Prompt's TechBlog
Windows 98 dies, leaving 70 million potential zombies on the internet
11 July 2006
Posted by Sean McManus
As of today, Windows 98 is no longer supported. If it breaks, you can't get Microsoft's help fixing it. Even if new viruses attack the platform, Microsoft won't issue any new security fixes or patches. It is an ex-platform. It has ceased to be.
For many users, that couldn't be further from the truth, of course. According to the BBC, there are still 70 million people using Windows 98. Most of them will be pottering along quite happily - Windows 98 is a big improvement on 95's stability and only differs from Windows XP in the details.
Microsoft is advising Windows 98 users to upgrade to a more secure operating system, such as XP. This seems an odd strategy, given that XP is due to be superseded when Vista eventually comes out next year. If people have waited this long to upgrade, they're likely to wait another year to upgrade or not bother. It's also going to be hard to persuade people to spend about £90 to replace something familiar that already fits their needs adequately.
A shift to Linux also seems highly unlikely, given that people using Windows 98 are on the whole unlikely to be at the cutting edge of technology.
So the likely outcome of Windows 98 reaching the end of its supported life is that we'll have tens of millions of unsupported PCs connected to the internet.
The BBC reports that there is a team of Russian hackers that specialises in creating malware for Windows 98. If there are no official security patches being issued, Windows 98 users will be sitting ducks. As they are increasingly exploited by spammers, the whole internet will suffer.
There are several possible solutions for this. Microsoft might be pressured into responding to the biggest threats (that seems highly likely). Third-party patches might become the norm - 70 million users is a massive market for a software startup to address. Or, the vulnerabilities could go unpatched, leaving Windows 98 users exposed and everyone else bearing the brunt of the resulting spam and malware.
Clearly we shouldn't expect software companies to support products forever. It would have been more responsible, though, for Microsoft to wait until there was a smooth migration path to Vista before dumping 98. At that point people might upgrade for the benefits, rather than because they're threatened with having no further support or buying another product that will be superseded in the next year.
tags: Windows 98 | malware | Windows Vista | Vista
For many users, that couldn't be further from the truth, of course. According to the BBC, there are still 70 million people using Windows 98. Most of them will be pottering along quite happily - Windows 98 is a big improvement on 95's stability and only differs from Windows XP in the details.
Microsoft is advising Windows 98 users to upgrade to a more secure operating system, such as XP. This seems an odd strategy, given that XP is due to be superseded when Vista eventually comes out next year. If people have waited this long to upgrade, they're likely to wait another year to upgrade or not bother. It's also going to be hard to persuade people to spend about £90 to replace something familiar that already fits their needs adequately.
A shift to Linux also seems highly unlikely, given that people using Windows 98 are on the whole unlikely to be at the cutting edge of technology.
So the likely outcome of Windows 98 reaching the end of its supported life is that we'll have tens of millions of unsupported PCs connected to the internet.
The BBC reports that there is a team of Russian hackers that specialises in creating malware for Windows 98. If there are no official security patches being issued, Windows 98 users will be sitting ducks. As they are increasingly exploited by spammers, the whole internet will suffer.
There are several possible solutions for this. Microsoft might be pressured into responding to the biggest threats (that seems highly likely). Third-party patches might become the norm - 70 million users is a massive market for a software startup to address. Or, the vulnerabilities could go unpatched, leaving Windows 98 users exposed and everyone else bearing the brunt of the resulting spam and malware.
Clearly we shouldn't expect software companies to support products forever. It would have been more responsible, though, for Microsoft to wait until there was a smooth migration path to Vista before dumping 98. At that point people might upgrade for the benefits, rather than because they're threatened with having no further support or buying another product that will be superseded in the next year.
tags: Windows 98 | malware | Windows Vista | Vista
# posted by Sean McManus at 3:48 PM 
Comments:
Maybe Microsoft should open source Windows 98 so the user community could develop it's own updates.
Hahahahahaaahahahahahaahaaaa, coughsplutter... Ahem. Sorry, what was I thinking.
I've got Win 98 running on my old Pentium III laptop at home, which I use as a spare machine when I want to browse the web from the sofa or something instead of using my desktop. I tried installing Ubuntu Linux on it, which went swimmingly except for the fact that I couldn't get my wireless connection to work, so ended up switching back to Win 98 simply because, as they say, it just works.
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