Memphis belle

Does Microsoft's much vaunted Windows 98 deliver on the host of improvements it promised, or is it just another upgrade?

The long awaited upgrade to Windows 95, imaginatively called Windowsovements it promised, or is it just another upgrade? 98 (aka Memphis), recently entered its third and final beta testing phase.

A release date has not been set, but with the uncertainty raised by the US DoJ investigation, the most recent prediction of Q2 98 looks unlikely.

With the convergence of Windows 98 and Windows NT 5, it's likely that this will be the final release of Windows in its present form. In future it will be cutdown versions of Windows NT 5 or 6.

Like its predecessor, Windows 98 is primarily a consumer operating system which will is likely to have its biggest impact on home users and small businesses.

For example, Windows 98 supports DVD disks, universal serial bus devices and TV tuner cards. However, it's also designed to be an operating system for the mobile corporate market and is therefore rich in features intended specifically for notebook hardware. It's also better suited than Windows 95 to multiple users and hardware configurations.

Cosmetically, the new version is not very different from Windows 95.

If you take release 2.5 of Windows 95, install the various updates, add-ons and Internet Explorer 4, what you have is perhaps 75 per cent of Windows 98, and all for zero expense. Another clue to its significance is its version number. Windows 95 was version 4; Windows 98 is 4.1. That's a .1 upgrade which suggests it is fairly modest.

So what does Windows 98 have to offer? If we are to believe Microsoft, it promises easier installation, better performance, improved reliability and reduced cost of ownership. There's also an all-new system-wide automation utility that replaces the old Dos batch files; support for the latest hardware; a vastly improved set of disk, file and system optimisation and troubleshooting tools; better security, networking and system administration features; and faster, easier and more automated internet connectivity.

Installation

This is a much simpler experience than Windows 95, with only seven screens to navigate. However, there's more to install and the process can easily take 35 minutes.

Interface

By default, Windows 98 uses the Internet Explorer 4 shell. It's an integral part of the OS - you're not given the choice of not installing it during setup, nor is there an option to uninstall it.

The browser interface extends to what is called the active desktop, where the channel bar from Internet Explorer 4 can sit, and all sorts of live internet content is available.

The active desktop consolidates internet, network and local resources, plus online services, into a single tree hierarchy for the user to browse.

It imposes stiff hardware demands, but fortunately you can turn it off.

You can also use other Web browsers, such as Communicator. But Internet Explorer is pervasive - the Windows Update feature, for example, uses Explorer no matter which browser you use.

The menu structure has changed since Windows 95. The active user can log out from the Start menu instead of going through shutdown and there's a new Favourites entry which helps you navigate to the most frequently used channels or links.

The taskbar has also been tweaked, to allow you to define toolbars on it. Like the Microsoft Office toolbar, it allows you to place links to programs or files in a handy but unobtrusive location. The Find command on the Start menu now has a people option that searches public Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) directories such as Bigfoot, Four11 and WhoWhere?Performance.

The system agent is now a standard feature. Most of the performance enhancements are accessible through the new Windows tune-up wizard, which lets the user schedule tasks such as defragmenting the hard disk, checking for disk errors and cleaning up the disk. The latter option, which automatically deletes temporary files, is also accessible through a disk clean-up button on any disk's property dialog box.

The disk defragmenter promises to speed up application load times by monitoring loading and optimising the order of files. Loading doesn't seem quicker than Windows 95, but shutdown is faster as a result of being less polite - it doesn't wait for services to stop gracefully before terminating them.

Reliability

Self-maintenance is an important element underlying the new operating system, and Windows 98 includes a raft of DIY maintenance tools. Microsoft has included the new system information utility, MSI, for the first time.

Designed to be used when making a technical support call, MSI provides a wealth of technical information for the support engineer. It also features a system troubleshooter, which automates the manual recovery procedures and boots up, tests and eliminates configuration instructions until the problem goes away.

The system file checker automatically checks your system files for errors, while a modified scandisk utility adds new options for checking errors due to name length and for reporting duplicate files. MSI also lets you display and sort information in the registry. It includes a button to copy any entry into the clipboard for pasting into another editing tool, as well as the ability to export any entry as a text file. The Scanreg tool performs a quick backup and scan of your registry, alerts you to potential problems and tells you if it's been too long since your last backup.

The system file checker keeps backups of your configuration files 'just in case'. It stores version information for key files, including DLL, COM, VXD, DRV, OCX, INF, HLP, SCR, EXE, SYS and 386 files, in an SFC file that lets you update a corrupted system by clicking on a Restore Defaults button.

