Win98 Story

[James Love <love@cptech.org>]

This is a note Keith Quigley posted to roundtable@cni.org, regarding
Windows 98.   jl

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Subject: Win98 - I can see clearly now
       Date: Tue, 17 Feb 98 03:26:30 GMT
      From: Q@Whoever.com (Keith)
        To: Multiple recipients of list <roundtable@cni.org>


As no doubt have most of you, I've been trying to keep up with all the
information about the Microsoft case and the DOJ via this list and in
the press.  For the most part, I've had little to add, content to see
how it plays out.  That changed this weekend as I personally experienced
some of the "IE vs.  Netscape" thing. 

Loading the recent Beta 3 release of Windows 98 at home should have been
an interesting look into what the concerns are about Internet Explorer. 
Key word in the previous sentence is "should". 

After the install, answering Yes to saving my original Windows and DOS
files, I brought up Win98 and discovered it had not correctly recognized
my graphics card, COM or LPT ports.  Apart from looking at a 16 color
display, the other amazingly different aspect of this new world from
Win95 was the clear look and feel of Internet Explorer and HTML on
nearly every MS app.  Control Panel was now a 'marked-up' page with
embedded graphic links instead of icons for shortcuts, for example. 
Explorer (file manager) also has the same basic tool bar and buttons 
as IE. 

Fixing the COM port, I dialed in and tried to get into Netscape
Communicator.  At least two DLL files that are part of the Microsoft
foundation class library were missing.  Apparently Win98 doesn't need
the MSVCRTxx.DLL series anymore so they were deleted, which effectively
disabled Netscape 4. 

Some of you may be aware of the question about whether or not you would
like to change your default browser to Internet Explorer instead of
Netscape within Win95.  I answered no when it came up.  Shortly
afterwards, I started the Hardware Trouble shooting wizard, since
Windows could not detect my Diamond graphics card at first and also told
me I had a video conflict.  The wizard initiated Netscape and displayed
the first question in HTML instead of the standard Windows help file
format.  Clicking on the only button available, which purportedly would
take you to the next page in the wizard, instead re-painted the same
page over and over.  I finally changed all my HTM,HTML file associations
to start IE instead and now miraculously I was able to use the wizard. 
(Didn't resolve the conflict by the way.)

On the surface this may not seem like a big deal, however if MS has
changed certain support functions and internal features of Win98 to be
HTML pages with extensions only their browser supports, I can see where
Netscape would be worried and where Microsoft would claim the browser is
integral to the O/S.  Of course it is now, they made it so.  Deleting
necessary files for other aplications is also a problem, in my opinion. 

The final part is that enclosed documentation advises uninstalling is a
simple matter of running the included UNINSTALL.EXE from the proper
directory.  Unfortunately, it wasn't there.  In fact it was not on the
CD or anywhere else on my hard drive.  There has been no way to remove
this particular experiment.  Reloading of Win95 doesn't automatically
fix the problem either.  It has been a long and painful lesson, one
which isn't actually over yet. 

Granted, this *is* Beta software and since I work in software
development myself, I understood the potential for damage when I
started.  What I worry about is the direction Microsoft has taken with
the opinion that the desktop should now look just like their browser. 
It makes alarming assumptions about how people want (or need) to work. 
What if MS decides next month that accounting software is an integral
part of the Operating System.  After all, everyone writes checks.  So
will MS Money replace Quicken as the de facto choice for home finance?
Maybe they should have been allowed to buy Intuit when they had the
chance!


Keith Quigley
Q@Whoever.com