[ppml] 240/4

[Tony Hain]

Andy Davidson wrote:
> On 2 May 2007, at 21:43, Tony Hain wrote:
> 
> > It is worth writing it up for Greenfield deployments of closed
> > systems that will not need to include any of the Win9x systems that
> > will continue to be in use.
> 
> Yes they are, but we are talking about being ready for 2012, when the
> Win9x base of systems will be old enough to marry without permission
> (in the UK).  "Modern" (by today's standard) OSes can be patched.

There is a vast difference between 'can' and 'will'. Win9x -can- be patched,
though it is not likely that anyone would bother to do the necessary testing
to find any hidden problems. The point is that even -if- MSFT posted an
update for every OS version they have ever shipped, they would not be
deployed in sufficient numbers to matter. The only people that actually
update their systems are the technical elite that are not afraid of breaking
the system beyond repair. The only way to weed out the old systems is to
have device failures where the cost of repair exceeds the cost of buying a
new system along with updated versions of all the software and the
consultant that has to migrate all the data to the new format of that is
probably 3+ revisions behind. Even then people balk because they don't want
to learn something slightly different.

Tony