from the New York times
Technology - Circuits
June 25, 1998
REVIEW
Windows 98: $90 Worth of Digital Duct Tape
By STEPHEN MANES
W hat a difference three years make! When Windows 95 finally made
its way out the door, the Microsoft Corporation promoted it to the
cheeky beat of the Rolling Stones' "Start Me Up." The CD-ROM came
with hip videos of Edie Brickell and Weezer.
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Windows 98? Dullsville. Today's official release flaunts the bland
slogan, "Works Better, Plays Better." The CD? It comes with a
Microsoft commercial appropriately set to a pop adaptation of a
theme from Beethoven's Piano Sonata (Op. 13), the "Pathétique."
For all its failings, Windows 95 was in many ways, big and small, a
significant improvement over its predecessor, Windows 3.1,
particularly in its ability to run multiple programs at once. But
when it arrived, one reviewer (this one) described it as "an
edifice built of baling wire, chewing gum and prayer."
Windows 98 adds duct tape, caulk and pesticide. Think of it as a
minimal renovation that spruces up the place a bit, plugs some
leaks, exterminates some bugs and adds some new plumbing. The wire,
gum and prayer remain.
If you buy a new machine, you will probably live in the remodeled
quarters. Corporate buyers will be able to get the older version if
they insist, but most computers will come with the 98 edition, and
most customers will be happier with it.
Microsoft also offers the new version as an upgrade for older
machines. Is it worth $90 and the time it takes to install? In the
spirit of the maxim, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it," switch only
if the upgrade offers something specific you need and only if you
have a machine that can handle it. Windows 98 demands an average of
195 megabytes (and as much as 295) for itself, and though it is
supposed to run on machines with 486 processors and 16 megabytes of
RAM, a Pentium with 32 megabytes will be a much better fit.
If all goes well, upgrading can be fairly straightforward. On the
fast machines I tested with the final version, the job took a
little more than a half-hour. After a few preliminary steps, like
deciding whether to save Windows 95 files for possible restoration
(a very good idea), everything proceeds automatically.
But even when things go right, you must put up with self-important,
useless messages like "Initializing your system's registry
database." And when things go wrong, you are faced with stumpers:
"Setup detects that an earlier version of the Setupx.dll or
Netdi.dll file is in use. This may be because you have applications
open on your computer." (It wasn't.) "If you want Setup to replace
the existing file and automatically restart your computer, click
O.K. Or, to keep your current version of Setupx.dll and Netdi.dll,
click Cancel to quit Setup, close any open applications and then
run Setup again." The latter choice kept producing the same
message. Picking O.K. got things moving and did no harm.
Windows 98 has version 4.01 of Internet Explorer and the so-called
Active Desktop built in. It seems a bit more stable than the free
version available for Windows 95, but at least that version can be
removed if you dislike it.
The browser, which used to be removable, is now irrevocably
integrated into Windows 98, and that is part of what the
Government's antitrust suit against Microsoft is all about.
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Think of it as a minimal renovation that spruces up the place a bit,
plugs some leaks, exterminates some bugs and adds some new plumbing.
_________________________________________________________________
On new machines, the computer maker decides whether you see the
channel bar with Mickey Mouse and the Tasmanian Devil and whether
you start browsing files and folders the classic double-click way
or use the single-clicking made popular by the Web. Upgrades are
supposed to do their best to maintain the browser settings you
already have in place.
But the installer can get too cute. On one machine, it caused
problems by installing the "right" software driver rather than
accepting the way I had "fooled" the system so I could get a more
flicker-free picture. It also installed a video driver that
rendered some of the video card's software useless.
You can find out about some known incompatibilities in files like
"hardware.txt" that end up in the Windows directory of your hard
drive and explain problems with everything from device drivers for
removable hard disks to the Czech version of Excel. Unfortunately,
the files are readable only after you perform the installation.
On many machines, Windows 98 can reclaim wasted disk space, perhaps
its greatest benefit. Inherited from DOS, the so-called FAT disk
format used in older versions of Windows squanders space by
dividing big disks into what amount to pigeonholes as big as 32
kilobytes. If a file contains only a single character, the FAT
system wastes as many as 32,767 bytes to store it.
A scheme called FAT32, which comes with Windows 98, can reduce the
pigeonholes to a mere 4 kilobytes each, wasting far less space. But
you may already have FAT32 on your Windows 95 machine, particularly
if you bought it at retail in the past year and a half. To check,
open the My Computer icon from the desktop, right-click the C:
drive icon, choose Properties and look for a description of the
file system in the panel that appears. It may not be there, but if
it is and "FAT32" is, too, you have lost one of the better reasons
to upgrade.
