DailyTech - Microsoft Releases New Windows for Legacy PCs

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IT Microsoft Releases New Windows for Legacy PCs
Tuan Nguyen (Blog) - July 14, 2006 7:11 AM

58 comment(s) - last by jpyocum.. on Jul 25 at 8:55 AM

Win98 and ME users now have a reason to upgrade, says Microsoft

In an effort to get old PCs upgraded -- and generate more revenue -- to newer versions of Windows, Microsoft this week announced a new version of Windows called Windows Fundamentals for Legacy PCs. The new operating system will be a highly stripped down version of Windows XP, taking out all the fancy bells and whistles.

Microsoft says that there are many legacy systems that are not capable of upgrading to a full blown Windows XP install, and there are more systems where users are hesitant to upgrade. With Windows Fundamentals, Microsoft says that old systems will be able to receive all the latest security features and updates of recent systems, without having to sacrifice performance. Unfortunately, Windows Fundamentals will be limited to what applications it can run. Microsoft says that the OS is capable of running security tools, management software, and several document viewers. Larger applications will need to be run from a server. According to Microsoft:

Microsoft Windows Fundamentals for Legacy PCs is a Windows-based operating system designed for customers who have older computers running earlier operating systems and who are not in a position to purchase new hardware. This operating system is available only to Microsoft Software Assurance customers and helps you get the most from your older hardware, thereby reducing your total cost of ownership.

Microsoft says that the new version of Windows is available immediately to customers on the Software Assurance program, which Microsoft uses to provide discounted upgrade paths to corporate customers. According to details, Microsoft says that old machines can be turned into useful thin clients or terminals.

DailyTech earlier reported that Microsoft discontinued support for Windows 98 and Windows ME operating systems. Customers currently using these legacy versions of Windows can no longer receive support from Microsoft -- updates and security patches are gone as well. With Windows Fundamentals, Microsoft is hoping that customers using Windows 98 and Windows ME will be moving upwards. An upgrade to Windows Fundamentals will grant support options for legacy customers.

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Not so stripped...

By MrBeanz on 7/14/2006 10:12:23 AM , Rating: 4

I've been playing around with this operating system for about a week now, and as far as I can tell it does most of what WinXP can do. First off, you cannot put the machine in Standby or Hibernation mode with this operating system, so it certainly isn't meant for laptop use. Secondly, I haven't run into a problem yet with it preventing any sort of application use or installation, I run a personal firewall, Avast AntiVirus, Firefox, putty tools, OpenOffice, IE7 Beta 3, Windows Media Player 11, and more without any issue whatsoever.

RE: Not so stripped...

By NullSubroutine on 7/15/2006 1:15:17 AM , Rating: 4

whered ya get it?

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RE: Not so stripped...

By MrBeanz on 7/15/2006 3:06:05 PM , Rating: 2

quote:
whered ya get it?

From my MSDN subscription.

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RE: Not so stripped...

By GoatMonkey on 7/17/2006 11:31:06 AM , Rating: 2

Does it see multi-core processors correctly?

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RE: Not so stripped...

By TomZ on 7/17/2006 2:43:09 PM , Rating: 2

I don't know for sure, but XP Embedded does support multiprocessor/multi-core, so my educated guess is that this release could support it also.

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Software Assurance

By kattanna on 7/14/2006 10:40:39 AM , Rating: 3

so its only for those with Software Assurance..great..that means all those people at home can't take advantage of this

RE: Software Assurance

By Samus on 7/14/2006 11:52:18 AM , Rating: 2

it's rumored in the MSDN community if it is successful in the SA sector, it'll be released in retail for as little as $50

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RE: Software Assurance

By NullSubroutine on 7/15/2006 1:17:02 AM , Rating: 2

so they ARE trying to make 98/me users pay for an upgrade....

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RE: Software Assurance

By TomZ on 7/15/2006 8:45:53 PM , Rating: 2

No.

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RE: Software Assurance

By Shivian on 7/19/2006 11:14:36 PM , Rating: 2

No? How so?

