[halohalo]

I can't access Windows Update v4 website with IE6 sp1. And IE6 sp1 tries to go to:
http://v4.windowsupd...ault.aspx?ln=en

[dencorso]

I confirm that. Neither do I, anymore. It seems to enter a kind of a loop...

[Foxbat]

Me too.

[rainyd]

It means, it's not possible anymore to update Win98/ME via Windows Update?

What about WindizUpdate?

[submix8c]

Confirmed.

I wouldn't bother with WindizUpdate - it's incomplete.

Just use the stickies here -
http://www.msfn.org/...98-seme-topics/

[Hu$tle]

submix8c, on 27 August 2011 - 01:46 PM, said:

Confirmed.

I wouldn't bother with WindizUpdate - it's incomplete.

Just use the stickies here -
http://www.msfn.org/...98-seme-topics/

Why use the stickies? They are incomplete also. Almost everything over there is not finished. Many of which still has bugs that has not been fixed in years and probably won't get fixed. I hate to say it, but it is the truth.
M$ has left Win9X in the dust and so have some of these guys.

Your best bet is to collect all official updates and burn to a cd, after a clean install, then install all the official updates. Then your system will be up to date and not up to bugs.
M$ is removing windows 9X updates left n right. So get'em while you can.

This post has been edited by Hu$tle: 01 September 2011 - 09:26 AM

[submix8c]

Hu$tle, on 01 September 2011 - 09:24 AM, said:

Why use the stickies? They are incomplete also. Almost everything over there is not finished. Many of which still has bugs that has not been fixed in years and probably won't get fixed. I hate to say it, but it is the truth.
M$ has left Win9X in the dust and so have some of these guys.

Your best bet is to collect all official updates and burn to a cd, after a clean install, then install all the official updates. Then your system will be up to date and not up to bugs.
M$ is removing windows 9X updates left n right. So get'em while you can.

What??? The Stickies have EVERYTHING "collected", both Official AND Unofficial. Right up to Dropped Support (your "bug" comment)!!! Did you look?

Particularly at this and this.

I have AutoPatcher and several additional Unofficial fixes. It won't get any better...

This post has been edited by submix8c: 01 September 2011 - 10:05 AM

[ecokid1991]

@halohalo

I hope more people who are "fans" of older versions of Windows like 98, catch on to this new development about Windows Update.

Why can't MS said something an advance of shutting off Windows Update servers for older Windows?

Now what are folks who use older Windows for various reasons suppose to do now?

I hope someone steps up and sets up a new Windows Update like website just for older Windows (95, NT 4.0, 98, and ME).

If MS won't do it, then they should find someone who will and make an agreement to make legal and official.

P.S. For a lot of people, Windows 98 was the first version of Windows they used (Myself included) and that people have collect A TON of software over the years that costed a lot of money and people probably still have old machines that can't run newer Windows (XP, Vista, 7).

[PROBLEMCHYLD]

If we can get this link updated
http://www.msfn.org/...post__p__654313
to the latest files I think we will be alright as far as IE6 updates

[tsampikos]

I noticed it too when I tried to visit the Windows 95 Update section.

The last time I visited it was a couple of Months ago and it was ok. Maybe there is something wrong with it and will be fixed. Maybe it is off for good, who knows. In any case, thank God there are all these patches available containing the official and unofficial updates. And something else. When there is an action a reaction follows. So If Microsoft turned off Windows 9x updates then there will be soon (I hope) another way for having access to the updates.

[egrabrych]

I used to use the Windows Update to validate the installation of patches. Because Windows is "alive" and sometimes something that was good yesterday, today isn't good anymore.
But fortunately, there is another way of verification. I recommend: http://www.belarc.co...e_download.html
This of course doesn't show what is missing, but it signals the possible incorrectness of what is already installed on your system.

[Dave-H]

I sadly can also confirm that the old Windows Update v4 site is now just looping between two addresses and never loading.

I thought it was just me, but obviously not!

I feel that this must be a fault, as MS have always maintained that existing updates for Windows 98/ME would still remain available, and they do usually announce if that sort of thing has changed.
Anyway, surely they would just redirect it to a page informing people that Windows Update was no longer available rather than just making it look as if it's a fault!

It looks to me as if it's redirecting to the Windows Update v6 address, and then bouncing straight back again, so I suspect that the v4 site is still there, it's the detection system that detects that you have Windows 98 or ME that isn't working properly, and it's trying to send you to the v6 site in error.

It's annoying because even though there was never anything new there when I looked of course, it did enable me to look at my update history, and I now see no way of doing that if the page won't load!
Is it worth sending an e-mail to MS about this? Has anyone here already done so?


