HAPPY MODAY!

[ebtb.livejournal.com]

This guy just needs to put down the shovel and back away from the hole... Here are the opening 2 sentences of this email:

I use your security software on a Windows 98 SE system, with 1gb of RAM.
I use W98SE because of legacy applications.

There's so much wrong with that - where do I start?

1. compatibility mode - yeah, XP and Vista have it, dipshit
2. and if that doesn't work, you can download MS Virtual PC 2007 for FREE
3. 98se can't support that much RAM >.<

Ugh. It's too early for this.

Comments

[gilded_lady]

He must be a masochist.

That's the only reason I can think of that someone would continue to voluntarily use Win98 (any version).

[toxico.livejournal.com]

I have a non-networked 98SE box; its sole purpose is to play Carmageddon 2 and some older games.

[toxico.livejournal.com]

Not only do I have the crappy "censored" version (with zombies), I have three executables that apply the "UK blood patch" to make it the real game, and a folder full of fan-designed cars.

C2 was the first thing I ever bought on eBay.

[gilded_lady]

Yeah, but you are using for that sole purpose, which is cool.

I suspect that the guy in the e-mail is using 98SE as his primary rig.

[toxico.livejournal.com]

Yeah, there's no way I would let that thing o' mine near the Intarwebs. Running 98 as a primary OS is SMRT.

[jill-idle.livejournal.com]

you're not telling him to use Vista are you?

1gb is fine with 98se.

[torkell]

Point of order: 98 SE can handle that much RAM, as long as the disk cache is reined in.

I can think of a few cases where using XP, while possible, is non-trivial. Old parallel-port based programmers and comms programs generally like to have direct access to the port's hardware registers, and XP gets rather upset when programs try to do that. There are workarounds, but they can be hard to find. If this is his case, then Virtual PC won't help either.

[darkrose.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but do you think vmware for Linux would work with that? Just a thought..

[torkell]

Probably wouldn't either in this case. We're talking about direct access to the hardware, which goes against most principles of virtulisation and stability. 98 only allows it because 98 has no real concept of process isolation, whereas NT-based stuff like XP blocks it because XP takes pains to stop one process bringing the whole system down. It'd probably work under Linux, as long as you're running as root (as root sidesteps most of the safeguards).

In any case, this is all speculation. The software in question might not need hardware access, and work fine under XP, or it may be that it conflicts with XP for a different reason (e.g. sloppiness about memory usage, or using reserved fields).

[jamoche]

Running 98 under vmware? Don't see why that should be a problem; the Fusion New VM creation page lists everything from 3.1 on. I've only installed XP and Vista - more times than anyone ought to, in fact. (Guess what I write)

[http://users.livejournal.com/hub_/]

Security and Windows in the same sentence always makes me cringe. I don't know why....

[canray.livejournal.com]

Vista is compatable with anything?

[goose-entity.livejournal.com]

sure it is!

... it's compatible with the new, even more restrictive, ever more expensive Windows servers with more expensive CALs, duh!

(/sarcasm)

[wherdafux-d-cat.livejournal.com]

I hear it goes very nicely with a boot to the head.

[forever-damned.livejournal.com]

Security and Win98 is an oxymoron.

[jamoche]

I used to use an older version of Windows - there was a Unix tool I needed that only ran in 8-bit color, and while newer versions of Windows would let you set it to 8-bit, if they didn't detect an actual 8-bit program in a certain amount of time - less time than it took to log into Unix and get the tool going - they'd reset. That and Slashdot were pretty much the only thing I did with it (way back when Slashdot news was actually new).

But I never whinged about anything else not working; my OS was obsolete and I knew it. I did complain very loudly the one time I sent my computer in for a hardware issue and they "upgraded" it; after that it only went in with a post-it attached warning dire consequences if anything other than the requested work was done.