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Home Guy

wrote:

Yes, and we both still run windows 98. Because I'm that
type of "Guy".

That sure puts a perspective on things. Windows 98 was
notoriously crash prone,

Ok, I don't want this thread to seriously derail at this point, so I
will simply say that there are reasons why people perceived win-98 to be
seriously flawed that had more to do with the quality of computers and
hardware available in 1999-2000, like faulty video drivers and
pathetically small amounts of installed ram. There is a very healthy
and active community of people that run win-98 on moderm motherboards
with 512mb of ram (and up to several gb). As I type this, I'm running a
P4 2.5 ghz PC with 512 mb ram and 2 hard drives (80 gb and 400 gb SATA)
with KernelEx API enhancements (which lets me run quite a bit of XP-only
software).

Very reliable and stable, hardly touchable by any of the hundreds of
exploits for NT-based windows systems. XP was the emperor with no
clothes. It was a disaster for the first 4 years of it's life. We live
with spam today because of all the home systems that used XP from 2002
through 2006 that got infected with backdoor trojans that turned them
into botnets. It was a crime for Microsoft to force XP into home
computers back in 2002, and it really wasn't fit enough for home use
until SP2. But everyone conveinently forgets XP's history in that
regard.

difficult to protect from a security standpoint

Complete myth.

There never were any network worms that could work on win-98 systems.
Meanwhile there were about 6 different worms over the past 7 years that
can infect NT/XP systems just by them having an internet connection - no
user intervention required.

NT/XP was designed to be used by corporations and enterprises on closed
networks, behind firewalls, managed by IT departments. It's only since
mid 2006 (XP-SP2) did it become somewhat secure for the average
home-owner/user to use XP without help and protection from an on-site IT
staff.

Go to secunia.org and look at the security issues for different versions
of windows. Win-98 has a pathetically small number of issues (33?) -
many of them of low importance. Meanwhile, XP has hundreds.

Then we have the fact that with just about any new PC you buy
today

I don't buy PC's - I build mine from scratch. I don't own any laptops
or netbooks - don't need em.

I have access to binders full of Microsoft software. MSDN, technet,
etc. I have set up hundreds of XP machines at my $DayJob$. I've even
set up something called Multipoint Server 2010 (based on Server 2008
R2).

I run office 2000 Premium SR1. It's nice, because no validation is need
to install (just like no validation needed for win-98). Office 2003?
2007? 2010? I have them all at work. What do most of our work
computers run? Windows 98 with Office 2000. Why? Because if it ain't
broke, you don't f*ck with it.

I know my ****, and what I know is that Microsoft's life blood is to
keep selling you a new OS every 3 years, and they'll do what-ever they
can to beat their old OS's into the ground. If Win-98 was really as bad
as everyone thinks it is, I would leave it in a second, and I have any
number of options at my disposal at no cost to me. I have the CD's and
product keys for ALL versions of windows since windows 95 up to Windows
7.

But I keep using windows 98 for my home computers and my desktop
computer at work. What does that tell you? Does it tell you that I
like to have FULL ACCESS to my own computer? Does it tell you that NTFS
is really a crock of **** compared to FAT32? Does it tell you that I
don't particularly like the idea of WGA? Or that I don't like DRM built
right into the kernel of my OS (as with Vista and 7)? Or a dozen new
system vulnderabilities discovered every month?

Keep drinking the coolaid. Microsoft and it's ecosystem of software and
hardware partners are loving you for it.