system !
i want them to abondon it like abondonware
and get on with it
... not that i am going to follow them into a new os ...

[piratePenguin]

...hmmmm, commercial businesses can't support products forever.

Sure you paid for Win98 but did you pay directly for eternal support ?

When I buy a motorbike the company only manufactures a finite number of spare parts that they charge for. When those have run out too bad.

Redhat will do the same thing.

I would never recommend anyone in this day and age to have a non nt based version of windows connected to the net.

MS didn't say "We'll support it until we run out of resources" (they'd be supporting it forever if that was the case), they said "We'll support it until July 11th 2006" (this was in 2001 IIRC - they announced "extended" support, support was supposed to end in 2002 IIRC) which they didn't do.

I have no idea about Red Hat, but the Ubuntu people say they'll support 6.06 for 5 years, they said they'd do it and now they better fecking do it. They better be prepared to fix critical things after 4 years 11 months (and fix the things that breaks), because they've said they will.

[worker201]

When I buy a motorbike the company only manufactures a finite number of spare parts that they charge for. When those have run out too bad.

That's a bad arguement.  Because 1), the manufacturer licenses other companies to make OEM spare parts so that they don't have to, 2), there's nothing contractually illegal about making your own spare parts, if you have the know-how, 3), one patch can be applied to an infinite number of computers at pretty much zero marginal cost - you don't have to maintain a warehouse containing enough patches to meet demand, and 4), the manufacturer made no guarantee beyond the factory warranty, and doesn't give a crap what happens to your car after that, except in cases of defect/recall.


PiratePenguin is right - they said they would support it, and backed down.  That's Microsoft's only real crime here.  Unless you consider the general upgrade cycle to be a crime.  Personally, I think planned obsolescence is criminal.

 [OFFTOPIC]This reminds me about my trip to Ecuador.  I was surprised how many ancient computers they had there.  On the ship, there was a tractor-feed dot matrix printer that must have been at least 20 years old, still printing away like it was brand new.  See, the prices of computer hardware have not been as artificially lowered in other countries as they have been in the US.  Here in the States, it is ALWAYS cheaper and more cost effective to just get a new one when the old one breaks.  Getting a replacement OEM motherboard from the manufacturer is always more expensive than getting a new computer.  Not so in the rest of the world.  If the hardware is broken, they fix it.  There are people on street corners who sit with toolsets and fix anything you bring them.  That's why 10-50 year old electronics are still being used over there.

Now, many of those people just don't have the processor strength to run WindowsXP.  Hell, some of them can't even run Windows95!  What will become of them when support for Windows98 is ended?  Are you going down there to teach everyone how to use Linux?  Are you going to install FC5 on their 75MHz PCs so they can run OpenOffice instead of Word?

Just something to think about.  It's easier to argue against support when you don't need it.[/OFFTOPIC]