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Are you still targeting Windows 98?

In talking with some customers here at PDC, I heard a lot of them say that Windows 98 continues to be their lowest common denominator in developing for their customers.  This is interesting to hear about, because we are of course planning for future releases and are always looking at the list of platforms that we need to support, both in terms of run time and design time.  So I thought this would be a fun thing to post as a query to you blog browsers, to see how many of you still have a lot of customers still using Windows 98.  So let me hear it - who is still targeting Windows 98?

Published Friday, September 16, 2005 12:12 AM by AprilR
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Friday, September 16, 2005 10:51 AM by rickg

# re: Are you still targeting Windows 98?

We're still targeting Win98 clients. We've got quite a few customers with client stations still running Win98. Seems like that number is dropping though.
Saturday, September 17, 2005 2:43 PM by Sven

# re: Are you still targeting Windows 98?

I'm still targeting Windows 9x (and NT4). My apps run on all Windows 9x/NT4 systems with Internet Explorer 5.5 installed. Of course a few functions which depend on operating system don't work on Windows 9x but this is the only restriction.
Wednesday, September 21, 2005 7:15 PM by legolas

# re: Are you still targeting Windows 98?

Nope, dropped support for 9x about a year ago now (actually, decided +- half a year earlier I suppose). Thanks god, supporting printing backends that went to file and started other programs on that platform and NT combined wasn't pretty...
Thursday, September 22, 2005 5:17 AM by Barry Dorrans

# re: Are you still targeting Windows 98?

Now that comments are back I can, err, comment.

I had the pleasure of mentoring a team at a UK bank at the start of the year. We were targetting NT4.0. The average desktop had 32Mb and a 10Mbps network connection. Running in 800x600. With large fonts on, no way to disable it.

What fun :)
Friday, September 23, 2005 3:02 AM by PatriotB

# re: Are you still targeting Windows 98?

Most of my apps work all the way back to Windows 95 and NT 4. (I'm more of a hobbyist developer so I know I'm in the minority as far as that goes.) One utility of mine requires 98 because it extends stuff introduced in 98 and so couldn't work on 95.

Any time I want to use an API that's only on newer versions, I check the version of the OS I'm running on and dynamically load the function (i.e. use GetProcAddress). This way I can enable "new" functionality in my apps while still providing baseline functionality to old OSes.

The main reason I support back to 95 is because until 3 years ago I was still using a 95 box as my main machine. With one of my utilities, I originally made it for 2000/XP only but received many requests to make it available on 98/Me, so I did.

Many Microsoft consumer apps have 98 as the baseline. Curiously, the 98-baseline is lasting farther past 1998 than the 95 baseline did past 1995.
Friday, September 23, 2005 4:37 AM by TC

# re: Are you still targeting Windows 98?

Hi April, thx for re-enabling comments so I can post this.

My main app is a CRM thing in Access/Jet/DAO with about 75,000 lines of manually written VBA. As a one-man shop, I'm treading very carefully re. how to reposition this app for the future. There's no way I can automagically convert it to .NET, any time soon, without a large amount of pain.

At present, I do all development of this app in Access 97 on *Windows 98*, so I can target it to PCs running any combination of Access 97, 2000, 2002 or 2003, on win 98, 98ME, 98SE, 2000, or XP (but not NT).

I believe (but have no hard facts) that lots of small businesses in Australia are still using win 98. Indeed, I have seen a small internet cafe set up, within the past 12 months, with win 98! (gasp) So I will need to target win 98 for at least the next 2 years, if not longer.

Cheers, TC
Wednesday, September 28, 2005 11:46 AM by Steven

# re: Are you still targeting Windows 98?

I had already sent this using the contact form, but thought I'd repost here:

All projects I am involved in still target Win98, many even need to support Win95, because that too is still commonly found on our clients' systems. Fortunately, there haven't been many technologies, if any, that we require that are not available on these older installations. As 80% of our customers are still on Win95/98/NT4, we can't afford to target Win2K as a minimum requirement, let alone WinXP. There does not appear to be any indication that this will change anytime soon.

Perhaps in the US, things are different, because hardware prices are so low, but here in Europe (the Netherlands specifically), they are about 200% higher (i.e. 3 times as high!) as in the US. For example, a Corsair 512MB DDR memory module can be bought at Fry's for USD53, while I have to pay EUR120 (USD152). People are not willing to upgrade their systems unless absolutely necessary. They are even less willing to pay for software (which is also more expensive, but not by as much), if their old systems still work.

A quick selection of our customers' system specs shows things such as:
- Win95 on a P166MMX with 64MB RAM
- Win98 on a P3
- NT4 on a P4 2GHz with 512MB RAM
- XP on a laptop

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