Microsoft end of support dates

On 7/11/20 4:48 AM, Joel wrote:
Snit wrote:

As for Windows Me, the idea was to redesign the 9x line to be more
like 2000, for example it included the new TCP/IP in 2000 (and in 95,
98, 98 SE and NT 4, it had been abysmal, so that was one thing in Me's
favor). The problem was that for many if not most computers, Me was
far less stable than 98 SE. There were exceptions to that, but it was
released with a lot of flaws.

Worked with someone who had an ME machine that came with a printer. The
printer was not compatible with ME. From what I saw Windows ME was a
disaster.

That really is bizarre, they bundled an incompatible printer? Jeez.

It was completely insane. And it was not from a small company -- Dell, I
think.


--
Personal attacks from those who troll show their own insecurity. They
cannot use reason to show the message to be wrong so they try to feel
somehow superior by attacking the messenger.

They cling to their attacks and ignore the message time and time again.

On 7/10/20 10:29 PM, Eric Stevens wrote:

[snip]

That 2001 date was also the time they stopped supporting MSDOS 6 as
well as Win 2 & 3 which depended on it or lower versions. Win95& 98
ran on MSDOS 7+.

95/98/98SE/ME were actual OSes. Win 1/2/3.x were applications running on DOS.

And Windows 2000 was actually NT5. It was where Windows started to
properly grow up.

XP was NT5.1, and 2000 was the last version before M$ added the weak
link they erroneously call "product activation".

--
Mark Lloyd
http://notstupid.us/

If God can do anything he can make a stone so heavy that even he can't
lift it. Then there is something God cannot do, he cannot lift the
stone. Therefore God does not exist." [Lucretius, Roman poet]

On 7/10/20 11:42 PM, Snit wrote:

[snip]

Windows naming was weird back then.

For the home it went from 3.1 to 95 to 98 to ME

And for the pros it went from NT to 2000

Why have the numbers and two-letter combos switch?

Considering the change from 98 to ME, perhaps they didn't wand to call
ME Windows 1 (short for 2001, the way 98 is short for 1998).

--
Mark Lloyd
http://notstupid.us/

If God can do anything he can make a stone so heavy that even he can't
lift it. Then there is something God cannot do, he cannot lift the
stone. Therefore God does not exist." [Lucretius, Roman poet]

On 7/11/20 6:54 AM, Ken Blake wrote:
On 7/10/2020 9:42 PM, Snit wrote:
On 7/10/20 8:29 PM, Eric Stevens wrote:
On Fri, 10 Jul 2020 07:29:07 -0400, Wolffan
wrote:

On 10 Jul 2020, Apd wrote
(in article ):

"Commander Kinsey" wrote:
On Fri, 10 Jul 2020 01:30:22 +0100, Eric Stevens wrote:
On Thu, 09 Jul 2020 23:51:43 +0100, "Commander Kinsey" wrote:

Just found this beauty: Windows 1.0 ran from 1985 until 2001!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_1.0

"Windows 1.0 was released on November 20, 1985"

"On December 31, 2001, Windows 1.0 was declared obsolete and
Microsoft stopped providing support and updates for the system."

Those who used it regarded Windows 1.0 as obsolete almost from the
beginning.

I never even heard of it and wondered why Windows 2 was the first
one. When I looked up that query, I found there was a windows 1.

But it's very odd they supported it until 2001, by which times we'd
had Windows 2, 3, 95, 98, NT 4 (and 1, 2, 3?) 2000.

That 2001 date was also the time they stopped supporting MSDOS 6 as
well as Win 2 &Â* 3 which depended on it or lower versions. Win95&Â* 98
ran on MSDOS 7+.

95/98/98SE/ME were actual OSes. Win 1/2/3.x were applications
running on DOS.

And Windows 2000 was actually NT5. It was where Windows started to
properly grow up.


Windows naming was weird back then.


As opposed to now? It last went from 8.1 to 10.



