OS support

[Jgedeon]

Just want to hear everyone's thoughts on something. How important do you think OS support is from the manufacturer. Do you think we would see a big impact if in 6-8 weeks MS say's that they are no longer supporting win98se and win2k?

[BipolarBill]

As long as they have the KB, who needs their phone support? Why do you think that we are here?

[Jgedeon]

I know that, but what about drivers for new things.. IE scanners,printers, games, video cards... I know not many people are running windoz 95. But there are still alot running 98...

[BipolarBill]

Win2K is still being rolled out in the enterprise - it won't be retired anytime soon.

Win98? It doesn't matter really - everyone will be upgrading to Win2K/XP within two years for the stabilty.

[Jgedeon]

Originally posted by BipolarBill
Win2K is still being rolled out in the enterprise - it won't be retired anytime soon.

Win98? It doesn't matter really - everyone will be upgrading to Win2K/XP within two years for the stabilty.



I can't go into detail.. But let's just put this as a what if....

[BipolarBill]

OK - what do I think? I think that it doesn't matter because when MS says that they are withdrawing support, it doesn't mean that downloads won't be available. They still are - for Win 3.1 if you like. Take a look for yourself. It just means that active human support is gone. Windows Update will still be available.

[fasttoon]

Hey Jgedeon,

Relax, while there are no official support, there is still support out there and while a lot of mfg will state no win98 suport, unofficially they will point you to winme drivers and support which should work 99% of the time. Same with win2k a lot of other drivers and issues with win9x/winxp will work with win2k, I use a lot of winxp drivers with win2k and no problems.

Heres how it works in a nutshell win95, win98, winme are all alike in how the os is put together, most drivers can work on all of these os, tweaks, tips, hardware should work on all of them most of the time, there may be certain hardware/tips/tweaks that will not work on certain win9x but for the most part whatever works on win98 will work on winme and visa versa.

Winnt, win2k, winxp also work on the same premise and the same holds true in most cases, I have used winnt drivers in a pinch to get it working on win2k, then upgrade the drivers to win2k/winxp afterwards.

There are lots of forums devoted specifically to a particular os and/or hardware, so for the next 5 years (at least I hope) there will be someone out there that should be able to give advice.

Hope that allays your concern.

[Jgedeon]

It's not really my concern, it's not even my money.. It just p@@@es me off when MS sends a memo the higher ups in the company and they start thing that every dang computer has to be updated to XP since it's the only thing MS will support. And then Applied tells the smaller companies the same thing.. You get alot of users in a panic to get the latest and greatest (?).. I think it is a 100% marketing scam. I think it 's safe to say that this was posted here basically to blow off some steam. But now I can't complain. Once a small company hears all the stories of XP they all the sudden want to get legal on all their software.. Yes I made a good bit of change from it. I still am trying to get the letter that was sent but so far can't even get a copy of it. Have seen it but just can't get a copy of it.. The way everything is worded on it makes it seem like upgrading to the newest is a must do. It's amazing the amount of money people spend at MS's whim....