Microsoft to end support for ancient operating systems

Microsoft to end support for ancient operating systems

Software giants Microsoft would discontinue support for their ancient operating systems Windows 98 and Windows ME later this month.

This means that an estimated number of 70 million Windows users will no longer be eligible for software security updates from the company.

The support would end this coming July 11 and it would mean that a lot of users on the internet would become an easy target for hackers.

This support was originally supposed to end in January 2004 but delays in the launch of Vista prompted the company to continue the support for another 2 years.

Market analysts believe that around 13% of all Windows OS users are still running Windows 98 and Windows ME operating systems. However, this number is expected to come down to 6 percent of all Windows installations by the end of this year.

Critics of the company claim that this is a way for the company to get the users to pay and upgrade to the newer versions of their operating systems but the fact remains that Windows 98 and Windows ME are pretty old now and these users should probably upgrade to XP or a version of Linux.