Today's San Jose Mercury News carries a negative review of Win98:
mercurycenter.com
Trials of installing Windows 98
BY DAN GILLMOR
Mercury News Technology Columnist
WITH some trepidation, I tried installing Windows 98 on one of my
computers over the weekend. The exercise gave me pause because I'd seen a
torrent of complaints about bugginess in Microsoft Corp.'s new operating
system.
The reports weren't exaggerated, at least not in my case. The experience lent
weight to speculation I find compelling: that the timing of this software's
release had as much to do with politics and legal issues as bringing innovation
to consumers.
And if you're one of the many consumers who has had problems trying to
''upgrade'' to Windows 98, you'll feel tempted to laugh today when Microsoft
launches its latest federal court filings. Microsoft's reply to the antitrust case
against the company will ring grandly about the right to innovate for
customers -- hollow rhetoric to those of us who've wasted time with Windows
98.
It could have been worse, but a Famous Computer Journalist friend dissuaded
me from trying the new operating system on my IBM ThinkPad. He recounted
how attempting to install it on his same-model notebook machine had led to
various disasters, ultimately forcing him to reinstall everything from scratch.
''Don't even bring the CD-ROM into the same room with your ThinkPad,'' he
warned.
Surely, I thought, my plain-vanilla desktop computer at home would be a
suitable test bed for Windows 98. After all, this machine was full of
name-brand parts with standard settings. And Windows 98, by almost all
accounts, was really little more than a package of bug fixes and minor
enhancements to Windows 95.
I wished.
After installing the operating system and rebooting, I discovered that
Windows 98 had whacked my video settings, apparently replacing the
software ''drivers'' that had come with the video card with drivers from the
Windows 98 CD-ROM. The result was an almost unreadable screen.
I sighed, and decided to go to the World Wide Web site operated by the
company that had made the video adapter. I hoped to find new software
drivers, or at least some information on how to restore the old ones.
Ah, but Windows 98 also had worked its anti-magic with my ISDN modem. My
PC no longer recognized it.
I said, ''I don't have time for this stuff'' (I used a different word than ''stuff'').
Then I did the sensible thing. Having taken Microsoft's advice to leave the
Windows 95 files on my computer in case I wanted to uninstall Windows 98, I
uninstalled Windows 98.
Yes, I could have spent hours re-configuring various settings and devices, and
probably would have ended up with a PC and peripheral devices that worked
properly. But I was in the same position as many of you: Windows 95, while far
from perfect, was working acceptably well before I tried this upgrade. I won't
try Windows 98 again until I buy a new computer, where Microsoft's
monopoly ensures that the operating system will be part of the package, or
until Microsoft has released what it euphemistically calls a ''Service Pack,''
another name for bug fixes.
The entire episode, combined with the widespread reports that many
consumers are having serious problems with Windows 98, persuades me that
Microsoft released the product before it was ready. It's not difficult to imagine
why this happened. Making money, I suspect, was only part of the motivation.
Go back a few months, when Microsoft was arguing in federal court that it had
the right to force computer makers to bundle the Internet Explorer Web
browser with Windows 95. Internet Explorer and Windows were an integrated
product, the company insisted, though the judge in the case sharply
questioned that claim. But no one really disagreed that Windows 98 would
make that case, which relied on a toothless 1995 consent decree, essentially
moot. Windows 98 really would integrate Web-browing functions into the
operating system, after all.
Microsoft had every reason to hurry the product onto the market, and not just
to add revenues during the most recent quarter. It didn't know at the time that
an appeals panel would effectively give the company the right to maintain and
extend its monopoly in any way it chooses -- a decision that will probably lead
to an even broader series of antitrust cases, and possibly some new laws when
Congress finally understands what's at stake.
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