For the home it went from 3.1 to 95 to 98...


A very minor point, but actuallyÂ* it went from *3.11* to 95.


... to ME


Another very minor point. It was Me, not ME.


And for the pros it went from NT to 2000

Why have the numbers and two-letter combos switch?


Because Microsoft marketing thought it would sell better.



Thanks for the corrections on the minor points. And, yes, marketing
thought it would be better -- but why add the confusion of switching
conventions?

--
Personal attacks from those who troll show their own insecurity. They
cannot use reason to show the message to be wrong so they try to feel
somehow superior by attacking the messenger.

They cling to their attacks and ignore the message time and time again.

On 7/11/20 11:54 AM, Apd wrote:
"Snit" wrote:
On 7/10/20 8:29 PM, Eric Stevens wrote:
And Windows 2000 was actually NT5. It was where Windows started to
properly grow up.

Windows naming was weird back then.

For the home it went from 3.1 to 95 to 98 to ME

Aside from 3.11, it went to 4.0 (95), 4.1 (98) and 4.9 (Me).

And for the pros it went from NT to 2000

This, a completely different OS from the earlier Wins, went from
NT 4.0 to NT 5.0 (2000).

Why have the numbers and two-letter combos switch?

As someone else said, marketing.



Yes... but a shame that marketing things swapping conventions which can
be predicted to lead to confusion is the best choice.

--
Personal attacks from those who troll show their own insecurity. They
cannot use reason to show the message to be wrong so they try to feel
somehow superior by attacking the messenger.

They cling to their attacks and ignore the message time and time again.

On 7/11/20 12:14 PM, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 11/07/2020 13.48, Joel wrote:
Snit wrote:

As for Windows Me, the idea was to redesign the 9x line to be more
like 2000, for example it included the new TCP/IP in 2000 (and in 95,
98, 98 SE and NT 4, it had been abysmal, so that was one thing in Me's
favor).Â* The problem was that for many if not most computers, Me was
far less stable than 98 SE.Â* There were exceptions to that, but it was
released with a lot of flaws.

Worked with someone who had an ME machine that came with a printer. The
printer was not compatible with ME. From what I saw Windows ME was a
disaster.


That really is bizarre, they bundled an incompatible printer?Â* Jeez.

Obviously the fault was of the vendor, not of M$.



Perhaps, but the vendor (Dell, I think) was a big one and worked closely
with MS.

--
Personal attacks from those who troll show their own insecurity. They
cannot use reason to show the message to be wrong so they try to feel
somehow superior by attacking the messenger.

They cling to their attacks and ignore the message time and time again.

On 7/11/20 12:30 PM, Joel wrote:
"Apd" wrote:
"Snit" wrote:

And for the pros it went from NT to 2000

This, a completely different OS from the earlier Wins, went from
NT 4.0 to NT 5.0 (2000).


2000 and XP, and Server 2003, were built on the NT 4 code, but they
intended 2000 to be the first unified version for business and home
use, and even when it wasn't, it would be supported long after 9x/Me,
and with service packs was more or less equivalent to XP, so it made
sense to name it 2000.


I think that is more to the point than just marketing... they wanted
2000 to be more than it was.

--
Personal attacks from those who troll show their own insecurity. They
cannot use reason to show the message to be wrong so they try to feel
somehow superior by attacking the messenger.

They cling to their attacks and ignore the message time and time again.

On 7/11/20 12:32 PM, Joel wrote:
"Carlos E.R." wrote:
On 11/07/2020 13.48, Joel wrote:
Snit wrote:

Worked with someone who had an ME machine that came with a printer. The
printer was not compatible with ME. From what I saw Windows ME was a
disaster.

That really is bizarre, they bundled an incompatible printer? Jeez.

Obviously the fault was of the vendor, not of M$.


That's true, but you'd think *someone* would've tested the
compatibility first. If the manufacturer of the printer didn't
provide updated drivers, how did that not get noticed?


