Upgrading to windows 98 from previous versions .. not quite as easy as the old days

Most people aren't aware that when the first IBM pc was introduced, you had your choice of 3 operating systems. They were cp/m; the dominant operating system of the time, a weird one called the USCD P system, and a new untested one known as MSDOS Version 1.0, for Microsoft Disk operating system.

Most people went with Msdos, and that really launched Microsoft's domination of the industry. At the time, Microsoft was subservient to IBM. As the IBM PC increased in popularity and increased in power with more memory and a hard disk, Microsoft came out with newer versions of its operating system; Dos 2 and 3.

Then IBM and Microsoft began fighting among themselves, as IBM finally saw the handwriting on the wall - that Microsoft was going to become bigger than IBM. IBM began developing its own operating system, called OS/2, to try to gain the marketplace back from Microsoft. IBM is actually credited with writing Dos version 4.0, one of the worst and buggiest versions. At the time, Microsoft was working on OS/2 for IBM, while devloping Windows for themselves. Microsofts' first versions of Windows had problems, but they finally got it right with Windows 3.0, in the later 1980's. Microsoft went on to develop 2 new versions of Dos, 5 and 6, and Windows 3.1, before introducing Windows 95 in August of 1995, which incorporated both Dos and Windows into a single operating system. Then in 1998 they came out with Windows 98, and later with a 2nd edition of it.

In the old Dos world, you could upgrade from a much earlier version of Dos to the newest version without any problems. But now with Windows 98, Microsoft has given it's detractors more cause to shout "Monopoly !". There are tens of millions of pc's today running Windows 95, and they face a 2 step process to upgrade to the newest version of Windows 98, 2nd edition.

First you have to find a copy of Windows 98, which sometimes isn't that easy to do. This sells for $ 100 retail. Then you need to install it, which might take 1 - 2 hours of your time. Then, after you get all done, you have to then buy a copy of Windows 98 2nd edition, which agains sells for $ 100, then you need to install it, which might take another hour or so of your time.

Sometime during each process you may find your current system doesn't meet the hardware requirements for upgrade. Then you're looking at buying a whole new system. You also need to take the minimum hardware requirements with a grain of salt. Most programs today assume you have a ten gig hard disk, 64 Megs of Ram, and a faster pentium processor. You may find you can get Windows 98 to install, but your computer runs very slowly.

This is a key point to consider here, because if your present system came with Windows 95 installed on it, meaning you bought it in the time window of from 1995 to before 1998, you really have to consider the costs of upgrading your sytem, or buying a new system.

Adding memory, a bigger hard disk, and a faster processor and modem can cost several hundred dollars or more. Then you're adding components to a system that's already 3 years old. Today you see some new systems selling for under $ 1000.

The fact of life today is that the realistic life of computers now is 3 years. So if you're one of the millions with a computer running Windows 95, purchase rather than upgrade might be the best way to go.

For Raw Bytes, this is Frank Delaney

(C) 1999 MTA Micro Technology Associates

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