[H-GEN] The Australian

[Paul Gearon]

On Tuesday, June 30, 1998 9:58 AM, Adrian Bolzan
[SMTP:a.bolzan at chemistry.uq.edu.au] wrote:
> At 09:45 30/06/98 +1000, you wrote:
> >
> >The US-based Byte Magazine last month had a cover story on Win98.  No
> >real surprise there.  The surprise came when I read the article only
to
> >discover that the author did NOT recommend upgrading to Microsoft's
> >latest mess (oops, "OS").
> >
> >Instead, the author gave a list of viable alternatives, which
included
> >failing to upgrade at all, going to Win NT or Linux.  If I recall
> >correctly, Red Hat was the distribution noted.
> 
> I seem to remember that APC did a review on Win98 about 2 issues ago,
as
> well.  From their analysis, I felt that hardly anyone should upgrade
from
> win95, especially if they have win95 OSR2.  of course, people will
still
> sell it now that it is released, and even our chem department is
spreading
> the word about win98 site licences...what a broken bandwagon to jump
on!  In
> that same issue, i think, APC also talked about upgrading software
etc,
> coming to the conclusion that unles it is broke, or really doesn't
serve
> your purposes, then upgrading is unnecessary.  hopefully, some people
out
> there will heed this message!  especially for the case of win98.  

I've been running Win98 at work for some time now.  I honestly can't see
why the majority of people would want to upgrade.  Ignoring the minor
(but annoying) GUI bugs, "enhancements" (read "annoyances" - like active
desktops & animated controls), etc, the only major differences are
multiple monitor support and binary compatibility with NT device
drivers.

As for the first, most people don't _have_ multiple monitors.  Most
people who are willing to spend that kind of money on their computer are
game fanatics, and Quake doesn't support mutiple monitors  :o)

As for the second... the only people likely to benifit are NT users who
are sick of not having driver support for any of their hardware.  But
even that effect won't be felt for quite some time until hardware
vendors port their drivers into the new paradigm.  But that has
_nothing_ to do with current Win95 users.

So the total benifits?  Slightly buggy multiple monitor support in the
OS.  Whoopdi doo.  How much do you want to spend today?