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June 1998 PC USER |
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Exploring Windows 98 MS' new OS builds on the best of all that Windows 95 had to offer and adds the best of what the Net provides. Still, think before you upgrade. By Pawan Nayar and Tarang Patnaik What is common between Bill Clinton and Windows 98 (read Bill Gates)? At the surface, nothing. However, if you poke in deeper then you will find that both represent an agonising story of the unending appetite of the fourth estate in digging into the lives of the famous. In our mediocre times, the damning statements of a Paula Jones are as celebrated as the hilarious crashing of a Windows 98 system in a keynote address by Bill Gates at Comdex. The issue is not whether Paula Jones is speaking a lie or whether a Windows 98 system can crash as often as its celebrated predecessor Windows 95 did, but whether "what should be" be always chased at a cost of "what is"? In August 1995, Windows 95 was launched creating a computing revolution that changed the face of desktop PCs around the world. Today, about 140 million computers around the world use Windows 95 (or Windows NT) as their operating system. For the last three years, the continual success of Microsoft and the surging wealth of Bill Gates has created a legend that itself serves as an unending publicity. Naturally, the release of the successor to Windows 95, Windows 98, is creating an unheralded public interest. New Window, New View Windows 98 is perhaps the greatest "maintenance and add-on" project of all times. It builds on the best of all that Windows 95 had to offer and adds the best of what the Net has to offer. Windows 95, though a 32-bit operating system, had a major deficiency, namely, the absence of support for the Universal Serial Bus, which did not allow true plug-and-play. Windows 98 overcomes this deficiency and adds support for virtually all the latest hardware and even includes support for the "idiot-box", i.e. the television. Also fostered in Windows 98 are support features and system maintenance utilities that shift the focus from "breakdown maintenance" based on "Oh God! Save Our Souls" approach to "preventive maintenance" which assiduously follows the "a penny saved today, prevents a pound wasted tomorrow" approach. Windows 98 focus is on four fronts: tighter Web focus, greater hardware support, increased reliability, and communication and entertainment. Tighter Web focus: Microsoft has tried to by-pass the browser war by integrating Internet Explorer 4.0 (IE 4.0) with the Windows 98 operating system's kernel. This integration promises the fastest Web search possible on your desktop and impacts both the appearance and functionality of the Windows 98 interface. You can configure the desktop interface to resemble a Web page with icons displayed as underlined links. This desktop style interface is known as 'Web View'. You can also navigate and view the files and folders on the desktop just as you browse Web pages on the Internet. Active content: Besides a change in the interface, the Windows 98 desktop, unlike its static and decorative predecessor, Windows 95, is more active and dynamic. In Windows 98, you can add active content from the Web to your desktop. Active content refers to the constantly updating, up-to-the-minute, hot and live information sent from a Web site to your computer over the Internet. For example, the stock ticker displayed in the attached screen shot displays a scrolling list of stock prices that is constantly being updated. Active channels: An 'active channel' is a Web site that is designed to deliver Web content to a computer, which can later be read offline. Microsoft has tied up with leading content providers, such as PointCast, Microsoft's own MSN and MSNBC, Disney Online, Discovery Channel, National Geographic, The New York Times and CBS' SportsLine USA, to deliver Web content right onto your desktop. The Channel bar on the desktop provides the requisite links to these active channels. Webcasting: Windows 98 can also automatically check Web sites for new content and automatically download the updated Web content from the Web site to your computer on a regular basis. All you need to do is subscribe to the Web site, which enables you to read the contents offline. Subscription does not entail paying any fees to the Web site. Web integration: What must drive NetScape crazy is the impact on navigation of resources because of IE4's integration with Windows 98. On a Windows 98 system, you can access the resources on the local hard disks, the local network, the intranet and the Internet by using either Windows Explorer or My Computer. The screen shot displays the Microsoft home page open in Windows Explorer. You also have the option to individually set up each folder in Windows Explorer or My Computer to display a background picture or a wallpaper. Explorer bars: In Windows 98, the Explorer bars make it much easier for you to locate information on the Internet and then return to that location whenever you feel like so. There are four such bars, viz., Search, History, Favorites and Channel. You can use the Search bar for displaying the list of search results. Similarly, the History Bar displays a list of sites you had previously visited. The Favorites bar displays your favourite Web pages while the Channel bar displays the channels that have been installed on your computer. Soft with Hardwares Microsoft knows it only too well that to retain its monopoly in the desktop operating system market it has to support every new hardware. At