Win95 and Win98 have both been listed as "discontinued" for about two years now, so there's little new in the recent announcement except that they'll no longer be sold. My morning newsrag reported yesterday that about "20% of installed operating systems" are Win98, so they're unlikely to totally abandon it. (I think they really meant 20% of Windows op systems?)

The newspaper article noted that you will no longer be able to receive telephone support, but "support on the internet" will continue to be available. So far as I can tell from the web, telephone support has been available only on a "charge per call" basis - i.e. no free support - for some time; although they will often waive charges "because they're nice guys(?)." The "internet support" available consists mainly in not deleting applicable stuff from their Knowledge Base, so it's pretty much "self support." Existing patch downloads will probably remain available, and they have said that they may issue new ones in the event of "serious problems."

Win95/98 and the other software being "discontinued" is the stuff affected by a lawsuit that they lost - so to some extent it parallels what some fear could happen to Linux with the SCO/IBM thing(?).

John