Goodbye Windows 98 And Me

Microsoft today waved goodbye to Windows 98, 98 Second Edition and ME [Millennium Edition], despite the fact that there are still an estimated 70 million users, as the products reached their End of Support [1].

This is not the first time Windows 98 has reached End of Support, either. It was originally scheduled for End of Support in 2003, however due to protests by many users the support life was extended until 11 July 2006.

Users of Windows 98/ME will now need to upgrade to Windows XP (with at least Service Pack 2) in order to receive critical/security updates.

Unfortunately, a lot of people who purchased systems which came pre-install with Windows 98/ME will find their PCs are not powerful enough to run Windows XP comfortably. The cost of older SDRAM compared to modern DDR is significant, so even a limited hardware upgrade may not be economical (on top of the cost of the OS - at least £60 for Home Edition).

An alternative for people in a position where their OS is no longer supported is to install Linux which is a free (a in speech and sometimes as in beer) operating system. Most distributions have a version for download as well as a commercial box set.

People who would like to try Linux but do not yet want to install it can try a live CD/DVD - i.e. booting from the CD/DVD loads a live Linux system into RAM. A torrent file is available for SUSE Linux 10.1 Live DVD from OpenSUSE.org, where extensive documentation and a support database can also be found (many answers to common problems with Linux can be found there).

[1] http://www.microsoft.com/windows/support/endofsupport.mspx