Next version of Office will NOT run on Win9x

[Phantasm66]

Hi folks, forgot to post this:

Office 11 won't run on Win9x, says MS
By John Lettice
Posted: 30/10/2002 at 15:27 GMT


Microsoft is kissing goodbye to Win9x users with Office 11. The product, currently in beta, will require Win2k SP3 or XP, according to a posting, reported here in Betanews ( http://www.betanews.com/article.php3?sid=1035914045 ) by Office 11 beta coordinators, who said that stability and security were the reasons for dropping Win9x.

The move is, up to a point, understandable, although Microsoft will still be subject to accusations that it's trying to force people to upgrade. Windows 98 is already out of mainstream support, and the unlovable WinME gets it at the end of next year, according to the big Microsoft lifecycle list ( http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=fh;en-us;obsoletewin ) , and Microsoft really does want to leave the old 9x kernel behind it.

addition, many of the likely users of Office 11 will be businesses who're already on Win2k at least as a standard platform, and although there will still be Win9x installations out there for years to come, we'd hazard a guess that not many of them are going to be in the hands of people who can afford to, or even want to, run Microsoft's premier office product. Microsoft meanwhile has had a lot of trouble in recent years convincing customers they want to upgrade to the latest and greatest in productivity, so you could just as well say that not issuing Office 11 for 9x is as much reason for people to not upgrade Office as it is for them to upgrade their OS.

So we'll let them off this time. But the security get-out is worth watching, nevertheless, and at some point it's perfectly likely that Microsoft will find it convenient to shorten a product's lifespan under this banner. ®

source: http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/27851.html

 

[poertner_1274]

Doestn' this seem quite silly? I know quite a few people that still use 98. Granted it is a little behind the times, but still......I'm not sure why they are just asking to lose all that money in that market...........Well I guess actually they are hoping that people will just upgrade

So now that I think about it, this is totally something that M$ would do, just to try and make more money.........

 

[StormBringer]

Well, it doesn't seem so strange to me. I've seen the MS Deathlist and Win 95 and 98 will both die soon. I think 95 has already entered the non-supported phase and I think 98 dies early next year.

So, in answer to your question Poert, yes they are hoping people will upgrade. Windows 9x is pretty damn old technologically speaking and it needs to die. The 9x kernel is seven years old, there aren't many of us who own a machine that old. And most machines that are able to run today's software have had the option of 2K or XP, either of which is far superior to 9x.

 

[poertner_1274]

I agree with you 100%, its just a shame in my opinion that they are trying to force people to upgrade.

 

[hdmk]

In a way they're forcing to upgrade....but most people with Win98 won't be upgrading their version of Office anyway, I know plenty of people with Win98 and Office 97...and guess what I can barely tell the difference between that and Office XP. Providing the files are stll compatable, they have no reason to upgrade.....

 

[Mictlantecuhtli]

Originally posted by hdmk
Providing the files are stll compatable, they have no reason to upgrade.....

I guess they're not compatible by default. As far as I know, the "future" filetype for Office documents will be XML.

 

[young&wild]

Damn this MS people, sometimes their decisions are driving us consumers nuts! I'll need to upgrade my current OS to XP!

 

[Mictlantecuhtli]

Do you have to upgrade Office then?

 

[Rick]

I think in most cases, upgrading to the latest and greatest Office really isn't necessary. Not only are there alternative softwares, but what exactly do you NEED from a word processor? Office 2000 and Office XP are already too intuitive and "smart" as it is...

Perhaps compatibility here is the issue for many people. You can always save as something a little more universal like TXT, RTF or older versions of the Windows DOC standard... It should work fine.

I think having to upgrade your OS is a very tasteless strategy by Microsoft.

 

[CrackedButter]

Originally posted by young&wild
Damn this MS people, sometimes their decisions are driving us consumers nuts! I'll need to upgrade my current OS to XP!

Thats the problem, you THINK you need to upgrade when you don't! I still use WinME and Win98SE and i have Office 2k. If they are attempting to make me spend £400 on a new office suite and then £200 on a new OS then they will have a hard time. O wait of course...i remember, i just spent £31 on Suse 8.1 that INCLUDES an Office suite that is COMPATIBLE with office 95 all the way up to Office XPee(includes the ability to be far better compatible than MS'es own Office suites).

You don't "need" when you have choice!

 

[Phantasm66]

This obviously has the capacity to be fairly emmotive. Its certainly not the first thing that Microsoft has done like this, and it won't be the last. Its a shame but that's how they operate.

 

[StormBringer]

I can't believe most of you. You people upgrade your video card every few months just to get a few more FPS from your games, but you want to complain about having to upgrade your OS. It isn't like 9x is even that great of an OS to begin with, and don't get me started on the practical joke that is "ME".

Check the MS website, there is a list there somewhere(I'm too lazy to post the link) that shows the life cycle of all MS Operating Systems. I first saw this list back in 2000. It shows that 98 goes into the unsupported phase next year. This has been a long time coming and is long overdue if you ask me.

It is strange that this sort of thing is done in almost every market, but only when MS does it, does anyone get bent about it.

