Hello all,

Again, it's been too long since my last newsletter. Thanks for bearing with me through the drought. It's been busy here on Toejumper Ranch :) . I'm well into the "Practical Web Design" columns for SitePoint, something of which I'm probably too proud but be that as it may, they're my babies and I reserve the right to brag on them! It's also springtime here in the Southeastern US, and that means mowing, raking, weed-eating, and preparing for another season of battling the evil fire ants. Fire ants, for those who don't know, are the gardener's equivalent of spam -- they're ubiquitous and seemingly immune to every precautionary measure you take. But unlike spam, these little critters bite, and when they bite, they HURT. So Mrs. Toejumper and I have taken to the yard with everything from insecticide to gasoline. (Pouring generous amounts of laundry bleach down their hidey-holes seems to work, also. I killed a mound the size of Montana by pouring an entire gallon of bleach down the main entrance. Take that, evil insects!)

But that's not what this letter is about. Let's get out of the ant-infested back yard and into the less painful realm of computing. This newsletter is a heads-up for every Windows user out there. As you may know, Microsoft never planned on supporting its operating systems forever. Every version of Windows, from 3.x to XP, has an "expiration date." After that date, patches and updates will no longer be available, and technical support from Microsoft won't be offered. Bad news for all of us! So what do we do?

Well, we need to know exactly when these systems will expire, and take precautions beforehand -- updating and patching as much as possible before the calendar creeps up on us so that when Microsoft yanks the rug out from under our particular flavor of Windows, we'll be ready. Keep up-to-date at www.microsoft.com/windows/lifecycleconsumer.mspx.

There are four levels of support (or non-support) available from Microsoft:

MAINSTREAM PHASE: Full support; free and paid tech support over the phone, online help from Microsoft's web site, support for warranties, and freely available, downloadable updates, patches and "hot fixes" as glitches and security issues arise.
EXTENDED PHASE: Pay-per-incident tech support is available, as is online help, but free live support ends, as does warranty support. Patches, hot fixes, and updates are available for business software but not consumer software.
NON-SUPPORT: All support ends except for online self-help information.
END-OF-LIFE: No further support of any kind.

What does this mean for us? Well, it depends on who we are and what system we're running. I'm assuming that the vast majority of readers of this newsletter are plain-vanilla consumers and not business types. Folks like us get left behind by Microsoft, and it's up to us to be informed and take precautions.

Let's take them in order.

Windows 3.x and 95: You folks are out of luck, as least as far as Microsoft goes. These two operating systems reached their "end-of-life" phase in December 2002. Little or nothing in the way of support is available from the company. The patches, updates, and fixes are available, but you'll have to hunt them down elsewhere on the Internet.

Windows NT 4.x: NT 4 entered the "extended support" phase in June 2002. On June 30, 2003, it goes into "non-support," and reaches "end-of-life" on June 30, 2004.

Windows 98: Microsoft is ready to pull the plug on this one, too, but an enormous outcry from consumers made Microsoft rethink its timeline just a bit. Win 98 (and 98 SE) is still the most used operating system in the world, and after Microsoft was inundated with calls and complaints, the company backed off on its original timeline of service termination. Here's where Microsoft is now:

Mainstream service officially ended in June 2002, but because of consumer complaints, Microsoft decided to "unofficially" continue with full support for the time being. That time ends on June 30, 2003, just a couple of months from now. After that, free support ends, and Microsoft may or may not continue to provide patches and hot fixes for problems that are reported after that date. On January 16, 2004, Win 98 enters the "non-support" phase. On January 16, 2005, Win 98 officially enters "end-of-life," which means no support whatsoever from the big boys. (Note: Microsoft extended its support again, this time to June 2006.)

Windows Millennium: Like Win 98, Microsoft is ready to pull the plug on Win ME. This one enters the "extended" support phase on December 31, 2003. In December 2004, ME goes into "non-support," and hits the "end-of-life" wall in December 2005. (Note: Microsoft extended its support again, this time to June 2006.)

