At 12:35 AM 3/4/1998 Winston Pike  wrote:
>
>I'm currently running windows 3.11 on a 486 66MHz with
>20megs of ram and 2*200 meg HD's. I know win95 will
>run on a 486-33 with 8megs (it was a tad slow but I myself
>was running a 386 at the time so it seemed faster). My
>question is: Should I wait for win 98 to upgrade or just stick
>with upgrading to win 95?


Winston:

Win98 is better (so far as I see with limited use).  Win98
seems designed as a migration path for all the corporate
legacy Win3.11 machines out there.

However, the big issue is not really the PnP recognition of
your components but the TYPE of hardware components
and your software.

You are going from the *then* top PC for Win3.11 to
the *realistic* minimum for 32-bit Win. I doubt if any of the
components that came with your computer are plug
and play and perhaps many components are in the
legacy category which are merely tolerated by Win95.
The motherboard BIOS is especially important.

More important is your Windows software. Don't believe
that all Win3.11 programs will run acceptably on Win95. They
usually will but the further away from the mainstream, the
less likely they will run without a hitch (i.e., more bugs).

When I moved from Win3.11 to Win95 on my 486DX4-100
I found that I wasn't happy until I did a lot of upgrades. First
I upgraded the RAM from 16 to 32, then I upgraded to a
Pentium 100 motherboard (going to a PnP BIOS, too) and
a faster video card, then to a bigger/faster hard drive, then
a faster, non-proprietary CD-ROM drive, and changing from
an 8-bit Sound Blaster to a 16-bit PnP Sound Blaster, etc.

After all the hardware upgrades (leaving the tower case,
floppies, NIC, tape backup) I found that the SOFTWARE
ran buggy on the system. Then I upgraded all my software,
which was non-Microsoft software, which at the time didn't
run very smoothly (leave it to MS to keep their competitors
in the dark) so I had to load bug fixes and run through more
upgrades.  So now, this PC finally runs with only the normal
hangs and bumps of Windows. Would have been easier
and no more expensive just to have bought a new system
(by selling the old PC and buying the new PC with the right
software bundles).

I built a new PC from scratch last year. It's much better to
get a new system with components on the Windows NT
compatibility list, and then just run Win95/98. You should
buy only what works. Hardware and software maturity is key.

My advice would be to buy a NEW Pentium II computer with
current, proven software. If you cannot afford it, stay with
what you have, if it works. But plan and save for your new
Win98 PC.

Regards,

John Chin