# When did people stop using Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows 2000, and Windows Me?



## 481450 (Aug 13, 2017)

When did the Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows 2000, and Windows ME operating systems stopped being used? I mean a PC from 2007 and a few years earlier still isn't considered obsolete today, so could you have said the same about a mid-late 90s PC in 2007?


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## California Kid (Dec 5, 2013)

Windows 95: 1999 because that's when the successor Windows 98 took over as main Windows version. 

Windows 98, 2000 & Me: 2002-03 because that's when the successor Windows XP took over as main Windows version.


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## lenyr (Oct 13, 2017)

Based off when Microsoft support was ended for those operating systems:

Windows 95 support ended in 2001.
Windows 98/ME support ended in 2006.
Windows 2000 support ended in 2010.
Windows XP support ended in 2014.

That said, end of support does not necessarily mean people stop using it. Windows XP is still widely used, and there were plenty of computers that used Windows 95 even in the mid-2000s. When I completed elementary school in 2006, all the computers in the lab were still using Windows 98. My middle school and high school used Windows XP, though.


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## briand515 (Jun 9, 2013)

Windows 95 was too old by around 2000-2001 I'd say. The others 98/2000/Me I'd say maybe till around 2004-2005 you could get away with those, but by the later 2000s those were too old. The idea is in 1999 a decent amount of people still used Windows 95, but few did by say 2002. In 2002 a lot of people still used Windows 98/2000/Me but by say 2007 not many did.


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## Longaotian00 (Mar 13, 2017)

I used windows 95 up until 2005/6! XP until 2012, Windows 7 until 2016 and now Windows 10 2016+


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## 481450 (Aug 13, 2017)

Longaotian00 said:


> I used windows 95 up until 2005/6! XP until 2012, Windows 7 until 2016 and now Windows 10 2016+


I've used everything from Windows XP to Windows 10, and that includes Windows 8 and Vista.


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## Grandmaster Yoda (Jan 18, 2014)

My original Windows ME computer was still in use until either 2006 or 2008 then we switched to Vista. My school's computers were running XP until some point in middle school.


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## 481450 (Aug 13, 2017)

Grandmaster Yoda said:


> My school's computers were running XP until some point in middle school.


How long ago were you in middle school?


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## Grandmaster Yoda (Jan 18, 2014)

WiiFan said:


> How long ago were you in middle school?


I would say they stopped using it around 2010 or 2011. The extended support ended in 2014 so it wasn't bad. The problem is when businesses are still using Windows Server 2003 and Windows XP because those are highly vulnerable at this point.

An interesting video I saw gave an alternate explanation for why people are still using Windows XP at home. Most people assume that Windows XP simply just works and was a very accessible operating system and that is why people continue to use it. That I think is true, but not always true. The video creator considered that now that many people are moving to smartphones and tablets, they are neglecting their older computer hardware. Older hardware can likely display webpages, video and emails just fine which is what most people use computers for. On top of this tablets and smartphones can do the same, so people don't really need new computers in that sense. So it probably isn't just rampant fanboy hysteria that is keeping XP alive, it may well be a lack of maintenance on computers that people don't really use much anymore.


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## 481450 (Aug 13, 2017)

Grandmaster Yoda said:


> I would say they stopped using it around 2010 or 2011. The extended support ended in 2014 so it wasn't bad. The problem is when businesses are still using Windows Server 2003 and Windows XP because those are highly vulnerable at this point.
> 
> An interesting video I saw gave an alternate explanation for why people are still using Windows XP at home. Most people assume that Windows XP simply just works and was a very accessible operating system and that is why people continue to use it. That I think is true, but not always true. The video creator considered that now that many people are moving to smartphones and tablets, they are neglecting their older computer hardware. Older hardware can likely display webpages, video and emails just fine which is what most people use computers for. On top of this tablets and smartphones can do the same, so people don't really need new computers in that sense. So it probably isn't just rampant fanboy hysteria that is keeping XP alive, it may well be a lack of maintenance on computers that people don't really use much anymore.


I hear all about Windows XP still being used by some, though I haven't personally seen Windows XP since around April 2014 when they discontinued it. At the tail end of the 2013-2014 school year, my school at the time bought new PCs and XP was gone. I (and I'm sure many others) used it frequently used XP not too long before they discontinued the OS, around 2012-2013 I started using Vista and 7.


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## Grandmaster Yoda (Jan 18, 2014)

WiiFan said:


> I hear all about Windows XP still being used by some, though I haven't personally seen Windows XP since around April 2014 when they discontinued it. At the tail end of the 2013-2014 school year, my school at the time bought new PCs and XP was gone. I (and I'm sure many others) used it frequently used XP not too long before they discontinued the OS, around 2012-2013 I started using Vista and 7.


I don't know what my public schools are currently using but my college has fully upgraded to Windows 10 ever since I got here. My Windows 7 is no longer updated but I use it anyway because it is usually more convenient. I plan to get a higher-end macbook pro at some point and use Windows as a secondary OS when needed because I don't really like the changes they make all the time. If you look at mac os x it has only been GUI and the location many menus hasn't changed in 30 years.


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## 481450 (Aug 13, 2017)

Grandmaster Yoda said:


> I don't know what my public schools are currently using but my college has fully upgraded to Windows 10 ever since I got here. My Windows 7 is no longer updated but I use it anyway because it is usually more convenient. I plan to get a higher-end macbook pro at some point and use Windows as a secondary OS when needed because I don't really like the changes they make all the time. If you look at mac os x it has only been GUI and the location many menus hasn't changed in 30 years.


I don't know much about Mac OS. The only OS besides Windows I've used is Linux Ubuntu, despite what Linux elitists say, it's lame as hell!


