Support for Microsofts’ ageing Windows 9x series of operating systems, Windows NT and Windows XP SP1 will all end this year, presumably in preparation for the release of Vista sometime early next year.

This is a problem. Though this problem is larger than you may think; not only are the ‘mum and dad’ users of computers being stiffed (50 to 70 million estimated computer systems worldwide are still running Windows 98 or Windows ME [1], and all of which can potentially become part of a massive botnet), educational institutions (public schools and the like) who cannot afford to pay the expensive Microsoft Tax — those still running their educational networks on Windows 98 and alike — are going to be hit hardest by this.

And won’t I know it.

I do casual IT support at a local primary school which caters to the educational needs of special children, consequently it is a small school (maybe 30-40 students in all) and the majority of their computers are donated. We’ve got everything from Pentium 200Mhz systems right up to Pentium 4 3Ghz systems, and everything in between. Most of them are running Windows 98; some are running Windows 95; and the rest are running various versions of Windows XP; SP1 and SP2.

Due to the fact that official Microsft support for Windows 98 and ME has ended as at July 11th 2006 [2], and support for Service Pack 1 under WindowsXP will be dropped as at October 10th 2006 [3], Aspley Special School is going to have to undergo some changes in their software repository.

What I have in mind is something that I doubt will be easy to implement, but this ease of implementation I am presuming will have nothing to do with the software itself, or the hardware for that matter, but it will be entirely because of red tape and psychological issues. What I would like to do is install Edubuntu school-wide for all of the students to use. The existing WindowsXP installations would remain (as these XP machines are used by the teachers). The problems facing me, I am guessing, would be due to licencing issues and the availability of the appropriate educational software for students under the Linux operating system.

But, I will endeavour to produce a table of comparison between existing software solutions (Windows 98 and third-party educational software suites versus Edubuntu and its associated educational software suites). Hopefully I can produce a meaningful comparison and prompt a conversion.