Though the FAT32 converter warned that it could take hours, it took
just seven minutes on the machine I tried, delivering some scary
but harmless error messages along the way and about 20 percent more
space than I had before I installed Windows 98. But once you
convert, you cannot uninstall Windows 98 and restore Windows 95.
And on some portable machines, the conversion may disable the
hibernation feature that lets you shut the unit down and resume
where you left off.
FAT32 can produce other surprises. Many computers today come with a
CD-ROM that, when all else is lost, can restore your hard disk to
its original state. Using one of these after a FAT32 conversion may
not work without some serious tweaking with a program called Fdisk,
a DOS relic whose record-breaking inscrutability has lasted since
the Reagan Administration.
For years, Macintoshes have been able to run more than one monitor
at once. Now Windows machines can, too, at least in demonstrations,
but the documentation in the manual and a file called "display.txt"
is inaccurate.
Before you try hooking up more than one monitor, equip yourself
with a reservoir of patience, a sturdy monitor stand and a
money-back guarantee.
If you have a very recent television card and a way to get a signal
into it, extra goodies are available. Web TV for Windows lets you
download an on-line programming guide, watch television and, with a
few rare programs, surround the picture with special data, like
golf course descriptions that go with the match. A separate program
called Wavetop runs in the background and downloads Web-like data
from an unused portion of your local public TV station's signal,
complete with links to Web sites.
Other improvements are welcome but hardly thrilling. The company
says it has slain more than 3,000 bugs, but there are clearly
plenty left. If you spend time running the system's Maintenance
Wizard, the programs you use most often may load faster, but you
may spend more time with the Wizard than you get back. Windows 98
can help computers start faster, but only if they are designed with
special Fast Boot capabilities that have not yet arrived.
Machines can be shut down faster, too, but the difference is
noticeable largely on networked units. A few Universal Serial Bus
devices can install themselves the moment you plug them in, and new
types of peripherals, like U.S.B. speakers, will be usable only
with Windows 98 machines.
Performance enhancements in areas like memory management, Internet
connectivity and DVD playback are useful, as are attempts at making
terrible crashes less likely. But a lot of effort has also been
expended on troubleshooting tools, suggesting that trouble goes
with the territory.
A feature called Windows Update can analyze your system and
download updates from a special Web site. But it failed to put new
video drivers on my system, and a Microsoft executive admitted that
the new site did not yet include updated drivers from many
manufacturers. How well this system will work remains to be seen,
but if you lack Web access, you are out of luck.
Waiting to see what bugs turn up before you buy new software is
conventional wisdom, but in the Internet age you may have trouble
getting repairs unless you are connected. In a consumer practice
that in any other business would be considered unconscionable,
Microsoft sold retail copies of its Windows 95 Upgrade disks for
three years without revising them, even though there were many
known bugs, some of which compromised security. Free fixes were
simply posted on the Web. "There is no change as yet" in that
policy, a spokeswoman said. "But that doesn't mean there won't be."
Plenty of anomalies remain. When the Registration Wizard failed to
connect to Microsoft's site, it announced that the modem was
configured improperly. The problem was actually that the modem was
already connected, something a wizard should be smart enough to
detect.
The help files are much improved, but they are still not
context-sensitive and do not change to reflect the browsing method
in effect. Their browser-like approach lets you click once to jump
to a link, except in the Index and Search windows, which require
double clicks. And even if you set up your machine for single-click
access to files from the desktop, double-clicking is needed when
you deal with files within applications.
Could Microsoft please learn about long file names, one of the
major improvements introduced in Windows 95? A link to "cool video
clips" bears the modest subheading: "Check out the awesome new
multimedia capabilities of Windows 98." But clicking gets you a
list of files with inscrutable names like "msbearth." They turn out
to be awesome commercials for Microsoft products, and they run just
fine on my ancient Pentium 90 with good old Windows 95.
If you are considering an upgrade, note that you can get a discount
on Windows 98 or even a free copy by purchasing certain peripheral
products. And do not rush to buy the 1,766-page book called Windows
98 Resource Kit, which Microsoft Press offers for $70. Its entire
text (though not all the software) is hidden on the Windows 98 disk
at \tools\reskit\help\rk98book.chm.
Windows 98 is the end of the DOS-based line. Microsoft says its
next operating system for consumers will be based on the more
stable but less generally compatible Windows NT system. But it is
likely to be a long time before we learn whether the theme song for
that one will be "Ode to Joy" or "You Can't Always Get What You
Want."
Copyright 1998 The New York Times Company
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