Right. And it was a big vendor, one which worked with MS (Dell, I think).

--
Personal attacks from those who troll show their own insecurity. They
cannot use reason to show the message to be wrong so they try to feel
somehow superior by attacking the messenger.

They cling to their attacks and ignore the message time and time again.

Snit wrote:

2000 and XP, and Server 2003, were built on the NT 4 code, but they
intended 2000 to be the first unified version for business and home
use, and even when it wasn't, it would be supported long after 9x/Me,
and with service packs was more or less equivalent to XP, so it made
sense to name it 2000.

I think that is more to the point than just marketing... they wanted
2000 to be more than it was.


That was the plan, yeah, but there were issues with running DOS games,
drivers, etc., that made them realize that they hadn't yet achieved
what XP ultimately became. They had to release 2000 as kind of an
interim version. But the second service pack for 2000, released
around the same time as XP, corrected that. I got a custom built
computer a couple months after the release of 2000 with it
preinstalled, and it was wonderful, coming from Win98. The new
machine was faster and had more RAM, sure, but the difference in terms
of using it was that I was running a "real" OS.

--
Joel Crump

On 11/07/2020 22.04, Snit wrote:
On 7/11/20 12:14 PM, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 11/07/2020 13.48, Joel wrote:
Snit wrote:

As for Windows Me, the idea was to redesign the 9x line to be more
like 2000, for example it included the new TCP/IP in 2000 (and in 95,
98, 98 SE and NT 4, it had been abysmal, so that was one thing in Me's
favor).Â* The problem was that for many if not most computers, Me was
far less stable than 98 SE.Â* There were exceptions to that, but it was
released with a lot of flaws.

Worked with someone who had an ME machine that came with a printer. The
printer was not compatible with ME. From what I saw Windows ME was a
disaster.


That really is bizarre, they bundled an incompatible printer?Â* Jeez.

Obviously the fault was of the vendor, not of M$.



Perhaps, but the vendor (Dell, I think) was a big one and worked closely
with MS.

**** happens.

Didn't you consider returning the machine?


--
Cheers, Carlos.

On 7/11/20 2:13 PM, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 11/07/2020 22.04, Snit wrote:
On 7/11/20 12:14 PM, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 11/07/2020 13.48, Joel wrote:
Snit wrote:

As for Windows Me, the idea was to redesign the 9x line to be more
like 2000, for example it included the new TCP/IP in 2000 (and in 95,
98, 98 SE and NT 4, it had been abysmal, so that was one thing in
Me's
favor).Â* The problem was that for many if not most computers, Me was
far less stable than 98 SE.Â* There were exceptions to that, but it
was
released with a lot of flaws.

Worked with someone who had an ME machine that came with a printer.
The
printer was not compatible with ME. From what I saw Windows ME was a
disaster.


That really is bizarre, they bundled an incompatible printer?Â* Jeez.

Obviously the fault was of the vendor, not of M$.



Perhaps, but the vendor (Dell, I think) was a big one and worked
closely with MS.

**** happens.

Didn't you consider returning the machine?

I suggested that... they did not want to. They did get another printer
(one I suggested and was available easily from Costco, which has a great
return policy and excellent prices). I think they gave the printer away
to a family member. This was quite some time ago, though, so I might
have details on that wrong.


--
Personal attacks from those who troll show their own insecurity. They
cannot use reason to show the message to be wrong so they try to feel
somehow superior by attacking the messenger.

They cling to their attacks and ignore the message time and time again.

On 7/11/20 1:54 PM, Joel wrote:
Snit wrote:

2000 and XP, and Server 2003, were built on the NT 4 code, but they
intended 2000 to be the first unified version for business and home
use, and even when it wasn't, it would be supported long after 9x/Me,
and with service packs was more or less equivalent to XP, so it made
sense to name it 2000.

I think that is more to the point than just marketing... they wanted
2000 to be more than it was.


