Believe it or not, that headline is not a typo. John Coyne, Systems Engineer in the OEM Embedded Devices group at Microsoft, has posted a quick blog entry that broke the bad news: as of November 1, 2008, Microsoft will no longer allow OEMs to license Windows for Workgroups 3.11 in the embedded channel. That's exactly 15 years after it shipped in November 1993! Poor OEMs have so much to put up with these days; first Windows XP, and now this!

Windows for Workgroups 3.11 has of course been unavailable in retail and via client OEMs for years, but the embedded industry wanted to keep this ancient operating system around for much, much longer.

I'm not sure I want to believe this. How can Microsoft possibly discontinue an old operating system that has been around for so long and is so well trusted? Maybe I'll start a petition to save it! I don't want to move to something more bloated and resource-hungry if I can stay with good old Windows for Workgroups 3.11. Why fix what isn't broken? I don't like the new, the old works just fine!

Honestly though, this brings up an interesting perspective on the embedded industry. It needs a swift kick telling it to stay with the times! Who wants to take bets on how long Windows XP Embedded will end up being supported until?

Further reading