Microsoft To Drop Products

Microsoft is about to halt distribution of Windows 98 versions and other products that use an old version of the Java Virtual Machine, as required by its settlement with Sun Microsystems three years ago. But Microsoft's Tony Goodhew says the company will continue technical support of Windows 98 and other products on the list. Products affected include Windows NT 4.0 Terminal Server and Option Pack; all versions of Windows 98, except Windows 98 Second Edition; Internet Explorer 5.5; SQL Server 7 and its Service Pack 3; Visual Basic for Compaq Alpha-based systems; Visio 2000; BackOffice Server 2000; Outlook 2000; Project 2000; Embedded Visual Tools 3.0; MapPoint 2002; Visual Studio 6 MSDE as well as 6.0 SP3 and SP5; and Office 2000 Developer, 2000 Tools, 2000 Multilingual, 2000 Premium SR-1, and 2000 Service Pack 2.