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MS releases Win95 Y2K fix

And starts being really careful about checking your components, too...

As predicted here a little while back (see MS climb-down on 95 Y2K fix), Microsoft has issued a full Y2K patch for Windows 95. The patch, which is available here, is said by the company to fix all known Windows 95 Y2K problems, so magically the product will now run fully compliant (presuming they don't find some more) until 2035 or thereabouts. This is of course something of a reversal from the position earlier this year, when Microsoft was saying 95 would never be fully-compliant. Microsoft had until quite recently been running a Y2K policy which could easily be seen (erroneously, no doubt) as being based on the assumption that users of older products would upgrade to newer ones anyway. Alongside one climb-down, an alert reader identifies another. If you try to download the ID number patch (itself a rapid climb-down) from the Windows update site, the Microsoft 'checking your components' message has gone all timid and hesitant. Says the dialogue: "This program can determine what components are installed on your computer, and whether any new components, upgrades, or enhancements are available, specific to your computer. This check is done without sending any information to Microsoft. Would you like to check now?" The effect of the new message is perhaps somewhat undermined by the thought that, in that case, did the previous Microsoft update component checks send data to Microsoft, as a matter of course? That would be a different bunch of data from the stuff the ID number argument was all about, wouldn't it? ®

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