That was the plan, yeah, but there were issues with running DOS games,
drivers, etc., that made them realize that they hadn't yet achieved
what XP ultimately became. They had to release 2000 as kind of an
interim version. But the second service pack for 2000, released
around the same time as XP, corrected that. I got a custom built
computer a couple months after the release of 2000 with it
preinstalled, and it was wonderful, coming from Win98. The new
machine was faster and had more RAM, sure, but the difference in terms
of using it was that I was running a "real" OS.

If I recall correctly XP had interface differences I think served the
public better -- and in the end I was happy with it. But the whole
naming convention thing was just weird. I knew consumers who wanted to
go with 2000 because they assumed it was the consumer product.

--
Personal attacks from those who troll show their own insecurity. They
cannot use reason to show the message to be wrong so they try to feel
somehow superior by attacking the messenger.

They cling to their attacks and ignore the message time and time again.

On 12/07/2020 00.08, Snit wrote:
On 7/11/20 2:13 PM, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 11/07/2020 22.04, Snit wrote:
On 7/11/20 12:14 PM, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 11/07/2020 13.48, Joel wrote:
Snit wrote:

As for Windows Me, the idea was to redesign the 9x line
to be more like 2000, for example it included the new
TCP/IP in 2000 (and in 95, 98, 98 SE and NT 4, it had
been abysmal, so that was one thing in Me's favor). The
problem was that for many if not most computers, Me was
far less stable than 98 SE. There were exceptions to
that, but it was released with a lot of flaws.

Worked with someone who had an ME machine that came with a
printer. The
printer was not compatible with ME. From what I saw Windows ME was a
disaster.


That really is bizarre, they bundled an incompatible printer?Â* Jeez.

Obviously the fault was of the vendor, not of M$.



Perhaps, but the vendor (Dell, I think) was a big one and worked
closely with MS.

**** happens.

Didn't you consider returning the machine?

I suggested that... they did not want to. They did get another printer
(one I suggested and was available easily from Costco, which has a great
return policy and excellent prices). I think they gave the printer away
to a family member. This was quite some time ago, though, so I might
have details on that wrong.

About 20 years ago :-D


--
Cheers, Carlos.

On 7/11/20 4:30 PM, Carlos E.R. wrote:

On 12/07/2020 00.08, Snit wrote:
On 7/11/20 2:13 PM, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 11/07/2020 22.04, Snit wrote:
On 7/11/20 12:14 PM, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 11/07/2020 13.48, Joel wrote:
Snit wrote:

As for Windows Me, the idea was to redesign the 9x line
to be more like 2000, for example it included the new
TCP/IP in 2000 (and in 95, 98, 98 SE and NT 4, it had
been abysmal, so that was one thing in Me's favor).Â* The
problem was that for many if not most computers, Me was far less
stable than 98 SE.Â* There were exceptions to
that, but it was released with a lot of flaws.

Worked with someone who had an ME machine that came with a
printer. The
printer was not compatible with ME. From what I saw Windows ME was a
disaster.


That really is bizarre, they bundled an incompatible printer?Â* Jeez.

Obviously the fault was of the vendor, not of M$.



Perhaps, but the vendor (Dell, I think) was a big one and worked
closely with MS.

**** happens.

Didn't you consider returning the machine?

I suggested that... they did not want to. They did get another printer
(one I suggested and was available easily from Costco, which has a
great return policy and excellent prices). I think they gave the
printer away to a family member. This was quite some time ago, though,
so I might have details on that wrong.

About 20 years ago :-D


Yup. I do not pretend to remember every detail from back then!

--
Personal attacks from those who troll show their own insecurity. They
cannot use reason to show the message to be wrong so they try to feel
somehow superior by attacking the messenger.

They cling to their attacks and ignore the message time and time again.

