10-31-2002, 12:42 AM
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Contributing Editor Emeritus
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 8,228
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Microsoft Takes First Step to Abandoning Win9x Code Entirely
http://news.com.com/2100-1001-963777.html
The latest beta of Office 11 works on two operating systems, Windows 2000 SP3 and Windows XP (Home and Pro.) With ActiveSync 3.5, Office XP, Money 2003 and a few other apps, Microsoft has been weaning customers off of Windows 95 but this is the first move to abandon an OS as recent as Windows ME which is only 2 years old.
The problem for MS has been that Windows 95 still had some Windows 3.x and DOS code in it and Win98, Win98SE and WinME just built on that. Windows NT has always been infinitely more stable and MS finally killed Win9X in 2001 with the release of Windows XP, an OS that has deep roots in Windows NT and shares only a look and feel with Win9x.
In the long run, this should be good. Office XP has so much code that installs for Win9x and other that installs for WinNT based OSs. This will allow the Office team to focus on essentially one operating system, which will lead to greater stability, I hope. If this is an indication of where things are headed, look for other Microsoft apps like ActiveSync, Money, Project, etc. to follow suit.
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10-31-2002, 01:46 AM
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Sage
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 651
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I'm glad they are doing this. I've been trying to get some of my friends off of win9x for some time now. All their crying about blue screens, simple programs bringing down the whole OS and such is just enough to make someone go mad. They need to come over to the stability side of things.
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10-31-2002, 01:50 AM
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Thinker
Join Date: Jul 2002
Posts: 433
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i also glad microsoft do this action, but doesn't it mean forcing more people to buy more of the XP?
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10-31-2002, 03:43 AM
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Sage
Join Date: Feb 2002
Posts: 725
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I admire that Microsoft is at least warning people in advance rather than just springing this on them like they usually do. They cut Microsoft Mail out of Outlook XP without even mentioning it (although it gave me an excuse to convince my boss to buy Exchange Server so it isn't all bad).
I do think this was probably more a technical thing, if Office is based on XML and the .NET platform it would probably help stability if it wasn't running on Win98 and such.
I do agree with the article though, this is far more likely to make people not buy Office 11 than it is to make people buy Windows XP.
As for will I upgrade, I'll have to see. My main problem with office right now is I don't see all that much improvement (truth be told most of my users wish we had stayed with Office '97 and their probably right).
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10-31-2002, 04:11 AM
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Theorist
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 298
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thank god for ditching the 9x platform. How people can work in those OSs is beyond me. Watching your RAM slowly disappearing just from having the machine on all day............("i have to reboot this to get my RAM back" --- AA!)
so bad.
I agree, though, that most will just not upgrade as long as they can.
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10-31-2002, 05:30 AM
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Pupil
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 11
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I think this is a great idea although open-source advocates like News.com (which is constantly showing their bias torwards MS) is making a big stink out of it.
Here are my feelings:
- If you don't know the difference between all the versions of Windows, then this won't matter to you because you''ll do just fine with all the other versions of Office or Works
- If you know the difference then your an idiot for running anything less than Windows 2000
- Keeping Office to one code base can only be good for everyone (less bugs, more features, more stable, etc...)
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10-31-2002, 08:47 AM
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Mystic
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 1,768
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idiots
Quote:
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Originally Posted by woodster
- If you know the difference then your an idiot for running anything less than Windows 2000
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I have said the same thing to people I work with... and they look at me puzzled. Some actually believe that their Win98SE system is more stable as-is than upgrading to WinXP. One who bought a new PC actually tried to downgrade. Unless someone has an old - I mean really old (greater than 24 months) PC or the lack of funds to upgrade, there is no reason to not run at least Win2k. You have no room to complain.
__________________
Jonathan (JonnoB)
"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." -Edmund Burke
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10-31-2002, 10:05 AM
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Ponderer
Join Date: Oct 2002
Posts: 93
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X-scale optimizations! X-scale optimizations! X-scale optimizations!!
Ok, just kidding...
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10-31-2002, 07:04 PM
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Ponderer
Join Date: May 2004
Posts: 90
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The reason why I still run Win98SE is simply one of cost - I build my own computers and I'm told this means that I don't qualify for OEM copys of winodws, therefore I'm looking at �70 just to upgrade to WinXP home, and there is no student version of WinXP yet which I would qualify for. If microsoft really want to ween people off of Win9x I think they need to start shipping cheaper upgrades for the home user like myself. There is also the problem that although MS have WinNT based versions of all their software a lot of other software developers haven't caught up yet e.g. the college I'm at is holding off moving to Win2k or WinXP because the software developers for a number of popular education titles simply don't properly support WinNT systems or are providing no cheap upgrade path to go from Win9x based versions to WinNT based versions.
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10-31-2002, 08:14 PM
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Intellectual
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 217
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by ThomasC22
As for will I upgrade, I'll have to see. My main problem with office right now is I don't see all that much improvement (truth be told most of my users wish we had stayed with Office '97 and their probably right).
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If you're using Exchange and Outlook, I have to say that you will love the upgrade. Going from Office 2000 to XP was not a good experience for me, but have a look at the new Oulook interface and you'll know what I mean. It's made working with email so much easier, I can't explain. If you need a good screenshot check out this one.
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Linear Mode
