Win9x on Laptops

Going Mobile

Windows 98 is a nearly ideal operating system for portable computers: you can add PCMCIA (also known as "PC Card") expansion cards without needing "Card and Socket Services" drivers to be installed or loaded separately, and no config.sys or autoexec.bat drivers are needed. The system elegantly handles multiple telecommunications and network protocols, allowing modem and network cards (etc.) to be "hot swapped" in and out of most portable machines without turning the power off. PC Cards are, for the most part, truly Plug and Play.

Windows 98 might even teach your portable or desktop computer a few new tricks. For example, on Compaq LTE series portables, AST Ascentia 900 series notebooks and certain IBM models, shutting down Windows 98 turns the computer off completely; on some other notebooks (Samsung NoteMaster, etc.), Windows 98 will support an internal pointing device and a plug-in mouse simultaneously and can switch resolutions or color depths on an external monitor without rebooting.

Tip: if your portable has an infrared port and you are still using Windows 95, go to Microsoft's web site and download version 2.0 or later of Microsoft's IRDA driver for Win95, which allows two IR-equipped portables to communicate via a wireless IR connection. Win98 includes this software and a number of other features designed to improve battery life and performance on laptops.

Slow Internet performance, even with a fast connection? You might benefit from a program designed to tweak your dial up networking (DUN) settings. The most highly regarded program in this category is TweakDUN. It allows you modify Maximum Transmission Unit (MaxMTU), RWIN settings and several other settings that can squeeze more performance out of an internet connection. Users of Windows 95 will benefit the most from these tweaks; however, it is also compatible with Windows 98 and NT 4. (Windows 2000 and Windows Me already have these tweaks built into the system.) It's at http://www.pattersondesigns.com/tweakdun/

PC Cards

You no longer need to have "Card and Socket Services," CD-ROM or Sound Blaster drivers, or many other types of drivers installed via Config.sys. If you see an entry in Windows 95's Device Manager screen for a device in your computer, you can safely "REM" out any references to it in your config.sys or autoexec.bat files. Once you've done this, restarted and verified that the device still works as expected, you may safely delete the config.sys or autoexec.bat references entirely.

We've seen an incredible demo where a Toshiba laptop connected to a docking station, reconfigured its network connection, recognized and established a new printer connection, and mounted a new hard drive, all without turning off the power. In another demo, an IBM PS/1 even turned itself off when Windows 98's "Shut down" command was used--a feature previously only available on some Macintosh models. (Some Compaq and AST portables also support this feature.) Even better, when the PS/1 was restarted, the applications resumed at the exact point they had been at before the shutdown. We wish more PCs had the PS/1's Rapid Resume feature -- it's a great timesaver. Windows 98 supports "suspend/hibernate" functions that act this way on some machines.

More like this . . .

How many search commands do you have in your PC?

How many search commands do you have in your PC? asked Bill Gates during his keynote introduction at Forum 2000, where he unveiled a set of next...

Linux News

2003 Aug. 7: Noted at News.com: This week, KooBox.com started selling what it calls the first complete Linux computer. US$449 gets you a 1.2 GHz...

A Mac OS X Overview

Server and Client At the 1999 Worldwide Developers Conference, Steve Jobs, Apple's interim CEO, and Avie Tevanian, Apple's senior vice president of...

Editorial: MS World Domination Scorecard

Microsoft is often accused of -- and has been convicted of -- anticompetitive behavior in the technology marketplace. In this article, I'll look at...

Windows Server 2003

Introduction Microsoft's next server platform is known as Windows Server 2003. It will be offered in both 32-bit and 64-bit editions, designed for...

Alternative GUIs for Windows XP

As we've noted in our earlier features on Alternative Graphical User Interface (GUI) options for Windows PCs, there are a number of products that can...

Codename: Whistler

Codename: Whistler This preview examines the feature-set in the Professional version of Windows XP, code-named "Whistler." There were...