As a consequence of a legal settlement with Sun regarding the Java technology, Microsoft has removed certain products from being available directly from them through any means. Here is an excerpt from their MSDN site:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-gb/subscriptions/aa948864.aspx
Products Unavailable due to
Java-related SettlementSome products have been removed from
Subscriber Downloads due to the terms
of Java-related settlements Microsoft
made with Sun Microsystems. These
products are no longer available from
Microsoft in any form, but may be
available through third-party
resellers or Web sites.
This list includes large variety of products, including Office 200, Windows 98, Windows XP, Visual Studio 6.0, VSS 6.0d, and many more.
Microsoft suggests you can get these products from various “resellers” – but won’t go further than that.
Does anyone know where developers can obtain access to these products (in our case for testing purposes) from inexpensive, reputable resellers? Or better yet, a legal and free resource to get access to the original media if you have an existing, legal license key?
What’s the link for the page from which you pulled that excerpt?
I didn’t do an exhaustive search, but Windows XP and VSS 6.0d are both available on my MSDN subsciber downloads page.
However, I don’t see Windows 98 or Office 2000 listed.