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.
     _________________________________________________________________
   
   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