Ed Zabrek's Technology Report - Windows 98: Is it ready for PrimeTime?
Call me a glutton for punishment, but I am always anxious to get my hands on the latest and (hopefully) greatest new techno stuff. When Microsoft offered up Windows 98 as a public beta, I could not resist. I had been reading about the operating system that was going to be taking the world into the new millennium in computer rags for the past two years, so seeing Win 98 "live", was a bit like seeing a famous movie star for in person for the first time. I was at first "star struck" and then, after several crashes, and reinstalls, was more realistic about the beta's true potential. This version of Win 98 is officially dubbed "Windows 98, beta 3," (I hope that as beta 4 or greater is released, Microsoft will remember that the early adopters, like me, have had to reformat their hard drives for the pleasure of their company. Windows 98 is not a major upgrade to the Windows operating system. The Windows 3.xx to Windows 95, was a complete version upgrade (3.xx to 4.xx). Win 98 is actually 4.10.1650, so I suppose one could call it a 1/10th upgrade. In reality, it is Win 95 (4.00.95) with all service releases, Microsoft Plus Pack™ and Microsoft Internet Explorer™ 4.xx totally integrated on one CD ROM, with a "no brainer" installation process. That is not to say that there are not enhancements to both programs, but I would call them enhancements, not a major change or upgrade.
WHATS NEW?
As I mentioned previously, the installation process is very straightforward. When you put the CD-ROM into your computer (if Win 95 is running), you are prompted that you are not running the latest version of Windows, and suggests that you upgrade. If you decide to do that (I guess Microsoft wants to give you one more chance to chicken out), then your computer is tied up for the next 30 minutes while Win 98 looks at all of your hardware, and installs itself finding the plug and play components from the thousand or so drivers that are newly added to the installer. Plug and play DOES appear to work well in this version. (Is "plug and PREY" going to become a memory of the 90's ? I doubt it.) I did encounter my first "bug" after the initial install-namely all of my "long file names" became truncated. For example, "Control Panel" became "Control Pan~". Needless to say, I was less than impressed, but I really wanted to try out this marvel from Redmond, and rationalized that my hard drive needed a good D&C. I next made a Win 98 "start-up" disk from the "Control Pan~" and said a prayer. I backed up all of my essential files, and said another prayer. Then with bibles in hand, I rebooted my computer with the startup disk in drive A, and the Win 98 CD in place, and prayed (hopefully) for the last time. I reformatted my hard drive with Fat 32, and exited to the Win 98 setup. I was not certain if my CD ROM drive was going to be recognized without my manufacturer's setup disk, but apparently the prayers and bible worked! My computer sailed through the scandisk, and went into the setup mode, finding all of the goodies along the way. I reinstalled all of my other software and was off to the races--turtle races, that is--independent reports show Win 98 runs 12% slower than Windows 95. Go figure. Hopefully this will be fixed in the production release.
ON TO THE NEW FEATURES!
Probably the strongest feature of Windows 98 is its true plug and play capability. As items are plugged into various ports, they are recognized, identified and configured without rebooting. As the USB ports gain wider acceptance and accessories, Microsoft claims that Windows 98 can track 127 separate peripherals at one time and carry information at 12-megabit-per-second! This has incredible implications for teleconferencing, video editing, multiple monitors, printers, and other peripherals. A new "Windows Update Wizard" (WUW) supposedly scans your system, and looks for appropriate hardware and software updates on the Internet. I tried out this feature, and found it severely lacking. It only updated a few Windows 98 features, and nothing else. I next ran the true "updater", Cybermedia's Oil Change™. This found 50 updates (including the Win 98 updates that "WUW" found).
I WANT MY WEB-TV!
Since Bill Gates bought WebTV™ for his daughter, it is not surprising that Win 98 has its own software TV program included. The hitch is, you must have an installed, compatible TV tuner card. (I have a Hauppauge TV card, and it is yet to be compatible; Hauppauge says that they are working on it.) When I first installed Win 98, my TV card would not work at all, even after the reformat. I downloaded the latest Hauppauge drivers from the net, and the TV card worked as before. Part of this TV program includes a program that will download your local cable schedule to your PC like a PC TV guide. This feature does not require your computer to have a TV card. Video quality with an installed DVD ROM is improved by the presence of new driver support. This should only get better in the future. It is also rumored that Microsoft is going to make your audio cards obsolete by controlling all audio functions using software alone!
File Allocation Table (FAT) 32 (according to Microsoft) allows for improved hard drive efficiency. I lets you format up to 2 Terabytes (2000 gigs) as a single drive! The old standard, FAT 16, would only allow up to 2 gigs. It also is supposed to utilize your hard drive space more efficiently, and waste little or no space (unlike FAT 16). Microsoft explains it in "clusters". FAT 16 stores data in 32k clusters, even if your file is only say 5k. That wastes 27k in unusable, inaccessible space. If you multiply this by 1000, you can imagine how much space is wasted. FAT 32 uses 4k clusters, so in effect, your hard drive will potentially hold 25-30% more data as compared with FAT 16. Microsoft provides a tool that converts existing FAT 16 partitions to FAT 32. Microsoft, however, does not address any of the potential incompatibility issues of doing this conversion. The most common is incompatibility with other operating systems or disk compression utilities.
MORE TOOLS THAN SEARS!!!!!
Windows 98 adds a bevy of updated or new utilities that aim to improve your computer's performance and function. These include a Disk Defragmenter (similar to Symantec's Norton Speed Disk--a long time standard), a Disk Cleanup utility, the Maintenance Wizard, and the System Configuration Utility.
The Disk Cleanup lets you free up your hard drive space by eliminating unused or unnecessary files. For example, in one fell swoop, this utility will delete Windows temp files, clear out the Internet Explorer disk cache, and the Recycle Bin.
The Maintenance Wizard configures, automates and schedules Disk Cleanup, Scan Disk, and Disk Defragmenter to run as scheduled events in the windows task scheduler.
Finally, the System Configuration Utility offers point and click access to enable or disable individual lines in the system files from Windows or DOS (e.g. win.ini, system.ini, autoexec.bat, config.sys). You can also selectively disable programs automatically loaded from the Windows Registry.
In summary, the newest Windows operating system is not a giant step in the world of high tech. Is it worthwhile to upgrade? Probably. I am hopeful that the bugs will be worked out in the final release. The plug and play features, FAT 32, and bevy of available, included drivers make the upgrade almost a no brainer. It should function well as the workstation for Windows NT, and certainly be the operating system of choice for the New Millennium.
Edward M. Zabrek, M.D., F.A.C.O.G.
Technology Correspondent
OBGYN.net