Whither the newer operating systems? Well, to quote Fred Langa:

"Windows 2000 and XP fall into the three-step support life-cycle Microsoft is trying to implement: The basic idea is that business products will have an eight-year life: five years of mainstream (full) support, and two years of extended support which '...includes assisted support that may be charged on an hourly basis and can include hotfix support.' The eighth and final year is online self-help support, analogous to the nonsupport option mentioned earlier for older operating systems. Consumer products will have a six-year life, starting with the same five-year support plan that business products also have, but skipping the extended-support period entirely. Instead, at the end of the fifth year, these products move straight to one year of online self-help support."

What does this mean? Well, we know that Microsoft never holds to a deadline for good or ill, so none of this is chiseled in granite, but at the moment here's the life cycle for the newer systems:

Windows 2000: Microsoft views Win 2K primarily as a business product, so it gets the full business treatment. It will continue in mainstream support until March 2005, when it goes into a two-year "extended phase" mode. In March 2007, 2K enters the "nonsupport" phase, and the lights go out in March 2008.

Windows XP: Geez, it just came out and already Microsoft is pulling the plug? Well, not really, but Microsoft seems to be serious about sticking to the life cycle as mentioned above. XP Professional gets the full business treatment, which means that mainstream support will end in December 2006, the "extended phase" will go through December 2008, and Microsoft will yank the rug out in December 2009. XP Home, considered a "consumer" product, gets less time; Microsoft will continue full support through December 2006, but will skip the "extended" phase entirely and go straight to a year of "non-support" until December 2007, when it will pull the plug entirely.

What to do when Microsoft shuts down its support for your system? Well, honestly, who went to Microsoft for help anyway? The updates and patches are one thing, but does anyone go to Microsoft for technical support? No one I know. I'm a regular peruser of the Knowledge Base articles, but I go anywhere BUT Microsoft for technical help. Any number of helpful technical support and advice sites are out there, and many of them are absolutely free. 5 Star Support is one that I've been affiliated with for several years now; their advice and assistance are first-rate, and they charge not one thin dime. Plenty of other sites are out there as well. Lots of folks make the updates and patches available on their sites as well, so when Microsoft decides to yank these off their site, it's just a matter of finding them elsewhere (and being informed as to what's available for what purpose). The biggest upshot is not being able to rely on Windows Update to do our thinking for us. We have to become aware of what Microsoft is offering and which ones we think we'll need. But if you're running a "newer" system, particularly 98 or ME, I urge you to click on that Windows Update link right now and download everything you possibly can. Store them somewhere safe, install the ones you think you need, and keep an eye on what becomes available between now and the "extended" phase of support, when they all go bye-bye.

Thanks to Fred Langa's Information Week articles at
www.informationweek.com/story/IWK20030307S0018 and www.informationweek.com/story/IWK20021211S0008
along with his newsletter, which provided the bulk of the material for this little missive.

And many thanks to you, the constant reader, for sticking around through the winter doldrums. I hope this helps all of us hang on through the upcoming OS roller coaster ride.

See you later this spring!

Update: A later issue of Langa's Newsletter gave us this tip for collecting Win 98 (and other) updates for later installation: "There's no single patch with all Win 98 updates in it, but there's a way to get all the separate patches, including some 'cumulative' patches that combine several (but not all) separate patches into one larger download. It's easy -- actually much easier than it used to be: Go to Windows Update; select 'Personalize' from 'Other Options' in the left menu, and activate the 'Display the link to the Windows Catalog' option, if you have not already done so. The Catalog will appear in the 'See Also' menu on the left. You can then use the Catalog to pull down whatever Updates and Drivers you want. (It also gives you an easy way to see what you've already downloaded.) Items you select go onto a 'download basket' from which you can retrieve and place them where ever you want--- on your hard drive, on a CD or whatever--- for safekeeping and later use." Thanks again, Fred!