1. They are releasing a product aimed at people who use old hardware who can't upgrade to pre-existing options.

2. They are charging money for it.

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RE: Software Assurance

By Garreye on 7/20/2006 12:17:05 PM , Rating: 2

It's not like it's a simple patch, it's a completely different OS on a different kernel (as mentioned above about 40 times), so they should have to pay something for it. And its not a big deal if it's only gonna cost around $50. Microsoft can't be expected to support 98/ME forever, so they offer a cheap solution to keep your system supported, I don't see any problem with that....

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OS politics aside. . .

By nikolokoluslus on 7/15/2006 2:32:05 PM , Rating: 2

If this keeps hundreds of tons of old PC's out of the land fill them I'm all for it.

RE: OS politics aside. . .

By AntiTomZandmasher2 on 7/16/2006 9:01:21 PM , Rating: 3

*laughs* This reminds me of the comments I see on hardware forums all the time. People who post specs of their latest dual core sli rigs complain that they have to upgrade to a core 2 duo or be outclassed. I seriously doubt that many of them are the "hardcore gamers" they claim to be to require that hardware. They're tossing out hardware that are 10x better than mine.

As soon as we passed the 1 Ghz threshold, I knew that those PCs were sufficient for any office tasks. Now we have people complaining that 512 mb of ram is enough if you "only run one app at a time." *shakes head*

If we had fewer of the above people, we'd reduce waste.

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RE: OS politics aside. . .

By TomZ on 7/17/2006 12:59:29 AM , Rating: 2

quote:
If this keeps hundreds of tons of old PC's out of the land fill them I'm all for it.

No, it will have no such effect. Even if wildly successful, all that this new OS will do is delay a certain number of machines going to the landfill. All computers manufacturerd will eventually be disposed of, so the only ways to reduce the number that go into a landfill are to either produce fewer PCs or else find some other final destination for them (recycling?). The latter point is obviously the hard part.

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RE: OS politics aside. . .

By AntiTomZandmasher2 on 7/17/2006 2:28:59 AM , Rating: 2

A lot of big companies I know are using Retrobox to find new homes for their machines. Aside from that, I know that much of what make up electronics can be recycled (though not necessarily cheaply). There are plenty of recycling plants or entities around.

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RE: OS politics aside. . .

By mindless1 on 7/18/2006 10:35:06 AM , Rating: 3

It will have exactly that effect. By prolonging the viable lifespan of systems, newer systems are bought less often. Fewer total sysetms are sold, inevitably fewer to be later thrown away.

There is nothing "hard" about it, nobody expects a system to last forever, it's just a matter of improving product use:trash ratio.

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Class Action Lawsuit time

By Saist on 7/14/2006 11:44:23 AM , Rating: 2

Bad move for Microsoft. This opens them up to several class action lawsuits over the original WindowsXP launch and subsequent years, covering both sales and promotional ads, and classifying those sales and ads as having been fraud.

I think a good lawyer could also get charges of blackmail to stick considering that you can ONLY get this if you are on the service assurance program and it ONLY came after Win98, WinME, and Win2k support was fully terminated. The logic follows that Microsoft is holding a virtual gun to customers heads, either pay up or we don't fix your problem. Given the importance of a personal computer in today's society, a good lawyer would be able to prove that is blackmail against consumers. Never mind that a good judge would through that blackmail out on the basis of Linux alone, but when was the last time you heard of a good judge?

RE: Class Action Lawsuit time

By Samus on 7/14/2006 11:53:25 AM , Rating: 2

win2k still received security updates

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RE: Class Action Lawsuit time

By MrBeanz on 7/14/2006 12:04:14 PM , Rating: 2

Win2k is still a supported operating system and you can run Win2k on the same minimum system requirements that Windows Fundamentals has.

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RE: Class Action Lawsuit time

By TomZ on 7/15/2006 8:51:15 PM , Rating: 2

Fraud? Blackmail? WTF are you talking about?

