I have a 5 year old ME computer which is acting a little squirelly. (OK --I did a system restore going back to when it was new 5 years ago-----probably shouldn’t have done that)
'puter says I need 27 critical upgrades. But 'puter won’t take the upgrades for some reason.
Am I running out of time to make this computer run as well as it can? After June will no future upgrades for ME happen? Will the older upgrades no longer work?
I am not very knowledgable about computers, so all help on this appreciated.
There won’t be any Microsoft support for those operating systems but there will be support somewhere. There is current documentation and support for the Commodore 64 that is pretty thorough and still being added to (that was the hot computer gift, Christmas 1982).
Those OS’s are pushing 6 - 10 years old now. That is absolutely ancient in computer time and I can’t fault MS for ending support.
The general idea is that all reasonable problems have been found and have a fix. Those fixes will still be out there somewhere and anyone can use those. I would imagine it means little practical change for users of those systems because they have been left in the dust practically speaking for quite some time.
There are plenty of dumpster class PCs that can run Windows XP or 2000 just fine and I would say it is getting a little long in the tooth as well.
Win 95, 98/98Se and ME are quite old at this point and very much inferiior to Windows XP in terms of stability and overall capability. New, complete, decent quality systems with full warranties that will run XP can be had for as little as $300 - $400.
If the upgrade function is broken on your copy of ME a full re-install is likely the best solution to restore updateability . I don’t see MS getting rid of the existing upgrade patches, but will no longer update them, and as time goes by and new viruses and exploits come along your system will become more and more vulnerable over time.
If you insist on sticking with ME non-MS sites supporting the older MS OSes should be readily accessible all over the net, but in practical terms it’s really time to being migrating over to XP.
I’m running Windows 98SE on a seven-year old computer and I still get a good internet experience.
Having said that though, little annoyances are beginning to snowball into larger ones:
Acrobat recently updated Reader to 7.00 - XP/2000 only.
Apple introduced a new version of Quicktime - 9x users need not apply (now I can’t watch new trailers as I used to, they all demand the new version.)
My spyware program SpySubtract just brought out a spanking new edition with extra features, freely available to all registered users of the old one - “Hey, did we say all? Not you, buddy - XP only. You losers will have to make do with the old version.”
What’s this? See aerial views of almost anywhere on the planet with Google Maps? That sounds great! I can see my house, I can see … bupkis. XP only.
Lots and lots of computer here in India still run Windows 98. I don’t know if this end of support is international, but it still seems a bit premature for lots of international markets.
I bought a new computer. A Dell off the internet XP Media something or other. And a Pentium 4 chip.
Cost me with all rebates and aol discount and free printer—about $550.
(My old ME, with a dog of a celeron chip, five years ago, cost $900—but that included $150 for a 3 year maintenance agreement-----will never do that again. The ME worked fine for 4 and one half years.)
(I never have any luck with extended warrantees)
What I got is basically a second computer---------which sort of works OK. What I would like to do is make it work as well as an old ME can.------so I can either keep it and use it as a back up. Or --more likely—give it away to any family member who might want it.
I would like it to work well. Or, rather I would like to have it work as well as it can work--------before Microsoft eliminates tech support for ME in June.
I think with the 27 upgrades Microsoft says it needs—It could do very well for someone for many years.
[nitpick] Google Maps is a web site. It should work with any browser that supports images. I have frequently used it on Win98 machines.
Google Earth is a downloadable application that uses the same photo data as Google Maps, but adds a number of features (and is, IMHO, one of the top 10 computer applications ever). It won’t work on Win98, but it will work on Windows 2000 (and XP, of course, as you say, plus there’s a Mac OS X version).
[/nitpick]