Mark Lloyd
Fri, 10 Jul 2020 20:27:53 GMT in alt.computer.workshop, wrote:

On 7/10/20 6:29 AM, Wolffan wrote:

[snip]

That 2001 date was also the time they stopped supporting MSDOS 6
as well as Win 2 & 3 which depended on it or lower versions.
Win95& 98 ran on MSDOS 7+.

Later 98 as well as 98SE came with DOS 7.1 (which added FAT32
support). ME came with a limited DOS called version 8.

BTW, long file name support was not a DOS feature, but a part of
Windows.

Not true. It was an extension of the FAT table starting with win95
that allowed long file name support, and DOS had to be aware of, and
support it as well. Hence, MSDOS 7.

http://www.fysnet.net/longfile.htm

*Description
These files are distributed to show how to use Long Filenames In DOS
and True DOS See below for information on how these filenames are
stored on the disk.
See below for information on Long Filenames on an NT machine.

Get Microsofts FAT description from here and LFN description from
here. (The FAT description, version 1.03, from here)
They are in PDF format. You can get a PDF veiwer here.

Alexei A. Frounze has written a FAT library at
http://alexfru.narod.ru/os/fat/fat.html. Here in the States, it takes
some time to download the file from that page, so you can download
the .zip file from here (updated: 03 Dec 2006). Some new updates and
a few image utilities are added. A great resource of info if you are
starting out your OS, or want to make sure your current FAT code
works.


DOS Session (only)
Make sure to use service 71A0h to make sure that the current system
will allow long file names.
-If the system does not support long filenames, then AX will be 7100h
and the CARRY will be set.

NEVER use these services on a system that does not support long file
names.

The AH register is 71h while the AL register contains the old DOS AH
registers' setting. All other registers have the same use.

Use these services just like the older INT 21h services, but replace
AH with 71h, and put in AL the old AH value.

service # (AX) Function name
710Dh Reset Drive
7139h Create Directory
713Ah Remove Directory
713Bh Set Current Directory
7141h Delete File
7143h Get/Set File Attrbs.
7147h Get Current Directory
714Eh Find First File
714Fh Find Next File
7156h Move or Rename File
7160h Get Truename (get shortname)
716Ch Extended Open/Create File
71A0h Get Volume Info
71A1h Find Close
71A6h Get File Info
71A7h Time Conversion
71A8h Generate Short Name
71A9h Server Create Open
71AAh Create/Terminate SUBST
43FFh* BP=5053h, CL=39h Create Directory (Win 98/DOS
7.20)
43FFh* BP=5053h, CL=56h Rename File (Win 98/DOS
7.20)

*these two functions are equivalent to DOS services 39h and 56h, but
with a maximum path length of 128 characters instead of 67. However,
unlike the other functions above, these functions are available under
bare DOS and not just in a Windows DOS box.

See Ralf Brown's Interrupt list for more info on long file names.


True DOS
View long filenames without Windows 95. The included C source code,
written by the people from PC Magazine, shows how to view long
filenames in True DOS mode. Not a Windows 95 DOS session.
I found it on the ZD-NET web site, cleaned it up, ported it to MS
Quick C 2.5 (Small model) and now am including it here (22k) for your
benefit.

Also have a look here and get LFNDOS.ZIP. The source code is also
included as a separate zip file.

Accessing Long File Names in True DOS directly from the disk. Any DOS
version supporting a FAT file system.

First, let us discuss the regular DOS File Directory Entry Area: (FDE
Area)
The Root Directory contains 32-byte FDE's. These 32 byte entries
contain information about the file: File Name, attribute, time, date,
etc.
Here is the format of a regular DOS File Directory Entry:

Offset Size Description (As of DOS 5.0)
00h 8 filename (blank-padded)
(First byte E5h if file deleted or the FDE is
free)
08h 3 filename ext (blank-padded)
0Bh 1 attributes
0Ch 10 reserved
16h 2 Time
18h 2 Date
1Ah 2 Starting cluster number
1Ch 4 File Size

Just a note: In later versions with a FAT 32 system, offset 14h was
used for the high order word of the Starting Cluster Number.

