Right in the midst of all the furor over Microsoft(R) Windows(R) 95, I was reminded of an instruction manual I once saw for a Weaver rifle scope. The very first page started, "Now that you have installed your new Weaver scope...." Apparently, surveys indicated that hunters who ordered these devices were so eager to upgrade their trusty thirty-aught-sixes that they had the scopes completely mounted before they ever thought to crack the manual. Similarly, millions of Intel-based PC users appear to have installed Windows 95 without carefully considering the impact on their systems.
The race to install Windows 95 quickly comes up against Van Horn's rules of computer aging:
1. Don't install anything in a production machine until three months after the product has been released.
2. Make sure that the age range between the oldest and newest component, both hardware and software, is less than three years.
The first rule should be obvious to users, but normally it isn't. No matter how thoroughly the vendor tests a new product before release, the likelihood is that things are going to break in the real world. I don't know whether this is because vendors choose the wrong users for beta testing or because of the innate perversity of inanimate objects. But Windows 95 is causing a lot of grief out there, particularly for users who violate Rule #2.
Just before the official release of the product, I installed it on both of my PC workstations and five other systems. As soon as this column is finished, I will be restoring one of my systems to Windows for Workgroups 3.11. Why? Because that system has a disk controller that violates Rule #2, and Windows 95 doesn't accept the controller as a 16-bit device (though it is), so system performance is poor. Another reason is that my invoicing software was written by a company with a reputation for nonstandard programming, and the product does not run properly under Windows 95. (Oh, it runs all right, but after printing a single invoice from it, all traces of printers in the Control Panel disappear, and no application is able to print until Windows is restarted.)
Another factor in the "three month" rule is that everyone is racing to get software out at the same time, and none of the developers really know how other programs will affect their own. For example, a major issue with Windows 95 is its type-handling capabilities, since Adobe is still working on the true 32-bit elements of Adobe Type Manager (ATM) for PostScript Type 1 fonts. Also, as Macromedia FreeHand was being developed, different features would work with one Windows 95 beta version, but not with the next. In a computer system devoted to artwork, a staggering number of components (font rendering, illustration applications, printer drivers, scanner drivers, and more) need to work flawlessly together to be productive. We aren't there yet. (Perhaps one problem with the beta version was that the beta testers knew better than to test on their production machines!)
Rule #2 mirrors the dilemma of multiple developers racing to get their products done at the same time. While Microsoft certainly wanted Windows 95 to install on the widest possible range of existing computers and hoped that the widest possible range of existing applications would run with it, other software developers were all working with current hardware and software, not Windows 95. Also, while developers tend to keep their systems up to date, there is no way that a developer working four years ago could possibly have anticipated the behavior of a new system today.
At some point, you are bound to install something new that will prevent something old from running. The age range between the new and old components probably won't be exactly three years, but that has turned out to be a reasonable safety zone. So, if you need a feature of Windows 95 (and you almost certainly do), you need to be prepared to upgrade other elements of your system as well.
Now, in terms of the hardware that will be required to run the new system, there really isn't much change. Although the media have made a big point about the problem of running Windows 95 on machines with 4 MB or less of RAM, 95 doesn't run much worse on these machines than versions 3.1 or 3.11 did, which is to say, execrably. Except for machines with less-than-optimum disk controllers (which I ran into in two out of seven installations), 8-MB machines perform slightly better with 95 than with 3.11, but either version really requires at least 16 MB to produce artwork. Nevertheless, Windows 95 runs much better than Windows 3.11 did in a graphic-arts environment.
As for storage requirements, Windows 95 needs 35-40 MB of disk space, depending on the options you choose during installation, and roughly 10 MB to provide a compressed backup of your previous system files, which can be removed later. Other unusual, mostly older hardware currently in use may be problematic as well. For example, the machine that I'm restoring to version 3.11 also has an awesome accelerated video controller, which Windows 95 doesn't know how to use.
With Windows 3.11 and previous versions, every icon, toolbar, and floating palette that needed to be loaded consumed limited resources known as System Resources. It was not uncommon for a system to report 24 MB of free memory, but crash because it only had 22% of System Resources free. With Windows 95, you can actually use all of your memory for programs and receive an immediate increase in productivity. At the moment, I have a Visual Basic program (Visual Basic apps are notorious for consuming System Resources), Microsoft Word (ditto), and Adobe Photoshop all running--and the Windows Explorer reports that I have 86% of my resources free. The Windows 3.11 machine running only Program Manager and Print Manager (the absolute minimum) has 83% free.
The fact that Windows 95 is very discriminating about what hardware it will run on means that though the system starts more slowly while it checks everything out, general operations are more robust. Even at this point, I find that Windows 95 is nearly as stable as the Macintosh, something that previous versions didn't come close to. This system checkout during startup is one of the many features borrowed from Windows NT, Microsoft's top-of-the-line operating system.