EDIT
I've just managed to get into the Windows Update site on Windows 98 using Opera, as you can tell Opera to mask itself as Internet Explorer.
This time it didn't bounce back to another address, but what I'm seeing may actually be the v6 Windows Update site not the v4 one.
As it relies on ActiveX controls, which Opera doesn't support, I can't go any further to check.

This post has been edited by Dave-H: 06 September 2011 - 04:08 PM

[rainyd]

It's really strange because updates for Win 98 are available on Microsoft Download Center: http://www.microsoft...?q=Windows%2098

This post has been edited by rainyd: 06 September 2011 - 03:29 PM

[PROBLEMCHYLD]

Now would be a good time to collect them all, zippem up and store them before they disappear.

[Dave-H]

Well I've raised a support request about this with MS Windows Update support.
I'll see what they say (or if they even respond!)

[Dave-H]

Well, I got a reply back from Windows Update support, but I'm afraid that as I expected it's a pretty stock one.


"Dear Dave,
Thank you for your email about issues accessing updates for Windows® 98.
Please accept my apologies for the delay.
I am sorry to inform you that the assisted support for Windows 98 has expired as the product is out of support lifecycle. Please refer to the following web link for information on support lifecycle;
http://support.micro....com/lifecycle/
Alternatively, Please visit the following website to post your query and one of our Microsoft Valued Professionals will be able to help you with an answer.
http://social.answers.microsoft.com
Also, I would like to assure you that we do consider your feedback to be extremely valuable as it helps us to improve the products and service that we offer. With this in mind I will make sure that your feedback is passed to the appropriate department for their consideration.
If you have any more questions please contact our Customer Services team on 0844 800 2400. The lines are open from 8am to 6pm, Monday to Friday, excluding public holidays or please reply to this email
Many thanks for contacting us
Kind regards........"

Anyway, I replied asking for a definite answer as to whether Windows Update v4 has now been permanently switched off or not.
I'm not holding my breath for a response!

I do wonder if it's significant that this seems to have happened exactly five years after support for Windows 98 ended. Maybe it was in the small print somewhere that updates would only be available via Windows Update for another five years.

[tsampikos]

I downloaded and zipped all the updates for Windows 95-98-Me. I don't know if I missed 1-2 of them (they weren't few), but I guess this wouldn't be any problem at all. I downloaded them from Microsoft Download center, using the links described above. Having those and the patches which are available and contain most of the updates i think there shouldn't be any worries about the future, if somebody would like to setup a normal or a virtual Windows 9x. machine.

[cluberti]

Dave-H, on 06 September 2011 - 11:22 AM, said:

I feel that this must be a fault, as MS have always maintained that existing updates for Windows 98/ME would still remain available, and they do usually announce if that sort of thing has changed.

The extended support end date for business customers using Windows 98 was July of 2006, so it would make sense that the site would no longer function at some point after July 2007. Microsoft says on their support lifecycle page that they will continue to provide online update availability for a minimum of 12 months after a product has reached it's end of support date, but they don't give any firm dates for how long afterwards. Given that milestones in a product's support lifecycle happen in 5 year increments otherwise, it would make sense that sometime around or after July 2011 that the v4 site would be retired, at the least.

[cdoublejj]

how did i miss this i'm having the same problem

http://www.msfn.org/...s-in-vm-player/

So do we have to do each update manual with the down load center or what?

This post has been edited by cdoublejj: 14 September 2011 - 03:01 PM

[Dave-H]

Well I got another response from MS Support.

"Dear Dave,
Thank you for your reply.
I am sorry to inform you that Windows Update 4 including security updates for Windows® 98 has been withdrawn. Please visit the following website for more information:
http://support.microsoft.com/ph/1139
If you have any more questions please contact our Customer Services team on 0844 800 2400. The lines are open from 8am to 6pm, Monday to Friday, excluding public holidays or please reply to this email
Many thanks for contacting us......."

So that's it then, it's definitely been permanently withdrawn.

I guess that we were lucky that it stayed on-line for a full five years after Windows 98/ME support ended!

If anyone isn't aware, you can tidy things up by setting the "NoWindowsUpdate" setting at
"HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer" to "0".
This will remove the Windows Update entry from Start Menu>Settings and from the IE Tools menu.

One thing I would like to be able to still do is open my updates history file properly in IE6.
If I try and open my "iuhist.xml" in IE6, it doesn't display, because it seems to need a file called "resultschema.xml", which is normally downloaded from the Windows Update site.
Of course this no longer happens, and I don't have this file anywhere on my system.

Does anyone still have a version of this file, (perhaps even still in your IE6 cache)?
If so, if it's possible to let me have a copy I would be very grateful.

This post has been edited by Dave-H: 14 September 2011 - 03:45 PM