Now, if we change this format to add LFN support and write to the
disk, what happens when we boot to DOS directly and access the disk?
Ouch!!!!!!

Did you note that in offset 00h, if the first byte in the file name
is E5h, the file has been deleted and the FDE is free for use? Also,
what if we use an attribute of subdirectory and volume label for the
same FDE? This could not happen, because the volume name can not be a
subdirectory entry. So, Win9x has used the file attribute byte to
denote that this FDE is part of a long filename entry.

Let us say we have a file with a LFN of
Thisisalongfilename.andextension and we want to save it to disk.
However, the name is longer than the 8.3 format that is allowed in
the regular FDE. With Win9x LFN's, we use more than one FDE to store
the name. These are called individual slots, with the short filename
stored as the last slot.

Here is the format of a LFN File Directory Entry:

Offset Size Description
00h 1 LFN record sequence and flags byte
01h 10 long file name (first part) (16 bit Unicode, see
below)
0Bh 1 Attributes (0Fh)
0Ch 1 reserved
0Dh 1 Check sum for short file name
0Eh 12 long file name (second part) (16 bit Unicode)
1Ah 2 First cluster number (always 0000h for LFN
records)
1Ch 4 long file name (third part) (16 bit Unicode)

Let us look at the first byte. This is the LFN slot number in the
wanted sequence of slots for this LFN. Bits 5-0 are the sequence
number with the last sequence number OR'd with 40h. These LFN slots
are directly behind the regular short file name File Directory Entry.

A note : Bit 6 of above denotes last LFN slot for file (i.e: OR'd
with 40h above), and Bit 7 set if file deleted.

So, all we have to do is find enough empty FDE tables to hold the LFN
and the regular entries. Each LFN FDE will hold 13 characters of the
LFN. There are 26 bytes used for the LFN, but each character uses a
16 bit word. Usually, each word contains the ascii character followed
by a null char (00h).

Since each LFN FDE will hold 13 chars of the LFN, and we need 32
bytes for the above LFN, we will need (32/13) or 3 LFN FDE plus 1
regular FDE. So let us find 4 consecutive empty FDE's. Once we have
found them, let us place the regular FDE with the short filename in
the 4th slot.

Please note that the LFN FDE's are in reverse order. Meaning that the
first part of the LFN is in the FDE in slot 3, with the second part
of the LFN in slot 2, and the last LFN FDE needed in slot 1 with its
first byte OR'd with 40h. So the first byte in the FDE in slot 3
would be 01h, with the first byte in slot 2, being 02h, and the first
byte in slot 1, being 43h.

With all of this in mind, the layout of the four FDE's would be:

other entries....
slot #1, id = 43h, characters = "ension"
slot #2, id = 02h, characters = "lename.andext"
slot #3, id = 01h, characters = "Thisisalongfi"
slot #4, regular short filename Directory entry
other entries....

That is about all there is to it. Not very difficult at all.

You must remember a few things including:
You can not always assume that there is a LFN FDE for every regular
FDE even though the FDE preceding it is empty.

Use caution when writing back to the disk. You can only read and
write full sectors at a time, so make sure that you don't corrupt the
unused part of your buffer that you read in.

Calculating the Check Sum (the byte at offset 0Dh).
The checksum (CRC) is calculated quite simple:

unsigned char crc = 0;
unsigned char i = 0;

//actual name is: ashort_n.ame
char shortname[11] = "ashort_name";

crc = 0; // make sure crc = 0 each time one is calculated
for (i=0; i11; i++)
crc = ((crc7) | (crc1)) + shortname[i];

95/98/98SE/ME were actual OSes. Win 1/2/3.x were applications
running on DOS.

95/98/98SE/ME ran on DOS too. It's just that DOS was provided with
Windows.

Yea, instead of a seperate purchase. G And with those, you didn't
load DOS first and then load them after.



--
The Eleventh Commandment: Thou shalt not get caught.