Dear Final Debug: OK, I give up. I’m a network administrator and I’m unsure what to do about Windows 98. First of all, is it going to come out? Second of all, should I upgrade our network from 95 to 98? Third of all, if the answer is no, should I upgrade to NT? Everywhere I go, I get conflicting answers. You guys seem relatively unbiased. HELP! — Arthur Eisler, town not listed. Final Debug Responds: Arthur, if you want a definitive answer, the main number at the Department of Justice is 202 – OK, I’ll stop. -Of course Windows 98 is coming out. The only question is when. Assuming the DOJ and/or state attorneys general erect no legal roadblocks, the product will be ready for manufacturing within 10 days and appear on retail store shelves in late June. If a court restrains Microsoft from distributing Windows 98 in late June, a version of the product will appear this year. That revised product may be available in multiple versions offering different levels of seamlessness between the desktop and the Internet, but it will appear. As I read published reports, integration of the browser into the OS isn’t as important to many of the anti-Microsoft lobbyists and litigators than marketing placement on various Microsoft Web products. So all the functionality promised in Windows 98 will be available, either in late June or later. -The 95-to-98 upgrade isn’t nearly as major as the 3.x-to-95 upgrade. The interface changes only slightly and the major additions are bug fixes and added connectivity features (a new Winsock, USB support, etc.). And it’s unlikely that any corporate network will need some of the more overtly “consumer” parts of the upgrade, such as built-in WebTV. All your new machines could be 98-based with no problem — I’ve tested Windows 98 in a small network with 95 and NT machines with acceptable results — but there is little in the new version of the OS that your customers will be demanding. However, if your business is predominantly Web-based, the desktop-Web integration might be particularly useful. -Published reports suggest that Microsoft is positioning Windows 98 as its short-term consumer OS strategy, Windows NT 5.0 (due next year) as its industrial-strength operating system, and sometime in 2000 or 2001 it will unite the two complementary systems with a multitiered NT system, ranging from thin-client to fat-server. So as a network administrator, you might want to get yourself added to the NT 5.0 public beta-site list and explore. If it does what Microsoft’s annoying evangelists promise, it might be the most appropriate upgrade path while Redmond figures out how to join its various Windows platforms.
Windows 98 contestWe have one more copy of Symantec Visual Java to give away. You could win it by being the first person to send us a correct answer to this Microsoft Windows history question: What is the main difference between Windows/286 and Windows/386
