> > My take is that we'll eventually have to have it, so I
> > just went ahead and got it.
> No....we won't. What *will* occur, around 2001, is the issue of NT in
> several different levels, one of those levels being for "home consumers"
> and that product will provide support for gameplay. The other two
> levels won't.
> Win98 is nothing more than Win95, version d....a Big Patch.
> Anyone seriously contemplating replacement of their W95 OS would be
> better off with NT....except for the gameplay considerations.
In a sense, I agree with Bruce, Win98 is the complete Win95 roll-up patch.
Hundreds of new drivers are integrated, the dispatcher and memory management
are cleaned up. Far fewer 3rd-party tools and utilities are required. The
end-user
can finally buy Fat-32 without buying a computer etc.
For some time I've been running one of my systems dual-boot. I had Win95
for
games and NT4.0 for "serious" work. NT certainly has advantages for
software
development as it provides better process isolation and control. It turns
out that I
do almost zero code development at home however. I found myself becoming
very annoyed by the lack of DirectX/Direct3D support in NT. With the
additional
slips in the NT 5.0 schedule, and the massive updates in Win98, it's going
to take
a lot of work for NT to reach parity with Win98 in the DirectX front. In
addition,
NT 4.0 is no Unix if you know what I mean. They have a long way to go with
regards
to multi-processor useability, scheduling gaurantees, realtime performance,
filesystem
predictability etc.
With the arrival of Win98, I've converted all of my home systems to
FAT32/Win98 and
am personally very happy with the results. I also took the opportunity to
re-format
and cleanly install everything which is always helpful. Now my wife and
kids only
have one environment to deal with. My large disks are now each one simple
partition.
Everything I've tried runs as well or better than before.
I would say that unless you are doing software development or running a
server,
Win98 is a much better choice. It's cheaper, faster, more compatible, has a
better
user-interface and is as Bruce said, the Win95 roll-up. At least they only
charge
$89 every 3 years for this one compared the the $200 or so for
office97,98,99...
upgrades. After reading this and other newsgroups as well as doing several
installs
myself, I would suggest two other small points.,
1. Do a clean install. You probably have tons of garbage in your
Win95 regristry.
Don't forget to backup your important files.
2. Don't use the MS 3DFX drivers. Load the current versions from
your board mfgr.
Best Wishes,
Scott
