Microsoft reminds us that it is ending support for Windows 98, Windows (8 SE and Windows Miserable Edition (a.k.a. ME) on July 11, 2006. This means Microsoft will end public and technical support on July 11, 2006. This also includes security updates.
Regarding security:
Today we’ve made an update to the FAQ in MS06-015
related to the availability of an update for Microsoft Windows 98, Microsoft
Windows 98 Second Edition (SE), and Microsoft Windows Millennium Edition (ME).
Specifically, after extensive investigation, we’ve found that it’s not
feasible to make the extensive changes necessary to Windows Explorer on these
older versions of Windows to eliminate the vulnerability.
This is because during the development of Windows 2000, we made
significant enhancements to the underlying architecture of Windows Explorer. The
Windows Explorer architecture on these older versions of Windows is much less
robust than the more recent Windows architectures.
They go on to give a security recommendation:
We do strongly recommend that customers still using Microsoft Windows 98,
Microsoft Windows 98 Second Edition (SE), and Microsoft Windows Millennium
Edition (ME) protect those systems by placing them behind a perimeter firewall
which filters traffic on TCP Port 139 which will block attacks attempting to
exploit this vulnerability. This is discussed in the "Workarounds" section of
the vulnerability.
And, of course, with the upcoming end up support for these products, we
strongly recommend that those of you who are still running these older versions
of Windows upgrade to a newer, more secure version, such as Windows XP SP2, as
soon as possible.
My recommendation, if you are still running Windows Miserable Edition, especially in a business environment (you know who you are, I've seen some of you), throw that crap out and replace it with, at least, Windows XP SP2 already!
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