At each release we assess if there are any platforms (operating systems, databases, development environments, hardware…) that are not being used as much anymore or are at the end of their supportability. In addition, we look at our own technology stack to see if some of the newer functionality has superseded older functionality. In either case, we try to give as much notice as possible for any changes in supported platforms or functionality in deprecation notices.

Given the pace of technology changes the last few years, we have been fairly conservative in what we deprecate. However, we found that with the ArcGIS 9.3.1 release out and ArcGIS 9.4 in development, we have a number of items that need deprecation. Many of these deprecations have been a long time coming (both platforms and functionality); others give you early notice of things that will eventually be impacted. So rather than having you look for individual notices for ArcGIS 9.3.1 and ArcGIS 9.4, we’ve put together a complete document that outlines what to expect as we move forward.

The document, ArcGIS 9.3.1 and 9.4 Deprecation Plan, outlines what we will deprecate for ArcGIS 9.4 and lists what platforms and functionality from ArcGIS 9.3.1 will not be supported in ArcGIS 9.4. (This deprecation document is also linked from KB article 37113 for reference.)

-The ArcGIS Release Team, ESRI