For those with Macintosh experience, one of the greatest things in the new system is the potential for creating reasonable file names. Last month's column was named, on my system, OCT95.DOC. While within the context of my directory structure (F:\CLIENTS\SCREEN\) it was meaningful, this month's title "Novem~ber 1995.doc" is much easier to read and understand. Windows still needs to associate one program with each three letter file extension, however, so you still have to remember to add extensions to filenames that will be used on both the Macintosh and Windows 95-based PCs. Macs have long been able to use 32-character names. Windows 95 (and Windows NT) can now use up to 255 characters.
The Macintosh has long had a trashcan icon on the desktop for deleting files. No doubt, this was just too cute for Microsoft, not to mention protected by copyright, so Windows 95 has an office wastebasket. Microsoft has long wanted to have something like this in Windows, and now they do. I, on the other hand, have long wanted a simple Delete-key option on the Macintosh, which the new Windows still has. In fact, you can click on anything with the right mouse button, and Delete is an option (as is Copy, Rename, and Create Shortcut). As with the Mac, the wastebasket allows you to retrieve the more recent things that have been tossed, at least in theory. But there have been a couple of times when immediately after sending something to the wastebasket, nothing was left to retrieve. (This happened with the first draft of this column.)
I mentioned shortcuts in the previous paragraph. These are similar in function, flexibility, and ease of use to the Alias function on the Macintosh. They are similar in function to the icons in Program Manager in previous versions of Windows. The neat trick here is to put single or multiple Shortcuts for programs or documents wherever you might need them. This allows you to bury things deep in your organizational structure, but also keep them accessible. You might keep several files you are working on for several different clients in their appropriate directories, while keeping Shortcuts to these documents right on the desktop. You just need to remember to clean up your Shortcuts from time to time. Windows users can now make just as much of a mess of the desktop as Mac users always could.
With Windows 95, the right button on the mouse is very functional. Everywhere in Windows, as well as in all programs that were written to support the new interface, clicking with the right button accesses very useful features quickly. For example, Microsoft Word 7 allows you to access most of the editing functions with the right button and uses it brilliantly in spell checking. Adobe Photoshop 3 lets you use the button to access standard editing functions, control which palettes will be displayed, and select Fill functions. All of these features are frequently used and accessed much more quickly than with previous versions of Windows.
One of the performance advantages of Windows 95 over the older versions is the concept of multi-threading~. Not only does the operating system allow several different programs to work at the same time, but Windows 95 (like Windows NT and IBM's OS/2) allows each program to break into several component parts. For example, Word 7 maintains a spell-checker thread at all times that, without slowing you down at the keyboard, watches all your words and puts a wavy red underline under anything that isn't in your dictionaries. Clicking on these words with the right mouse button brings up suggested corrections and other spell-checking options. Although a spell-check icon is still in the toolbar, all it does is take you from one marked word to the next using the same dialog box as the previous version of Word. Threading should allow developers to do some great things for us, such as devoting some resources to watching over keystrokes and updating the screen while using extra resources to handle things that can be done in the background. No more work will get done, but it will feel like you're working more quickly.
The real question for users of Windows programs is which of the two alternatives to switch to. Windows 95, which has all the flash and dash and is getting all the media attention, or Windows NT, which costs more but is more robust and offers higher performance. If I didn't have to use type so often, I think it would be an easy choice--Windows NT. Alas, Adobe Type Manager isn't yet available for NT, and I'm not about to switch to TrueType. In larger network environments, it will almost certainly make sense to use both, with Windows NT serving as a print and file server and hosting the most intensive Photoshop work, and Windows 95 supporting the general purpose workstations. (Some users may even want to keep Windows for Workgroups on a few machines to run older programs!) A new Windows NT interface will be available early next year, which should make things less confusing for people who run both operating systems.
By the way, lurking somewhere in the files that are installed with Windows 95 is Bill Gates's prize racehorse, Nugget. Now, I haven't seen it, although lots of people have, but a certain convoluted key sequence* invoked during startup will present a full-screen, 24-bit image of the thoroughbred. An inside source at Microsoft reports, "Bill is very proud of his horse and the luck she's brought him. He's a bit superstitious about these things, but you can't argue with his success."
* From sources on the Internet: When the mouse pointer first appears as Windows is just starting (the desktop should be black), quickly hit the following key sequence in the order shown: CTRL+F6+RSHIFT+DEL+RMOUSE. Nugget will appear in all her glory. And, by the way, do not try to delete the files that contain the image (even though it takes up 3 MB of disk space!).