I hate MS business practices as much as the next guy, but I don't see any reason to bash them for not making thee next version of Office run on a dying OS.

 

[Phantasm66]

Storm certainly has a point.

There is something certainly in the argument that we constantly bash Microsoft for doing things that we are quick to forgive in others.

Furthermore, the proclaimation that the next Office will not run on Win9x might be less about selling more copies of 2000 and XP, and more about moving to a more mature technology which an older OS like win9x is quite simply unable to provide.

I expect there to be some fairly exciting things in the next version of Windows, and part of that story will be made possible by an abandonment of Win9x technology, which is indeed buggy, out of date and primitive.

I think there is something in the idea that we have become a community (not just on this site, but on the internet in general) of Microsoft haters. Its possible that this may evolve into a state where Microsoft can make a completely legitimate and innocent business move, and it will be attributed to greedy, self-interest and craftiness. In general, these are attributes which characterise most of capitalist western business practice; they are what makes the world go round as far as capitalism is concerned. Its not just MS who pulls this kind of "How much will it cost us to screw Netscape?" crap ( http://userpages.umbc.edu/~yyu3/ms.html ) its just that they perhaps do it more blatantly or more arrogantly.

Its strange that we have, as Storm has cleverly seen, become excited and interested in upgrading hardware, and yet (at least where MS is predominately concerned) we have become skeptical and suspicious of software upgrades.

Surely its possible that we have all (subsciously at least) gone out and upgraded graphics, processors, RAM, etc in order to just play some game...., seeing nothing sinister in this and yet seeing something sinister in the prospect of having to abandon (at least as a main OS) win9x if we wish to keep up to date on the office front....

Just a few thoughts. I'm not saying that MS are somehow "good guys..." - we all know that they are not. But perhaps we should not be reading something sinister into their every move. Perhaps.

 

[CrackedButter]

Speak for yourselves ladies. I bought a nice laptop ONLY to take my computer environment to college which saves me time writting and tpying.
I bought my AMD 1600 Desktop computer parts only because my P2 350 died while trying to install Mandrake 8.2. I still got the original speakers as well
I have a Geforce2 now, up from a voodoo2 ...only budgies go this cheap cheap.

I even have my 17" Monitor from waayyy back in 1998. Does good for the res i need (640 x480), nope only joking.

I purchase when i want, that why i for one will not buy software that totals for more than what i pay in hardware.

Heck call me CheaperBastard not CrackedButter!

But i do see the point you are making.

 

[poertner_1274]

Originally posted by StormBringer
I can't believe most of you. You people upgrade your video card every few months just to get a few more FPS from your games, but you want to complain about having to upgrade your OS. It isn't like 9x is even that great of an OS to begin with, and don't get me started on the practical joke that is "ME".

Check the MS website, there is a list there somewhere(I'm too lazy to post the link) that shows the life cycle of all MS Operating Systems. I first saw this list back in 2000. It shows that 98 goes into the unsupported phase next year. This has been a long time coming and is long overdue if you ask me.

It is strange that this sort of thing is done in almost every market, but only when MS does it, does anyone get bent about it.

I hate MS business practices as much as the next guy, but I don't see any reason to bash them for not making thee next version of Office run on a dying OS.

I agree with you, but I just want to back myself up here, being that I complained about it. I haven't upgraded my PC since I bought it. And I dont' really intend to unless something breaks.

But to agree with your point I htink that people just have a hard time with M$ doing this because that is a well known thing. Not very many average users know what linux or BeOS is.

It is just a matter of personal opinion really. Kind of like how there are people in the US that will only buy a Ford truck, or a Dodge truck, etc. Whatever they feel most compelled by they will complain the most about when something doens't go how they want it to.

 

[Rick]

I'll stick up for Microsoft about as much as any billion-dollar company.. Meaning I'm not particularly defensive of big companies. BUT, I do think Microsoft gets an unfair amount of bad press. They deserve some of it, but some of it they don't.

 

[Julio Franco]

I agree with you Rick.

 

[Phantasm66]

Originally posted by Rick
BUT, I do think Microsoft gets an unfair amount of bad press. They deserve some of it, but some of it they don't.

Despite what I was saying earlier, I think that a lot of this "bad press" of which you speak is pretty much their fault, though.

Some of it comes down to jellousy, being that Gates is the richest man in the world, and that other rich men control what's said on papers, on TV, and so forth.

But a lot of it comes from out and out BAD BUSINESS PRACTICES. They may have been publicised more than perhaps would have been the case for other companies, but it still doesn't detract from that. They've gone out of their way at every turn to monopolise the computing industry and monopolies are not good for capitalism, the price mechanism or democracy. They've repeatedly taken over other people's ideas and claimed them as their own. They've repeatedly forced an upgrade cycle that's the height of arrogance - "upgrade to blah blah or it won't work", even if "it" happens to be another companies product. Their certification courses actively encourage you NOT to use products from other companies. Is it any wonder then that we now almost look upon everything they do as sinister?

Just trying to look at the coin from the other side....

 

[Th3M1ghtyD8]

Originally posted by Rick
Office 2000 and Office XP are already too intuitive and "smart" as it is...

Yeah, it looks like your writing a letter....

 

[Rick]