Your comments/analysis are so way off-base and nonsensical that I can't even address them point-by-point.

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RE: Class Action Lawsuit time

By theprodigalrebel on 7/21/2006 8:17:26 PM , Rating: 2

People do this all the time. They storm a Vista discussion saying that Microsoft is not doing enough to add new features/cutting-edge technology...then, they go to a different forum and blast MS for not supporting Win 98 (which is almost 9 years old).

When Microsoft does add new features (eg. borrowing a 3D desktop from OS X, Movie Maker ala iMovie etc.), Windows is suddenly too bloated.

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What about gaming?

By PAPutzback on 7/14/2006 10:48:31 AM , Rating: 2

Will it allow directx to run. This sounds like the perfect OS for gaming. I currently disable a third of the services using various service guides and then disable all the startup programs thru the MSConfig interface to get a Lean XP. But it would be nice if it installed that way from the beginning.
It looks like have the install process is drivers that will never be used, themes, sounds, screensavers. Dump all that junk.

RE: What about gaming?

By rykerabel on 7/14/2006 11:44:49 AM , Rating: 2

I created 2 hardware profiles: Normal and Gaming

For each Service on my computer, I disabled unnecessary ones for only the Gaming hardware profile. I did this for some unnecessary hardware too.

Now at bootup, I just pick which hardware profile I want to use... at home I game mostly, so it defaults to the gaming hardware profile after 3 seconds.

Ryker Abel
ryker@ryker.com

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RE: What about gaming?

By hijodeltigre on 7/15/2006 12:43:27 AM , Rating: 2

would you be as kind as sharing these setups with me?, as i am really needing to lighten up my windows. thanks dude.

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RE: What about gaming?

By GameManK on 7/14/2006 1:53:55 PM , Rating: 2

I was thinking the same thing until the article said it restricts what can be run, and then it was mentioned that it's intended for thin clients, so I don't think the great gaming OS idea would quite work out.

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RE: What about gaming?

By bunnyfubbles on 7/16/2006 8:14:23 PM , Rating: 1

Even if Fundamentals isn't good for gaming, I think Microsoft would be wise to create a feature (if not a whole separate OS) for gamers. Most gamers would just need a skeleton of the OS that would be good enough to get their games to run. I'm sure boot times would be drastically lower and system stability most likely higher (Vista boot times and resource requirements don't exactly sound game friendly)

I'm sure there would be several biters for such a product.

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heard this before

By tcunning on 7/14/2006 10:21:15 AM , Rating: 2

Isn't XP without bells and whistles called Windows 2000? Which is a great OS, BTW--this piece of garbage is not.

RE: heard this before

By MrBeanz on 7/14/2006 10:42:51 AM , Rating: 3

Actually, it's a fantastic operating system, especially if you understand what it's supposed to be used for. Unfortunately, the author of this story left out one major piece. This operating system was designed to be a thin client operating system. In other words, Microsoft didn't design this operating system so you could do actual work on it, but so you could VPN, RDP, or Citrix into your real workstation and do the work.

This can quickly turn old workstations into excellent visitor, conference room, or general purpose computers for businesses that otherwise would've been thrashed due to outdated hardware.

As I said, the operating system has run everything I have installed on it so far, although I'll be honest and state that I tried running OpenOffice, not Microsoft Office, so it's possible the operating system has some instructions in it to prevent certain Microsoft products from running locally.

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RE: heard this before

By AntiTomZandmasher2 on 7/16/2006 8:56:18 PM , Rating: 2

Turning old machines into terminal servers has long been available. ltsp has guides on setting up old machines with as little as 24 mb of ram as termservs. rdesktop is also available for access to Windows machines.

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i like

By ksherman on 7/14/2006 9:04:39 AM , Rating: 2

something smaller to put on my old lappy now!

RE: i like

By Burning Bridges on 7/15/2006 6:18:31 AM , Rating: 2

Tried linux?

