Windows 95 / 98 / 98SE / NT 4.0 No Longer Supported

December 2003

Microsoft has discontinued support for its Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows 98SE, Windows NT 4.0 Workstation, and Windows NT 4.0 Server Operating Systems. Although licenses for these operating systems are still valid, the operating systems themselves are now considered obsolete.

Windows 95 and Windows NT 4.0 were the first Windows Operating Systems that many of our customers became involved with and did their jobs well on machines with what could be considered today, to have limited memory space and slow, small disk drives. Compared to current Windows operating systems, they are difficult to work with and support, incompatible with new hardware and replacement parts, and increasingly susceptible to today's virus, worm, and hacker attacks. Current hardware and the current Windows Operating Systems from Microsoft are far superior to their predecessors and have significant advantages. However, if your hardware does not fail, and your networks never connect to the Internet, your old systems should continue to function well for some time.

CIM-Data software will remain compatible with the above operating systems for the foreseeable future, but support may eventually be dropped by us, in order to take full advantage of new features in the new operating systems.

We would highly recommend that if your office has any of the operating systems listed above, that you institute a plan to upgrade to current systems over the next year, if possible.

Windows XP Professional is an enhanced version of Windows 2000 Professional or is recommended for workstations, and for servers with less than ten connected users.

Windows Server 2003 is recommended for servers with ten or more users. Offices with less than ten users can use it too. It has significant features, such as Terminal Services that allow you to connect to your office from home or anywhere else in the world over the Internet.

Windows 2000 Server and Windows 2000 Professional will continue as current, supported Operating Systems by Microsoft and we recommend you continue to use them.

Terminal Services Workstations are also recommended for offices that have Terminal Services installed on their servers. These act as "dumb" terminals and simply display Windows Sessions on a monitor. The sessions themselves actually run on the server, much like in the days of the old Wicat minicomputers. Over time, these are less expensive options, yielding higher performance with less maintenance.