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## Grandmaster Yoda (Jan 18, 2014)

WiiFan said:


> I don't know much about Mac OS. The only OS besides Windows I've used is Linux Ubuntu, despite what Linux elitists say, it's lame as hell!


I think Linux is limited by its environment. There's no reason why somebody couldn't compile Microsoft Word onto Linux, it's just that there is little incentive to do so. So they have to work without open source solutions which are never quite as compatible as they could be. In some cases they lack features entirely. A lot of this stuff really boils down to what you are used to using. I didn't pick up Android the first time with an open mind, I was going to be critical because I knew iOS worked well for me and guess what? I don't use android anymore, I think it's not good enough for my daily use. If you ever get into this professionally, which I'm trying to do with college is don't have a picky attitude. One of the concepts you will learn is interoperability, different things can be made to work together. Another thing is ultimately these things are all tools. Windows is a tool, Linux is a tool, Java is a tool. If the only thing you use is a hammer, all of your problems are going to start looking like nails. There are pros and cons to everything and some things are arguably better for certain tasks. For Linux right now, I would say it's not the best desktop for me either though.


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## Zeus (Oct 8, 2011)

The year they came out, I like my MacBook a MacBook.


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## clem (Jun 10, 2017)

This is nostalgic in a way. I still keep old OS around for those legacy apps. It interesting to keep things running without extended support. I have to be very careful about the websites that I go to and what I click on. Even older operating systems like window 2000 give that sort of post apocalyptic feel. The best network security for those legacy operating system is simply IP isolation. They can be on the network, but not allowed to access any other computer on the network. So shut off all LAN traffic and if there is a virus then reinstall OS from custom recovery media.


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## jtour (Oct 26, 2017)

Longaotian00 said:


> I used windows 95 up until 2005/6! XP until 2012, Windows 7 until 2016 and now Windows 10 2016+


Pretty similar to me. Windows 95 on a Thinkpad, until about 2002 (or maybe later, I don't recall exactly), while I was using XP on a desktop computer starting about 2001, and on later notebooks until about 2009 or so, running digital audio workstation software (DAW), software synthesizers, media playback and editing, and general Office stuff. I have two desktops now with XP and Win7 on it for various things to this day (mostly Office software and places to store some data on drives I haven't bothered to organize yet).

I have a netbook with Win10 on it, just to stay current, but otherwise I pulled the plug and went straight Linux for all notebooks, which is all I use for anything except for the Windows systems for some software (WINE or a VM is not worth the resources of disk space etc. for me when I could just fire up a dedicated machine and not have to screw around with fonts and stuff). ETA yeah, I guess I can see where some of you above are coming from, but I like a linux using XFCE, and I like dpkg w/ apt-get (or sometimes some of the other front ends to dpkg like wajig) -- no interest in using yum or others for private use when I already know dpkg pretty well. One thing to consider where the user interface is nicer is not just in customizing how the desktop looks, but the ability to do things like easily remap the keyboard, assign compose keys and stuff like that without using weird Windows hacks, or remembering alt-codes or use some graphical character map to type in languages with diacritics, for example.

Windows 95 was adequate for an older notebook, mostly used for Office software and web browsing. In fact, if I ever get around to doing something with some jumper pin to reset the BIOS password, which I forgot, I'd probably find some use for that old machine and not bother trying to find some 3.5" disks to change anything. At most, hook it up to a switch or use a crossover cable for data transfer. I think it has like a 20MB hard drive or something like that. Kind of curious what's on the drive, sort of.

WAY OT, but I didn't have any problems with Vista or Win8 (once you got rid of the stupid tiles). Win10 is kind of stupid, with a lot of crap in it, though. Maybe for some edge cases like playing some fruity video games it manages HW resources better, but I haven't bothered to investigate.


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## 481450 (Aug 13, 2017)

jtour said:


> WAY OT, but I didn't have any problems with Vista or Win8 (once you got rid of the stupid tiles). Win10 is kind of stupid, with a lot of crap in it, though. Maybe for some edge cases like playing some fruity video games it manages HW resources better, but I haven't bothered to investigate.


I liked Vista, it did the Aero theme best and all the wacky bells and whistles in it that aren't present in Windows 7, though I understand Windows 7 had to be more serious for a reason. Hell, I have a guilty pleasure for the Windows 8 Metro theme thinking back, it was colorful and kinda gay, though I still ended up downloading the start menu again.


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## Arzazar Szubrasznikarazar (Apr 9, 2015)

I used Windows 98 until late 2009 when I bought a used computer and network card didn't want to cooperate with Win98, so I installed Linux Mint. I'm a Linux user since then.


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## Witch of Oreo (Jun 23, 2014)

I think I kept running 98 until 2004 or 2005 when I had my first major upgrade. Since then I stuck with XP. Moved to Vista day one as XP couldn't handle two threads for some reason. That and I loved Vista's look, and still do.


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## Zeus (Oct 8, 2011)

Witch of Oreo said:


> I think I kept running 98 until 2004 or 2005 when I had my first major upgrade. Since then I stuck with XP. Moved to Vista day one as XP couldn't handle two threads for some reason. That and I loved Vista's look, and still do.


“Play in sound cloud? Listen in browser?” Reminds of that duo chick giving directions.


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## keepthefaith.faith (Mar 26, 2018)

Preciselyd said:


> I have Windows 1.0, Windows 2.0, Windows 3.0, Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows ME, Windows XP, Encarta 94, Encarta 95, Packard Bell Navigator 95 and Packard Bell Navigator 96. Many are still using this type of software via Virtualbox and/or Vmware or CD with Software they bought years ago.
> 
> There are videos on Youtube for those interested.


Last night I managed to install Windows 3.0 and Windows 95. Thank you for sharing @Preciselyd! I am so keen to get Windows 98 and Windows XP. I am surprised many are interested in the former Windows.


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