Windows 98 and ME are less likely to be found in businesses than they are on home machines. According to a December 2005 Jupiter Research survey of nearly 2300 PC customers, 16 percent were running Windows 98 or 98 SE in their homes, and 6 percent were running Windows ME.

Microsoft recently pushed back the consumer release of the next major update to Windows Vista, until January 2007.

Jupiter Media Analyst Joe Wilcox said that means customers still running Windows 98 or ME that must upgrade by July will most likely move to Windows XP, and forego upgrading to Vista upon its release in January.

This poses a concern for Microsoft, which "still is not getting people to upgrade as quickly as they would like", he said.

(With Elizabeth Montalbano of the IDG News Service.)