Windows 98: Second Edition

The Internet Connection Sharing feature that allows more than one PC on a home network to share a single Internet connection is this upgrade's hottest draw.

Product: Windows 98 SE (build 4.10.2222.A)

From: Microsoft (news release). Released June 10th, 1999.

Price: US$19.95 "Step up"; US$89 full retail version (for Windows 3.x and Win95 owners). A service pack that fixes a number of minor bugs in Win98 will be made freely available via the Windows Update feature to current Windows 98 users. Some features of this upgrade, such as NetMeeting 3, IE5 and DirectX6.1, are freely downloadable from the net.

Looks the same

While the installer runs, Windows 98 SE tantalizes with an announcement of one of its intriguing new capabilities: "Link several modems together for faster web access." At a glance, however, you'd be hard-pressed to tell the difference between Windows 98SE and the previous release. Consequently, it's not much of an upgrade for those already using Windows 98, especially if they have already downloaded Internet Explorer 5.0. It does, however, consolidate a number of bug fixes that have come along since Windows 98 was first released, and this will make it a desirable purchase for those who were too suspicious of the first release to upgrade from Win95.

Key Features

Internet Explorer 5.0 - Microsoft's latest browser update is its fastest yet -- a full 86 percent faster than Netscape Navigator 4.5 at accessing cached pages. Microsoft does not provide the version of the browser with 128-bit encryption by default, however Windows 98 owners can easily obtain it via the "Windows Update" feature. Even without the update, the standard 40-bit version does include Server Gated Cryptography (SGC) technology, which allows international customers to conduct 128-bit transactions with banks and financial institutions around the world. Incidentally, you can upgrade a Windows 98 system that already has IE5 installed, with no ill effects.
Internet Connection Sharing - with this feature, Windows 98 is able to share an internet connection. Once the computer set as the 'server' and connected to the internet, any computer on an internal LAN may use that machine's connection to browse the internet. No setup is required whatsoever on the client machines.
Direct X 6.1 - Drawing heavily from ideas pioneered by Apple's QuickTime, Microsoft's DirectX 6.1 includes a number of "APIs" (application programming interfaces) that allow programmers to more easily add features like 3D spatialized sound, hardware or software-based 3D acceleration and other services to 32-bit Windows programs. Direct3D, for example, allows programs such as games or 3D viewers to use a standard set of 3D function calls to ease the complex task of programming 3D graphics. DirectInput does the same thing for input devices like analog or digital joysticks or gamepads. DirectShow (formerly known as ActiveMovie) and DirectSound perform similar tasks for video and audio. DirectX 6.1 includes bump-mapping technology from TriTech Microelectronics and interactive music and downloadable sound sets via DirectMusic.

Bug Fixes

Microsoft in February acknowledged a bug discovered in Windows 95 and 98 that locks up a machine after 49.7 days of consecutive usage. The fix (also available on the Microsoft web site) is built into Windows 98 SE, along with fixes for a number of other issues. Overall, our upgraded system seems a little snappier, and so far seems to be very stable.

Also new:

NetMeeting 3 - this program is rapidly becoming the whiteboard-and-video conferencing tool of choice for many people. Version 3.0 makes big changes to the interface and improves performance noticeably. (NetMeeting 3.0 is also available for users of other versions of Windows.)
ACPI - Advanced Configuration and Power Interface support might actually lead to some power-saving benefits, now that most BIOSes newer than 1/1/99 have ACPI code that isn't full of bugs. Of course, it depends on whether your video card, network card, etc., etc., will "Wake up" properly after ACPI-induced sleepytime.
IEEE 1394 "FireWire" -- Support for 1394/USB CD-ROMs, discs, and optical discs is now standard. That's probably a good thing, as Intel on May 14th flip-flopped (again!) from its earlier stance and now says it will support FireWire. Support for Device Bay and WDM ( Windows Driver Model) modems is also provided. (Contrary to reports we've read elsewhere, we could, however, find no evidence of built-in support for the Creative Labs SB Live on the Win98SE disc.)
USB support is apparently enhanced, although we could detect no obvious changes. A report at ActiveWindows.com, however, says the update addresses a problem that sometimes cropped up when USB devices were plugged in.
WebTV - The WebTV viewer is enhanced.
Windows networking now includes "Virtual Private Networking" (VPN) services, allowing secure network access, file sharing, etc., over Internet connections.
Updated Windows fonts now support the Euro currency symbol.

Uninstall Option

As with the original release of Windows 98, Microsoft provides an option to uninstall Windows 98SE and roll back your computer to its previous operating system. This took 110 MB of disk space on our test system, which was running the original release of Windows 98 before the upgrade.

Also on the CD

The Win98 SE disc contains Microsoft's Personal Web server (a pretty lame web server -- it doesn't even support user authentication of FTP functionality), plus 16- and 32-bit Citrix clients for accessing Citrix's WinFrame terminal server. There are also trial versions of some other Microsoft products: Golf 99, Age of Empires, Motocross Madness, Money, Monster Truck Madness, and Microsoft's Pinball Arcade. There's a ton of other Microsoft marketing materials on the disc too; we won't go into the details here.

In the drivers directory, you'll find a program that can enable or disable the infamous serial number built into every Pentium III processor. There are also new drivers for a wide array of other recently release hardware products, including the Voodoo Banshee, Matrox G200, and most recent Epson and HP printers (unfortunately, not the trouble-prone 722C.) The old Microsoft Fax program is still lurking in a directory called "oldwin95." There are a few other utilities on the disk in the Tools directory. These are unchanged from the previous release of Win98 and we'll not discuss here.

WebTV for Windows, unfortunately, still sucks. On our 266MHz test machine, WebTV for Windows took several seconds between mouse clicks on the channel changer to change channels and the process of auto-detecting channels during the initial setup is interminably slow. The ATI-branded drivers for the All In Wonder family of cards continue to provide better overall functionality and dramatically superior performance.

Verdict

In the big scheme of things, this is a roughly equivalent upgrade to the step-up that Win95 OSR2 represented, relative to the original Windows 95 release. We encountered no obvious problems of difficulties during our upgrade, but no big payoff either. Recommended for those who need Internet Connection Sharing, or want IE5 but don't want to download it. Others may want to save their pennies for Windows 2000, instead. Now there's a big change.

For further Reading

Installing Windows 98 - installation and setup tips.
Windows 98 guide - an orientation guide for new users.
microsoft.com: Windows 98 SE highlights

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Windows 98: Second Edition

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