[gui-talk] +SurvPC July 11, 2006: 70 million users have to upgrade (Forward From jbr53@bellsouth.net)

[Brent Reynolds]

http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article796

Microsoft names Windows 98 and Millennium execution day

70 million users have to upgrade
By Nick Farrell: Tuesday 04 July 2006, 07:21

SOFTWARE giant Microsoft has named the day that Windows 98 and
Millennium users will no longer have support.

On July 11, the two operating systems will have their final breakfast
before being wiped from Vole's support brain. Although many expected
Microsoft to stop supporting the quaintly antique software, the date for
liquidation was uncertain.

According to the Washington Post, Security Vendors are also following
suit and are phasing out support for two operating systems.

The paper said that more than 13 per cent of Vole's customers, or 70
million people, still use the software. Given the fact that it was
buggy, unstable and fairly weak on security, it is probably better
shipped off to the software graveyard.

The only defence that Win98 and Millennium users now have against attack
will be the fact that the virus writers are too young to remember how to
crack it.

Johannes Ullrich, chief technology officer for the SANS Internet Storm
Center told the Post that Windows 98 and ME users already have a measure
of security through obscurity, because most malicious code created today
will not run properly on those systems.

More here
http://www.itwire.com.au/content/view/4823/53/
and here.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/30/AR2006063001587
.html