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Windows 98 Reviewed
Billed
as the ultimate upgrade to Windows 95, Microsoft's latest and
greatest operating system is all that and more. You've probably
heard about Windows 98, or seen it on the news, and maybe
you've attended a Windows 98 demonstration at any one of the many
tradeshows that Microsoft has attended in the past two years. You
may have heard that it contains 13 million lines of code and is the
central figure in a battle with the Justice Department that may last
well into the next century. But before we look at the
final release of Windows 98 (build 4.10.1998.6), let's backtrack
a bit and explore why this product is the way it is, and how it got
that way along the long road to its completion.
A few weeks after the triumphant
release of Windows 95 in August 1995, Microsoft began planning the
next version. Looking ahead, Microsoft realized that the next major
revision of Windows would be NT-, not DOS-based, so "Memphis"--as
Windows 98 was known at the time--would be a minor point release,
not a major one like Windows 95. This created a couple of problems
right off the bat, most notably a possible perception from consumers
that Windows 98 wasn't really a big deal. And indeed, over the past
few years, stories have erupted around the Net that Windows 98 is
nothing more than Windows 95 with Internet Explorer 4.0 bundled in
for good measure. On the other hand, there wouldn't be any major
user interface paradigm shifts like there were with Windows 95, so
many users would feel more comfortable upgrading.
The
Deathmarch Beta 1996-1998
I've been testing Windows 98 since the very first release, a developer
preview that shipped just after Christmas 1996. That initial release
was basically a rebadged version of Windows 95 OSR-2 with USB
support, the release of Windows 95 you'd get if you bought a new
computer in 1997. It was stable as hell, and though IE 4.0
integration was still months away, you could see from Day One that
this product was going to be something special. Over the course of
the next year and a half, I installed every single build of Windows
98 Memphis--and there were dozens, all available for download--on at
least one machine. Most builds, I was able to install on two or
three machines. I suspect that most Windows 98 reviewers are far
less experienced than I in this regard:
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