New York Times: "Windows 98: $90 Worth of Digital Duct Tape"
June 25, 1998 REVIEW
By STEPHEN MANES
What 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.
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 "Path‚tique."
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.
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." |