It's free you know, and yes I will get flamed for that suggestion I know!

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RE: i like

By Shivian on 7/19/2006 11:11:28 PM , Rating: 2

Maybe he doesn't want to spend half his life learning how to use the damn thing. Productivity tomorrow anyone?

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Corporate

By Trisped on 7/14/2006 12:35:53 PM , Rating: 2

Ah, Corporate, that explains the requirement of a server to run most things.

Value, low. Still, there is someone who will be interested...

RE: Corporate

By TomZ on 7/15/2006 8:52:24 PM , Rating: 2

The value will be to companies that purchased PCs with 5- or 7-year amortization schedules that are sitting around collecting dust. This software potentially allows these PCs to be useful.

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This sounds like a great OS for gaming

By kondor999 on 7/17/2006 10:13:40 AM , Rating: 2

One of my pet peeves with XP is the level of bloat presumably due to all the rather unnecesary "features".

It stands to reason that if this OS can run acceptably fast on low-end machines, then it should positively scream on a high-end one.

This would make it my OS of choice, given my predilection for 3rd party apps and, of course, games.

RE: This sounds like a great OS for gaming

By kondor999 on 7/17/2006 10:15:45 AM , Rating: 1

Never mind. Looks like they really stripped it down to the point of being a smart terminal.

Oh well...

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That has to be...

By jskirwin on 7/14/2006 9:41:59 AM , Rating: 2

one of the smarter things MS has done recently.

Very clever.

vista isnt need yet IMO

By m666guy on 7/14/2006 1:59:46 PM , Rating: 2

I know it has taken forever to get vista out but i just don't feel like i need it. I used the beta for a little while and it was decent but i just wasn't wowed. I liked the interface but other changes just made it harder to do things. XP should live on at least till 2030.......ok maybe that is a BIT TOO LONG.

hmm

By Wwhat on 7/14/2006 8:54:04 PM , Rating: 2

I wonder if they stripped DRM, or is that too 'essential'

Just kidding I don't wonder at all.

I am confused

By vingamm on 7/14/06, Rating: -1

RE: I am confused

By masher2

(blog) on 7/14/2006 8:27:59 AM , Rating: 4

> "If you strip down windows XP to it's core, isn't it windows 98?"

Not even close. Windows XP uses the NT kernel, an entirely different beast than the Win95/98/ME kernel.

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RE: I am confused

By slpaulson on 7/14/2006 8:28:06 AM , Rating: 2

windows xp is related to windows nt and windows 2000 much more than windows 98. The interface is definately not the only difference.

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RE: I am confused

By segagenesis on 7/14/2006 8:28:48 AM , Rating: 2

Not necessarily. XP is based off the 2000 kernel which was based off of NT originally and have obsolutely 0% to do with 95/98/ME which were basically ridicuously overgrown DOS shells. Granted you can do the same thing they describe with your standard XP install, I remember this guy "BlackViper" who had a site describing how you could disable a surprising amount of services in XP or 2000 and get the OS pretty lean at the expense of fancier features... dont think his site is around anymore unfortunately.

Another bonus would be the driver model, alot of companies are discontinuing legacy operating system support for newer devices. What's still fuzzy is how much the OS will cost in the first place, obviously it would have to be some order cheaper than your standard XP retail to justify.

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RE: I am confused

By johnsonx on 7/14/2006 12:05:29 PM , Rating: 2

I did some XP installs awhile back on Celeron 300 machines with 192Mb of RAM. By disabling everything not needed I got the OS RAM footprint down to less than 64Mb, leaving a good 128Mb for their app. I didn't disable any network stuff though; these login to a NT Domain. I'm sure it's possible to go even lower, but I still wanted these to be fully functional. The customer was quite pleased: they're faster and much more stable than they were running Win98.

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RE: I am confused

By Tyler 86 on 7/15/2006 3:30:18 PM , Rating: 2

I trimmed up a copy of XP to put on a P.O.S. P.O.S. [lol] terminal...

