Tony De Silva wrote:

<Thank you for a detailed response to my post  "What About Win98?,"

I have a few  questions regarding the consumer beta,

1. Is it true the consumer beta is not the latest release as per your
response " the Consumer Beta Preview, its an older build than currently
available"

2. Is it true the I would have to upgrade my motherboard?

3.Would I have any problems running my existing W95 programs, such as MS
Office 97 etc.>

Tony,

1.    The current Win98 Beta3 a.k.a. Consumer Preview is Build 1650.  What
Microsoft did was put out this rather stable build for widespread consumer
trial.  They, of course, don't need, and can't handle, the grief that comes
from putting out a *technical* and buggy beta for public testing and
teasing.  The current release build is, if I recollect as of last Thursday,
is Build 1720 which is Release Candidate 0.  It doesn't necessarily mean
Build 1650 is older and not better.  Its stable and *relatively* bug-free.
Later internal beta builds test different components, applications and
functions that, as a consumer, we wouldn't appreciate.  Later beta builds,
more than likely, would conflict with stuff, cause crashes, and generally
make you take a brick to your computer.  Release Candidate 0 or RC0 is close
to the final build and is currently going through technical beta testing.
Unless you are VERY adept at Windows debugging, stick to Win98B3 as it'll
give you a good enough feel whether you want to migrate.  This is a consumer
beta trial and not a *technical* beta trial so its safe and the OS software
expires in December 1998.  Also, for the price, you get *limited* tech
support but from some anecdotal accounts (private beta newsgroups) the
consumer beta tech support has been "above and beyond the call of duty" in
some cases.

2.    No hardware (mobo, etc) upgrade is really needed so long as you have a
Pentium-type processor.  Although MS says the minimum is a 486/66 Mhz or
higher processor with 16MB RAM and 110 HDD space, if you've used Windows 95
you know you need more than that!!

I've used Win98 successfully and reliably on a P166 overclocked to 200; a
P200MMX; and PII systems all with a minimum of 32M RAM to 64M RAM.  Of
course, newer mobo and chipsets really show off, with more glam, Win98's
capabilities.

3.    You should be able to use all existing Win95 apps without too much
problems.  My WordPerfect Suite 8 had no problems and all existing MS
products should function as usual.  The only quirky MS product has been the
IntelliMouse and IntelliType software for the natural keyboard but there are
workarounds and its not earth shattering.  So far, most third-party apps
seem quite happy.

Hope this helps and good luck,
Richard Tan