Finally, there's Windows System Update. This is a new Web-based service, using ActiveX controls, that scans your system to determine what hardware and software you have installed, then compares that information to a back-end database to determine whether there are newer drivers or system files available. If there are, the service can automatically install them. This process is completely configurable, allowing the user to choose which updated drivers/system files to download or, if you prefer, to restore a previous configuration.

Hardware support

Windows 98 adds operating system-level support for some of the latest hardware technologies.

MMX: Windows 98 supports MMX processors such as the Pentium and Pentium II, AMD's K6 and Cyrix's 6x86MX, and should offer improved performance for image processing, video, audio and similar functions.

FAT32: First seen in OSR2, Windows 98 supports the more efficient FAT32 file system. The FAT32 converter wizard guides you through the process of converting to FAT32 on the fly.

DVD: Windows 98 support will include an applet akin to the CD player in the accessories group. The much-troubled DVD-Rom standard will initially provide 4.7Gb of data, with future versions increasing capacity to 17Gb.

USB: Universal serial bus, now common on new systems, operates at speeds of up to 12Mbps and allows daisy-chaining up to 127 devices off a single port. The proliferation of USB has been hindered by poor operating system support thus far.

IEEE 1394: Windows 98 supports another emerging bus standard - IEEE 1394, aka FireWire, which offers data transfer rates in excess of 200Mbps.

Windows CE: Though absent from beta 3, Windows 98 will include built-in support for connecting to and synchronising with Handheld PCs (HPCs) and other Windows CE-based devices.

Multiple displays

The Windows 98 desktop supports up to eight monitors. That means you can drag, drop, resize and move desktop items from one monitor to the next. You can use a different brand or model of video card for each monitor, or a single speciality card that can handle several monitors. Each monitor can be set to a different resolution and colour depth. Open, but not maximised folder windows can move across or even straddle monitors. Maximised items, however, fill only one screen.

Power management

On notebooks and newer desktop systems with power-management features, Windows 98 can automatically place a system into standby mode or suspend operations and place the system into 'sleep' mode. Users will also be able to put the system into sleep mode or shut down the system from the start button without having to also press a power button. It also takes care of the battery drain that an idle modem card can cause, by putting the PC card modem to sleep. Windows 98 wakes it when the phone rings (if auto answer is set) or if you try to make a connection.

Networking

Windows 98 includes a new NetWare client that supports NetWare directory services, so that Windows 98 users can log on to NetWare 4.x servers via NDS and access all NDS file and print resources. The client provides full NDS authentication and processes NDS log-on scripts and property pages.

However, users will still need a Novell NetWare client to get full access to NDS.

Utilities

Windows 98 is well endowed with applets and utilities compared to Windows 95. Most of the features of the Plus! are now standard. In addition, a raft of internet utilities is supplied, including NetMeeting, NetShow, FrontPage Express and Personal Web Server.

You also get Outlook Express, a fairly capable email client and newsreader that replaces the unremarkable Internet News and Mail package bundled with earlier versions of Internet Explorer. A new setup program handles both individual and networked computers, can incorporate post-Windows 98 device drivers and, unlike Windows 95, isn't confused by networked distribution files.

The creation of scripts to automate installations is simplified by Batch 98. Previously, using Batch required filling out a dozen or more complicated dialog boxes and took some trial and error to run correctly.

With Batch 98, you configure a system the way you want it, using familiar tools such as the control panel. Then, with one button, you can copy the configuration into an INF file that you can use to automate the installation of Windows 98 on other PCs.

Windows 98 can also help reduce ownership costs by self-diagnosing and fixing many common problems as described above. As we've already seen, the system file checker verifies the integrity of Windows 98 files and restores any corrupted or changed files from the original Windows 98 distribution files. And Windows Update can make sure that the system is bang up to date.

By setting the Windows 98 system policies, network managers can block the installation of any device driver not certified by Microsoft.

Managers can also use the system policies to prevent a computer from accepting software updates. However, this feature will probably end up disabled on most corporate networks. While it is compelling within consumer applications, it would be a poor match in a corporate setting. Rather than users upgrading their own systems individually, it would be to push the updates to all applicable clients at once, so that software versions are consistent across large numbers of clients.

Just recently, Microsoft admitted it might not include support for current and future Zero Administration Windows (ZAW) technologies in Windows 98, which may hinder adoption of the operating system by corporations. Such core ZAW components as the Intelli-Mirror, that automatically mirrors user data to a server, have been delayed in the Windows NT 5 beta and will probably be absent from the first version of Windows 98. Microsoft originally promised to include the Zero Administration Kit (ZAK) in Windows 98, but only a small subset of ZAK will ship with the operating system.