Windows 98 - it's time to upgrade!

Microsoft has said that support for Windows 98 would end on 16 January 2004. Then, as this deadline approached, they unexpectedly backed down and announced they would continue support until June 2006.

It has now emerged that any continued support for Windows 98 (and for Windows ME) is going to cost money: free fixes will be provided "for existing security issues". However, fixes for any newly discovered security issues won't be free. There is already at least one major security problem with Windows 98 for which Microsoft will provide a solution only as part of paid incident support.

Without free fixes from Microsoft, we are unable to continue to support Windows 98 and Windows ME systems connected to the main University network. Indeed we are now forced to consider an urgent review of all such remaining systems connected to our network. We shall shortly contact Heads of Schools and Units to determine the extent of Windows 98 and ME (and earlier) systems still in use around the University.

Any upgrade from these unsupported systems will generally require significant hardware upgrades, or (more likely) complete replacement of older PCs.