Ol' Compaq computer & cheap touch screen -- 48 megabytes of RAM.
It took about 3 1/2 minutes to boot, but it ran fine after that - no hard drive thrashing.

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RE: I am confused

By Tyler 86 on 7/15/2006 3:31:59 PM , Rating: 2

Oh, it took that long to boot because it had a 5 1/4 inch drive.

Not 3 1/2 inches, 5 1/4; It took up a frickin CD drive slot.

Does anyone remember those things? Damn they were loud...

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RE: I am confused

By jpyocum on 7/25/2006 8:55:54 AM , Rating: 2

I have some PIII workstations on which I'd like to upgrade from Win98 to XP. I would really be interested in what services you disabled and what configuration changes you made to get the OS footprint down to less than 64MB. Any information would be appreciated. Thanks.

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RE: I am confused

By TomZ on 7/14/2006 5:08:39 PM , Rating: 3

quote:
Granted you can do the same thing they describe with your standard XP install

No, you can't. The reason is that this new release is based on Windows XP Embedded, not Windows XP Home/Pro. The Embedded version is much more modular and allows you to configure just the items you need for resource-constrained and/or soft real-time systems.

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RE: I am confused

By Tyler 86 on 7/15/2006 3:35:37 PM , Rating: 2

Right, based on Embedded, for example... 'Minlogin' versus 'Winlogin'. Look it up.

A great deal of security and interactivity is stripped.

Windows XP is supposed to be a 'workstation' OS.

This is basicly user-friendly XP Embedded.

... However, you can do the same thing with your standard XP install, it's just a lot more tricky than just doing it.

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RE: I am confused

By Tyler 86 on 7/15/2006 3:43:35 PM , Rating: 2

When I say security, I'm not talking about it being less secure...
Security policy management has a different twist, that's all.

As for security per application and whatnot, same as XP.

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RE: I am confused

By peternelson on 7/14/2006 8:30:14 AM , Rating: 2

No, windows 95, 98 and ME share a common heritage.

XP is based on windows 2000 (previously NT) code.

It would be better if Fundamentals were made available (cheaply) to ALL customers not just corporates.

The only other thing to do with such machines is install linux, and/or use them as terminals.

Microsoft is right to think that not everyone will want to upgrade to vista.

In the case of vista pricing, when I can get a cheap pc or second user pc for a low price, I am unlikely to spend the same or more money just to put a new OS on it.

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RE: I am confused

By Griswold on 7/14/2006 8:30:38 AM , Rating: 2

There is more to XP than just NTFS. W98 doesnt have a NT kernel. Thats two seperate worlds.

However, one could as well use W2k instead of XP. It lacks all the bloat but (especially on older computers without fancy hardware) it is basicly the same under the hood.

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RE: I am confused

By TomZ on 7/14/2006 10:16:29 AM , Rating: 3

Actually, I think this release is really clever. They took an existing product, Windows XP Embedded (not desktop!), and configured a low-resource build of that for these legacy machines (this is what you can do with Embedded). Kudos to Microsoft - this is a nice, elegant solution for the problem of legacy PCs.

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RE: I am confused

By UsernameX on 7/14/2006 1:43:08 PM , Rating: 2

quote:
If you strip down windows XP to it's core, isn't it windows 98? I mean the only real difference(that actually would matter to the average user) is the interface. Granted you get the NT file structure but if you try to explain that to "Joe American" and he will scratch his head. If he has a system that old he can not upgrade to XP then he probably wil not care. The next thing that comes to mind is the dismal failure of windows ME. I still have nightmares about that OS. Stipping out XP amounts to the same thing IMO.

No, all I have to say to the "average joe" is; your operating system will be much safer and less prone to hacker now.

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RE: I am confused

By Tyler 86 on 7/15/2006 3:39:29 PM , Rating: 2

While Windows XP Embedded in the right hands is less prone to hackers, I seriously doubt this incarnation will be anything of similar up-front configurable strictness.

God forbid they make a 'Home' version of it.

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