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Tuesday, March 21, 2006

End of the Line - July 11, 2006

On July 11th In The Year Of Our Lord Two Thousand and Six, The Operating Systems Formerly Known as

-Windows 98
-Windows ME

will be Retired. Finished. Done. No longer supported by either Microsoft or myself. Hardware manufacturers will no longer make drivers for these OS's.

Direct from Microsoft's website:

Microsoft is retiring support for these products because they are outdated and can expose customers to security risks. We recommend that customers who are still running Windows 98 or Windows Me upgrade to a newer, more secure Microsoft operating system, such as Windows XP, as soon as possible.

Customers who upgrade to Windows XP report improved security, richer functionality, and increased productivity.


Basically, continuing to run these operating systems is like leaving the large, plastic, glowing snowman and candy canes in your frontyard until July. Looking for patches and drivers for these old systems would be like trimming the grass that has grown up around them.

Worse yet, when some 10-year old hacker from Holland figures out a security flaw in your Windows 98 system, there will be no patch. No fix. No 'download to make it all better.'

So unless you have a computer that is completely offline, and you only use Notepad to keep family recipes on it, then you really might consider changing over to something supported. Like Linux. Or Windows XP. Or just go back to using a paper dayplanner and calendar.

Blog on,
-CZ

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Posted by Zero10:36 PM
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Conrad Zero - Minneapolis Musician Author and Demonologist

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