This is too late to write about Win 98, considering the jump to Win ME and Win XP release around the corner. (Please note that I already have an article on Win XP – the first one on this website). But there are die hard fans of Win 95 who strongly believe that it is more stable than Win 98, and Win ME users are missing the DOS prompt. In India I have found Win 3.11 users too (in 2001!). Hence this article for those who would reconsider using Windows 98 SE.
Firstly, a word of caution. All those running something below P-II, 32MB RAM, 2GB HDD type configuration should strictly avoid an upgradation to Win 98. Since it uses more resources and will drastically slow down system and frequent the dreaded “blue screens”. For others here are the benefits:
THE USER INTERFACE
As a word of caution, this is mainly about frills and fancies and does not quite justify an upgrade for serious users.
Desktop:
The main development is “active desktop”. What it means is that active and dynamic elements (stock quotes and tickers) can be put on desktop. Jpeg images and also animated gifs can be put on desktop (not there in Win 95). The icons can be opened by single-click by choosing the option “View desktop as web page”. (Generally I am so used to double-clicking that this option can sometimes get on nerves and I would advise to stay away from this). Right clicking on desktop allows us to change display settings (resolution etc), change wallpapers/screensavers, display adapters and themes.
Taskbar:
The taskbar at the bottom is modified to hold icon buttons of applications for quick launch. Hence you can make your desktop cleaner by putting some icons on desktop, some on MS Office bar (which also supports tab structures) and some on quick launch bar (part of taskbar). The files/websites can be directly accessed by specifying path in address bar, which can be put on taskbar too, simply by right clicking on taskbar. Your most used folder can also be added to taskbar by choosing “Toolbar - New toolbar” from menu obtained by right clicking on taskbar. (Talk of convenience!!!!).
Start Menu:
This is more or less same as Win 95 except the provision to manually shift the program links up or down or even inside a sub-menu, by click and drag of mouse and sorting by name. The “Settings” option has link to customize active desktop and folder options besides the usual Control Panel, Taskbar options and Printers. The “Help” option is in HTML format. The troubleshooting is just COOL.
HARDWARE SUPPORT
The Peripheral support includes plug and play with nearly 1200 drivers, the IEEE 1394 standard that also supports high-speed, high-bandwidth connections for data-hungry multimedia hardware, such as scanners and video cameras. Then of course there is the USB (Universal Serial Bus) support. As soon as the device is connected to USB, Win 98 detects the new device, loads its drivers directly and the device starts working without the need to reboot the system. USB device management in Win 98 SE, has changed from the slower per-port system to the faster per-device system — this is important as more devices are connected to the USB chain. Normally when trying to install any new hardware, it ships with its own drivers. But even though it is not available (I lost drivers floppy for my modem), there is good chance that Win 98 can fix it, because of its large driver base, which is true improvement over Win 95. Then again does Win 95 effectively exploit Intels MMX and AGP technology as compared to Win 98?
INTERNET ACCESS
WIN 98 ships with IE5.0. This makes surfing better as compared to Win 95+IE4 combination, because of TCP/IP stack. . Win 98 stacks this data, recovers the lost data from stack and retransmits data. Hence browsing is comparatively faster and more stable (depends on ISP too). And yes, Win 98 allows broadcasting stations and such parallel sessions on net as it supports “multicasting.”
Also note that the IE5 browser is integrated with the OS increasing web enability. Typing a URL in address bar in Explorer will enable IE5. Type C:\ in IE5 and it enables Explorer. The web-OS integration has a flip side, i.e if the IE crashes, the OS crashes with it.
SYSTEM MAINTENANCE
There are some amazing softwares here.
Disk defragmenter: This is Intel based disk optimizer that arranges the data on disk in a more organized form. File clusters are placed in adjacent clusters. This offers two major benefits. 1) Faster file retrieval improving speed 2) Less wear of the hard disk. You can even see this process happening through the legends provided.
Scandisk:Checks disk condition (similar to the familiar NDD) and allows for repairs.
File Checker:It tracks any file you want to monitor (not just Windows system files) and lets you restore any system file (not just the ones you monitor), simply by typing in the appropriate filename--thus, doing wonders for those accidental deletions. And Win 98’s Registry Checker will automatically clean and back up your Registry in case disaster strikes.
Drive Converter:FAT 32 system is used instead of FAT16 where data is saved in smaller clusters and hence less space wastage. This utility converts floppies and disks from FAT16 to FAT32.
Scheduler:Allows settings for automatic defragmentation, scandisk. Improvement over Win95 is of course the fact that it allows scheduling of other softwares and batch files that user has made or prefers.
There are programs like MS Paint (improved as compared to Win 95) that also supports jpeg too, Netmeeting 3 that allows Video Conferencing. Then there is Outlook Express as Email client. Windows Media Player is also a boon but now WMP7 is the latest. Win 98 SE ships with Direct X 6.1 drivers for gamers but Direct X 7.00 can be downloaded and installed
As a last word, no program is free from bugs and considering the vast program and hardware support, the OS is likely to crash, though its occurrence is less (arguable, isn’t it?). Actually I have incurred more such instances of crashes and “program not responding” errors in Win 98 (because I used it more as compared to Win 95), but a Ctrl+Alt+Delete followed by End Task has corrected the errors without necessitating a reboot. But most of it is based on use – like I have crashes when I tried to browse the net using IE5 (two sites) with 3 open Word 2000 documents, 1 Excel Spreadsheet, WMP7 playing an MP3 in background. Of course I had Download Accelerator Plus downloading a freeware too. So who was I to blame – the browser, the OS or myself? Again there are security glitches. So solution is to download service packs and solutions from Windows site. Troublesome activity but necessary.