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Should Behold continue to support Windows 98? - Categorized in: General DiscussionGeneral Discussion

7 posts. Started 10 Jan 2006 by lkessler. Latest reply 5 Feb 2006 by lkessler. RSS 2.0 feed for this topic RSS
1. Louis Kessler (lkessler)
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Joined: Sun, 9 Mar 2003
287 blog comments, 245 forum posts
Posted: Tue, 10 Jan 2006 Permalink
This is a bit of a poll. It will take extra work to support Windows 98, and some future features may not be possible if I want keep Behold Windows 98 compatible.

How many of you still use Windows 98 and don't expect to upgrade or buy a new computer in the next few months? Should I continue to support Windows 98 for as long as possible, or should I not bother with Windows 98 support even for version 1.0?

What do you think?

Either way, I will e-mail all those who have purchased Behold and if any of them use Windows 98 (right now I don't know of any) then I will try to continue support as long as possible.

Thanks for your input.

Louis
2. Rich Crooks (rwcrooks)
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Joined: Tue, 1 Feb 2005
1 blog comment, 30 forum posts
Posted: Wed, 11 Jan 2006 Permalink
I haven't been on 98 in ages. I wouldn't waste your time (I'm pretty sure that the subject and preposition are mismatched in there). Let's face it, XP has been out sine 2001 or 2002, which makes it 4 years old.

Concentrate on the present and future.
3. Daniel Durand (ddurand)
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Joined: Wed, 11 Jan 2006
0 blog comments, 1 forum post
Posted: Wed, 11 Jan 2006 Permalink
By now, I'm using a desktop (Pentium III 700 Mz) with a dual boot Mandriva / Win98
(I use Win98 to edit some reports with Legacy 5, Heredis, Visuged)
An old laptop Toshiba Port
4. Dilworth Lyman (Dilworth)
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Joined: Thu, 12 Jan 2006
0 blog comments, 1 forum post
Posted: Thu, 12 Jan 2006 Permalink
Maybe I'm just cheap, but I can't see throwing out a paid for operating system when it will do what I need for now. I have XP on one computer for those applications that need it, but I am also running Win98 on the three other computers at my home, because that is all they need. I have updated the hardware when one of them died (a motherboard was the most recent) but the Win 98 still works with the new hardware just fine. I plan on running Win98 on those computers as long as I can, and when I upgrade them I will probably only upgrade them to XP, even though something newer will be out by then, because I will be able to get a better deal on the XP at that time. Probably 2/3 of my genealogical work is done on the Win 98 systems. I can restrict Behold to running only on the XP and survive, but that will limit it's utility and convenience for me. I vote for the Win98 support. I'd say this is my two cents worth, but being as cheap as I am it is probably only a penny's worth.
5. Louis Kessler (lkessler)
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Joined: Sun, 9 Mar 2003
287 blog comments, 245 forum posts
Posted: Tue, 17 Jan 2006 Permalink
Thanks for your replies so far. I also got a half-dozen replies in my e-mail. And Genealogy Software News comments on my post at: http://www.genealogysoftwarenews.com/behold-windows-98-and-genealogy-software-development/

So far, I can say that there are a few people that would still like to have Windows 98 support. I can understand that. I still want to hear what a few more people say before I decide what to do.

One thing I can say from my experiences over the last week of switching my main computer to Windows XP: Once you get around concepts like "My Documents", the new Start menu and the XP style (which you can change back to the old Windows 98 style if you must), you can barely tell the difference. What you do get is a machine that seldom crashes. (Yay!) The fact that Behold and other Windows 98 programs run seamlessly on XP is something I give Microsoft a lot of credit for.

Of course, not all programs that run on XP run on Windows 98 as well, and that's what we are discussing here.

Louis
6. Louis Kessler (lkessler)
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Joined: Sun, 9 Mar 2003
287 blog comments, 245 forum posts
Posted: Wed, 25 Jan 2006 Permalink
Microsoft announces the following:

Effective June 30, 2006, Windows 98, Windows 98 Second Edition, and Windows Me will transition to a non-supported status. After this date, Microsoft will no longer provide any incident support options or security updates. Existing support documents, however, will continue to be available through the Microsoft Support Product Solution Center Web site.

For more info, see: Microsoft's announcement page.

I'm 95% sure now that I will continue to support Windows 98 with Behold, at least until version 1.5 which is quite some time away. But then I'll be adding Unicode, and doing so the straightforward way (without using emulation routines) may keep Behold from working under 98, or may cause it to work more slowly.

Hopefully by then, almost everyone will have switched. If anyone hasn't, I'll make them a deal.

Louis
7. Louis Kessler (lkessler)
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Joined: Sun, 9 Mar 2003
287 blog comments, 245 forum posts
Posted: Sun, 5 Feb 2006 Permalink

See my February 4th Blog posting for significant events that will force rethinking about Windows 98 support.

Louis

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