the base level, Windows 98 supports virtually all the available modems (including ISDN modems), printers, fax machines and scanners while, at a higher level, supports the Universal Serial Bus, multifunction cards and infrared connectivity. The highest level of hardware support is for multiple monitors and the broadcast architecture. With a support for up to eight monitors on a single Windows 98 computer, the video games manufacturers and the graphic and television software designers are in for a dream-time. Apropos hardware support, the most striking facet of Windows 98 is the TV viewer feature. If you have a TV tuner card installed on your system, you can receive broadcast from TV channels. You can also display data such as Internet information or use the Microsoft Program Guide to note the timing of your favourite TV show. The unfortunate (or fortunate!) news for people in India is that the TV viewer feature is initially available only in US and Canada. With the support for the broadcast architecture, Microsoft has unleashed the first step in PC/TV connectivity. However, Microsoft needs to improvise on the shabby interface of the television Viewer. One-up in Reliability Despite the nightmarish crashing of Windows 98 on a prestigious demonstration, Microsoft has made sincere and effective steps to create a "preventive maintenance" culture. The Windows 98 horse is no more completely dependent on its jockey for its health. It performs a few tasks such as automatic scanning of the hard disk after an improper shutdown proactively. For those looking to optimise the hard drive storage space, there is DriveSpace to compress files and an efficient Disk Cleanup manager to remove unused files such as Temporary Internet Files, and Downloaded Program Files. You can also use System Monitor to track the performance of different components on your system and System File Checker to automatically add new drivers and system updates over the Internet. An exciting new feature is the Windows Update wizard, which can connect the user to the official Microsoft site and help download any new driver or an operating system patch. Perhaps the most useful feature for increased reliability is FAT 32, which allows you to override the 2 GB storage capacity for a logical hard drive. With FAT 32, you can increase disk utilisation by up to 28 percent. The good news about FAT 32 is that you can upgrade your old computer to it. If despite all prevention your Windows 98 horse does crash, you have an expert troubleshooter, Dr. Watson, to assist. The vet creates a snapshot of your system at the time when the system fault occurred and submits a detailed description about the exact cause of the system fault. Meet, Chat, View While Stephen Hawking now proclaims that the universe shall forever expand, our very own Earth is becoming smaller because of the great unifier transcending nationalities and culture melee called the Web. Microsoft, like Netscape, Sun and everyone else in the IT business, has identified the Web as the place to be. With Windows 98 are included a host of applets and tools that make communication easy and fun. For example, Microsoft Chat allows you to chat with people around the world. To make chat more lively and descriptive, you can select a pre-designed cartoon for yourself. For file transfer and audio- and video-conferencing, you use Microsoft NetMeeting. You can also use NetShow player for delivering entertainment quality video over an intranet. At a more end-user level, Windows 98 includes a messaging and communications software called Outlook Express. You can maintain multiple E-mail and newsgroup accounts in Outlook Express. You can even E-mail an annotated Web page by using Outlook Express. To create your own Web page, you can use Front Page Express which is another tool included with Windows 98. When all is said and done let us not forget that the memorable scenes that made Titanic the biggest grosser of this century are not the scenes displaying technical attention-to-detail but the scenes portraying the beauty of love and emotions. Windows 98 does a wonderful task in customisation. Users can not only select screen savers and patterns to decorate the desktop, they can even use a beautiful desktop theme, such as Baseball, for customising the application window, screen saver, wall paper, sound and mouse action. The improved taskbar with its shortcut bar and useful tool buttons is a big time saver. From here, you can launch any frequently used program and can get back to the desktop by a single-click. The Start menu is also improved with the addition of the Favorites submenu and Web-style help. To summarise, Windows 98 is not a release or version upgrading worth ignorance. While the technical nerds and cognoscenti may downplay Windows 98 and still continue to question on "what should be", the new operating system is here to stay. Though Windows 95 users may not be going in hordes for Windows 98 , all the new systems may expect to have it as their integral product. If you happen to be a Web developer or a SOHO user, upgrading to Windows 98 should be a worthwhile effort because even a 10 percent increase in the speed of Web access at the astronomical ISP rates in India might be worth the upgrade cost! However, if you have a 486-based system with 16 MB RAM (the minimum requirement which Microsoft claims) then better buy a new system instead of jumping on to the upgrade mania. Pawan Nayar and Tarang Patnaik, lead developers for Windows 98 courses (computer-based training packages) at NIIT Ltd. |
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