Taking Windows 98 For A Test-Drive

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June 25, 1998 (4:27 PM EDT)

By John Gartner,

John Gartner, TechWeb's technology editor, took the plunge and installed Windows 98 on his laptop. The result? Pleasant, but unspectacular.

I couldn't wait any longer to find out for myself if Windows 98 lives up to the hype.

From the demonstrations I had seen, Win 98 looked more like an incremental upgrade than a major release. My view on upgrading to Win 98 had been similar to my view on the hereafter -- it's inevitable, but not necessarily something to fear.

Since the desktop computer I'd asked for didn't arrive before the big launch, I decided to risk my laptop, and the wrath of our IT department, by installing Win 98. It's a release product, so it has to be stable, right? Drumroll, please ...

In short, there are many little things that make Win 98 a worthy, if unspectacular, successor to Win 95. If it were a film, it would be a good rental or bargain matinee, but not something you wait in a block-long line to see.

Installation Made Easy
Before I risked trashing my HP OmniBook 5500 and losing access to e-mail, I decided to back up essential files to the network. Next, I went to the Windows 98 Upgrade Tips page on our Win 98 site to find out what other precautions to take.

I deleted some unnecessary files, including clearing out the contents of the c:/windows/temporary Internet files directory, and defragmented my hard drive to save as much space as possible for Win 98. This freed up about 100 megabytes and left me with 514 MB free on my 1.26-gigabyte hard drive. I followed the instructions, including disabling my anti-virus program, and was ready to free-fall into Win 98.

At 11:42 a.m., I loaded the CD and ran the setup program. Although I usually customize my settings, this time I let the install program do its thing to mimic what most users would do. During the set-up program I was entertained by pictures of happy families and associated text describing how enriched my life would be by this operating system. Uh huh. I said yes to creating a floppy start-up disk, always a smart thing to do in case disaster strikes. I also said yes to saving system files (including the registry, and my .ini files) in case I'd have to abort and go back to Win 95. Set-up kept humming along and only paused for input from me one more time. I watched as my PC was restarted not once, not twice, but three times during the install process.

Tada! At 12:47, more than an hour later, I had arrived at my destination. The first signs were positive: sound, video, and PC cards all seemed to be working. My free disk space was down to 283 MB, so Win 98 plus my backup files sucked up about 230 MB. I turned on the active desktop, and everything seemed fine. But wait -- lo and behold, my networking had gone kaput.

After 20 minutes of finagling and trying to figure out how my Novell IntraNetWare client had worked before the installation, I copied the executable program into my StartUp group and was back in touch with the outside world. This relatively minor inconvenience was better than I expected, considering what I went through moving to Win 95. Whaddya know Joe -- it works!

New Look Or Quick Makeover?
So what's new in this OS, tweaked especially for the Internet? Win 98 mussed with my desktop and added icons for Outlook Express, MSN (ugh), and Connect to the Internet, and shortcuts to folders for My Documents and Online Services. I would have preferred the Connect to the Internet icon wasn't added, since I already have America Online, a few dial-up networking connections, and my corporate Internet access already in place. Guess the installer didn't notice those. The folks over at the Justice Department should be happy about the presence of the online services folder, which has links to AOL, AT&T, WorldNet, CompuServe, and Prodigy.

With the addition of Outlook Express, users now face two e-mail program choices. This is helping to clarify things? When I launched Outlook Express, the program asked me if I wanted to import my contact information from Microsoft Exchange. How nice of them! Within seconds my friends' names and addresses imported flawlessly.

Also new to the home page, er, desktop, is the large channel bar. This desktop space consumer provides quick links to content optimized for Microsoft's Internet Explorer 4.0 browser. Since I've seen all of the whiz-bang content from Disney and prefer to browse rather than have content delivered, I immediately tried to find out how to get rid of the channel bar. It didn't take long: right click on the desktop and choose Customize My Desktop, pick the Web tab, and remove the check from the Internet Explorer Channel Bar.

The new "jumping" menus that spring up from the Start button or launch by clicking on selections at the top of the screen are a bit jarring at first, but I'm learning to like them. Speaking of the Start button, the menu now offers choices for logging off, and Favorites. When I looked at the Favorites menu, I noticed my Netscape bookmarks had all been converted and put in the Imported Bookmarks folder. Isn't that thoughtful -- now I may never have to use Netscape again ...

Navigator Is As Easy As IE
Speaking of the thorn in Bill's side, it was time to see how my Netscape Navigator 3.0 browser does in the Win 98 environment. Turns out (Janet and Joel, are you listening?) that not only does Navigator work just fine, it's still my default browser. Since I like IE 4.0, I decided to make the move.

Under the Windows Explorer you change default browsers by choosing View, Folder Options, and then the File Types tab. You'll have to scroll through the little window and look for the Netscape Navigator logo and the HTML extension. Despite the many other interface changes, Microsoft unfortunately hasn't updated this ugly process for associating files with programs.

There are some new icons in the system tray, also known as the gray bar at the bottom of the screen. My favorite is the desktop icon that minimizes all programs and gets you back to the safety of your wallpaper, shortcuts, and icons. You can also shortcut to Outlook Express or Channels through system tray icons, or you can delete them with a right click.

Since I spend much of my day researching on the Web, I added an address window to the bottom of my screen by right clicking on the system tray, and chose Address under the Toolbars option. Typing in a URL (which the cool auto-complete feature often helps me finish) launched my browser, so it's non-stop Internet access for me. While this and many other of the Win 98 features were made available by installing IE 4.0, it's nice to get them all at once along with a more stable operating system.

Active desktop allows you to use hypertext markup language pages as wallpaper, so I made a local copy of CMPnet's home page to have ready access to all of its links. I may custom-build a new home page with more of my favorite links later.

I poked around in Control Panel, Explorer, and the help system to get used to the browser view of everything. It's a much less drastic transition than Win 3.1 to Win 95, and I expect Win 95 will seem strange to me after a few weeks of using Win 98.

I was hoping Win 98's support for multiple monitors would let me divide the virtual desktop between my laptop's liquid crystal display and a 17-inch monitor, but that's not the case. Maybe future laptops will provide this functionality.

Easy Access To Windows Update
Another new feature of the Start button is a link to Windows Update, Microsoft's diagnostic website that checks your PC to make sure you have the latest Windows components and hardware drivers. Since I'd only installed the OS a few hours before, it was no great surprise the Update Wizard didn't find anything lacking.

There were some helpful suggestions for downloads for desktop themes, the same games that come with the OS, or earlier version of IE 4.0 utilities like NetMeeting. I clicked on the Device Drivers link, and waited the few seconds for confirmation my hardware support was updated. I later found the rest of the IE 4.0 goodies, including Personal Web server and FrontPage Express under the Programs/Internet Explorer menu off the Start Button.

Another cool utility I found in accessories is Imaging for Windows from Kodak, which allows me to convert screen shots to .tif images. joint photographic experts group (JPEG) or graphics interchange format (GIF) would be nicer, but hey, it's free.

Win 98 ran solidly, as most industry folks have guessed, and it seems to be about as fast as Win 95. I didn't convert my hard drive to the purportedly speedier FAT 32 file structure yet, but I hear it is quicker and conversion is a painless process. I'll have more to say about the additional hardware support, including Universal Serial Bus, once I've installed it on a desktop.

Overall, my first impression of the year's biggest software release is that it's neat, but not life altering. You can get most of the functionality by downloading IE 4.0, but the extra goodies and peace of mind in performing a more systematic upgrade could merit the price tag. The next time you go hardware shopping, you may want to grab a copy just to be safe.