Well, Windows 98 is out and inquiring minds want to know whether to rush out and buy it. Here's the scoop.
First, unlike the Windows 95 debut, there's no big rush. You will not need to update immediately in order to run current software and stay up to date. When you are ready to do your next software or hardware upgrade, though, you'll probably want to include Windows 98 in your plans.
What's different about Windows 98? In a nutshell:
- "Active Desktop" - your desktop will look & feel like an Internet Explorer browser.
- 1200 new drivers - should make Plug'n'Play a reality
- Better disk & file maintenance tools
- Better Internet connectivity - improved dial-up, more efficient file transfer capability.
The thinking behind Win 98 is to incorporate the internet into the "Active Desktop" so that your PC treats the Internet as just another network drive. The access and dial-up connection has been improved, information transfer is more efficient, and in general, you will notice the difference between being "online" and "offline" a lot less.
The good news is that people are finding the Windows 98 installation and setup a whole lot easier than Windows 95 was. My guess is that Microsoft learned a lesson from all the complaints last time. It also has a customized installation for special needs of vision and hearing impaired users. This includes not only big fonts but a focus area that magnifies part of the screen. This is something to consider as we "baby-boomers" get older.
The operating system does take more disk space, but that's inevitable. The jury is out on whether this will slow down performance. Windows 98 has a number of functions which organize and store data on the hard disk more efficiently, and it notifies you when system files are being updated. You will be able to schedule maintenance tasks like "scandisk" and "defrag" and their new "disk cleanup", if you don't like doing maintenance on your own.
If you are running out of ports to plug in your peripherals, here's news: Windows 98 supports "Firewire", which will allow you to daisy-chain different devices through the same cord.
To summarize, there are a number of improvements, but no radical changes. Corporate users will want to choose between Windows 98 and waiting on the promising Windows NT 5.0. Some computer manufacturers are issuing warnings to notebook PC users that they may not be able to run Windows 98; in general, it will operate better on systems with 2 gigabytes of disk space.