Do you use Windows 98/ME anymore?

PB · Post by PB » Sat Jan 20, 2007 3:44 am

One of my apps has grown to the point where it's easier to ditch Windows 98
and ME and solely support NT-based Windows: Windows 2000, XP and Vista.
Do you think this is a good idea or will it reduce potential customers? I could
easily support Windows 98 and ME if I used a lot of extra code to emulate the
NT functionality, but is it worth all that extra hassle in this day and age?

utopiomania · Post by **utopiomania** » Sat Jan 20, 2007 3:52 am

Well, you probably know who your customers are, but If they're not some kind of big organisation
that needs to run 98, just forget about Windaz98

Edit, forget about ME (Mistake Edition) too.

PB · Post by PB » Sat Jan 20, 2007 4:33 am

It's not for organisations; it's just for regular people like my Dad and sister.

Mike Stefanik · Post by **Mike Stefanik** » Sat Jan 20, 2007 9:25 am

Windows 95/98/Me are dead, let them rest in peace.

In all seriousness, the operating system is not supported by Microsoft any more, it gets no security updates, companies aren't producing drivers for it any longer and most software companies today either provide limited support for the platform or don't support it at all.

Think of it this way. The operating system is almost a decade old. Using Windows 98 today would be like someone who was still using Windows 3.1 back in 2001.

Edit: And I will say, if your granny is still using Windows 98, I hope to God that she's not connected to the Internet. The last thing the world needs is another wide-open system that doesn't even get security updates.

Kaeru Gaman · Post by **Kaeru Gaman** » Sat Jan 20, 2007 10:50 am

I have an alternative system here: P100 with Win95.
only to be able to play old games. (surely not connected to the net)
win 95 can be booted as DOS, so old games that need 540-580KB low-mem run fine.
additionally, the P100 is slow enough so I often don't need the CPU-brake.

I played "Frontier" lately. It's good to look at old games sometimes, it's fun.

but I don't need any applications for this system, so I don't care if there are any.
it's just a physical DOS-Box, nothing more.

srod · Post by **srod** » Sat Jan 20, 2007 12:03 pm

egrid is the last program in which I have made efforts to ensure it runs on Win 98. From now on I don't care if my apps do not run on win 98 etc.

Although my current app comes in Ascii and Unicode versions, I still don't care if the ascii version does not run on win 98!

I'll have a go at running it on a win 98 machine when the time is right, but if it fails to run properly then I'll just shrug, grin and chuck the Ascii version in the bin - along with the Win 98 machine of course!

merihevonen · Post by **merihevonen** » Sat Jan 20, 2007 12:06 pm

Btw, what's the benefit of using Unicode instead of ASCII?

srod · Post by **srod** » Sat Jan 20, 2007 12:29 pm

merihevonen wrote:Btw, what's the benefit of using Unicode instead of ASCII?

That's a $1000 question!

The simple answer is that Unicode allows your programs to easily work with extended character sets such as Japanese Kanji etc. Think of unicode as a massively extended character set containing just about every language symbol you could ever hope for. With Ascii programs (such as those running natively on win 98/Me) you have to constantly switch character sets which is a messy business at best and an inconsistent one at worst as computers in different locales would default to different character sets which could throw some applications into the mire!

Win NT and above are unicode based and their string api's work natively with unicode character sets. Indeed if you run an Ascii program on one of these OS's, then the OS has to convert all strings to Unicode before calling any of it's string api's etc. which of course slows things down. Working directly in Unicode, however, there is no need to make such conversions. The beauty of this is that you can guarantee that a Unicode program will display the same characters when run on a machine in, say, Japan, as it does in England etc.

When writing a program nowadays I always think in Unicode first and worry about Ascii as almost a side issue!

Straker · Post by **Straker** » Sat Jan 20, 2007 6:02 pm

My experience is that if they are still running 98 then you will probably run into hardware limitations as well, since they are using the 98 that was installed in their system when they bought it 1998. Heck their BIOS probably thinks noone would ever have need for a hard drive bigger than 4GB!

I maybe have one customer running 98, but the vast majority are on XP, simply because they have purchased their PCs within the last 5 years. I do have one customer that has a NT 3.51 server box, which still gives me grief.

I wouldn't worry about 98 anymore, you might have your hands full with Vista.

Nik · Post by **Nik** » Sat Jan 20, 2007 6:08 pm

@Kaeru
You might try FreeDOS, it's OpenSource 100% compatible with MS DOS (including the ability to use DOS extenders) and it is still maintained, so you could actually connect it to the Internet.

Kaeru Gaman · Post by **Kaeru Gaman** » Sat Jan 20, 2007 6:19 pm

@Nik

thnx for the hint, but I don't want to connect that old mule to the net,
I just want to play old games on it sometimes...

Derek · Post by **Derek** » Sat Jan 20, 2007 6:32 pm

@Kaeru Gaman,

"Frontier" is still a good game, I actually bought an Amiga500 when they first came out just so I could play Elite, in colour.

Used to play it on the BBC micro.

Kaeru Gaman · Post by **Kaeru Gaman** » Sat Jan 20, 2007 6:42 pm

ELITE is an absolute Evergreen!

and Frontier is a wonderful Part2.

(First Encounters suffered from the Grafix, it was awful...)

the concept is still interesting, and I really din't find some modern equivalent of Frontier wich has such a wonderful system-map.

Freelancer in this concern was disappointing with the static planets and the few systems...

I heard EVE-online reaches for that, but i didn't try it yet because it costs monthly fee....

KarLKoX · Post by **KarLKoX** » Sat Jan 20, 2007 7:39 pm

I only use win98 in a vmware box to test my code compatibility.

josku_x · Post by **josku_x** » Sat Jan 20, 2007 7:49 pm

Kaeru Gaman wrote:@Nik

thnx for the hint, but I don't want to connect that old mule to the net,
I just want to play old games on it sometimes...

I have been using DosBox for some while to play the good old DOS games