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I can't access Windows Update v4


halohalo

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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.microsoft.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.

:)

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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. :yes:

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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.

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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.

:)

Edited by Dave-H
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i got to thinking about those unofficial service packs, i remember trying one it replaced all the labels on my buttons with strings of code. then again i remember trying the latest SP then i though maybe they need to be installed in order like xp or vista.

so are there any known good unofficial SPs we can install to fresh installs of 98se? or is the gooses cooked? i'd like to think it won't go down that easy maybe waybackmachine.org? or some one who knows something can make an update pack or something.

Edited by cdoublejj
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Thanks, that works!

:thumbup

I can now open the iuhist file in IE, but I need to find a (preferably free) program that will convert it to an html file that's more readable.

I've found a couple but they aren't free and the demo versions won't convert the whole file.

I don't really want to buy the program just to use it once only!

I really wish I'd saved the whole Windows Update 4 site, but of course I didn't know that it was going to be shut down without warning!

:no:

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I scheduled a format, reinstall, and Windows Update for this part of the year, and plan to finally store all the files from the update. It's too late now. I was able to work from a listing of those files that I saved last year. Spent hours manually looking for the updates these past couple of days.

They can still be downloaded from the update server through links; however, some of those files are disappearing. When downloaded, only a 1.3 KB incomplete file is created. Some KB articles and Windows 98 references are disappearing too. I have been able to track down some of the missing files from external mirrors and unofficial versions, but there's still a few that I am unable to locate, so I will have to rely on unofficial service packs and compilations now.

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MDGx's website doesn't have everything, mostly the unofficial updates and the few others that he did mirror (still a wonderful resource nonetheless). I used Soporific's mega list of updates as a guide, and gathered the broken/missing ones scattered across the web.

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MDGx's website doesn't have everything, mostly the unofficial updates and the few others that he did mirror (still a wonderful resource nonetheless). I used Soporific's mega list of updates as a guide, and gathered the broken/missing ones scattered across the web.

that's wonderful news now if they could all be packaged along with the order they need to go in. if that could be done. an unofficial installer might be possible making a mega update pack that installs all the updates, every thing but, drivers.

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