Microsoft Windows 98 – The upgrade question

Written by Greg Gleason, President

While June 26^th - the release date for Microsoft Windows 98 - has come and gone, one question still remains: "should I upgrade or not?" There really is no quick and easy answer to this question, so I'll give you an overview of some of the new features and current upgrade warnings to help you make your decision.

One thing to keep in mind, though, is that Windows 98 is an upgrade to Windows 95, whereas Windows 95 was a whole new operating system as compared to Windows 3.1.

New User Interface

If you've used Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0 with the Active Desktop enhancement for Windows 95, you’ve already seen what the Windows 98 interface looks like. If you haven’t, the new interface is called Active Desktop, instead of simply "the desktop". This new Active Desktop uses the Internet Explorer 4.0 web browser to read and view files from your computer instead of using Windows 95’s Explorer program. What this boils down to is that you can see a browser view of your computer, and you can even choose underlined icon titles that act as hotlinks, which of course require just a single click instead of a double click. Although I think this interface is a little slicker and cleaner than that of Windows 95, it does come at a cost. I found the new interface to be slower then the old one at opening up various windows and displaying files.

Key Features

Windows 98 also includes lots of little extras that might help justify the $109 price tag for this upgrade. For example, several new utilities and system drivers function to optimize your computer’s performance. One of the biggest changes is the use of FAT32 technology, which makes larger hard drives more efficient. It accomplishes this by wasting less hard drive space to store files and re-locating frequently used files and drivers to the beginning of your hard drive (supposedly helping them load faster.) PC Magazine ran a series of tests on Windows 98 (August 1998 issue) and showed that on a 512MB partition, they were able to cut wasted space from 19 percent to 2 percent. I believe that this is particularly valuable since it seems like the newer a program is, the more hard drive space it requires to be installed.

Also high on the list of new features and enhancements are improved crash protection, computer start-up and shut-down speeds, enhanced Plug-and-Play and faster application start-up speeds.

Upgrade Warnings

Although it looks like Windows 98 will be a good upgrade choice for many people, I have a few warnings for you. Windows 98 seems to run well when it is pre-installed on new computers. However, there have been several issued with upgrading to it so it might be a good idea to hold off until Microsoft releases its first service pack (basically a bunch of bug fixes) for Windows 98.

These upgrade "glitches" seem to affect all computer vendors in some way since many top-tier computer manufacturers have been putting resellers and end users on notice about some potential upgrade snags. For example, Dell is advising users that some of the new features in Windows 98 will require, for some models, a new set of "drivers" (critical software that allows hardware devices to "talk" to Windows.)

Other issues include upgrade problems with older computer hardware. Microsoft reports that the minimum system requirements for upgrading to Windows 98 are a 486DX2/66 computer with 16MB of RAM and about 300MB of hard drive space. However, after testing Windows 98’s performance I would change these to be a bit more realistic. I recommend having a Pentium 100 or greater computer with 32MB of RAM and at least 500MBs of free hard drive space before attempting this upgrade. You should also check with your hardware manufacturer or vendor to see if there are any known issues with your current hardware.

Another set of problems may be encountered with your current software programs. For example, if you are using any 3rd party computer utilities (such as Norton Utilities, Fix It, Clean Sweep, Oil Change) you will want to make sure they have upgrades available for Windows 98 since the current versions will not work properly once your computer is upgraded. This is really nothing new, as there were these same types of issues with Windows 95 when it was first released.

Should I upgrade or not?

Well, that really depends on your situation. It really comes down to which features you need or want most. You should also keep in mind that almost all new computers are shipping with Windows 98 pre-installed, so it is only a matter of time before it is introduced into your computer environment. I think that once the service packs are released, upgrading to Windows 98 from Windows 95 will be a good move, but until then I’d suggest taking a cautious approach to any upgrades you are planning.

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