


  A Typical User Reports:

                         On Windows95
                   (c) 1995 by Leonard Grossman


  A few thoughts now that I've removed Windows95 from my system.

  1. I miss it.

  2.  I'd forgotten how great WFWG really is.

  My purpose in experimenting with the beta was exactly that -- an
  experiment.  And it was fascinating!

  I  love the interface.  One thing I had hated about Windows 3x was
  opening and closing the program groups to find what I was looking for.
  In the few weeks I ran '95, I added shortcuts to my most often used
  program groups and especially applications.  It was nice to let my mouse
  glide over the menus when I was looking for something else. Smooth.

  It may only be my imagination, but it seemed that even though most of my
  drives were stacked, that once Windows was loaded and the specific
  application  finally stopped churning my harddrive, every thing was a
  bit faster. Even WPWIN 6.1.

  Internet access using the old Trumpet Winsock worked fine.  I felt much
  more comfortable leaving Eudora open while I web surfed and had fewer
  on-line glitches while running under '95 than under WFWG. However, the
  drive churning with Netscape that had finally been eliminated with 32b
  file access and 32bdrive access under WFWG returned using 95. This hung
  my computer for several seconds...over and over again.

  Hang ups were the real problem.  I accepted the long loading period but
  for some reason even when '95 appeared to be ready my mouse often was
  not. At the strangest times my generic serial mouse seemed to go
  berserk.. A look into the control panel indicated the device was not
  found or that drivers were missing.  Unfortunately something happened to
  my CD in the process.  I could no longer access it and therefore
  couldn't replace or change the drivers.  I think I damaged my SCSI card
  when reinstalling all of my cards to try to determine if the mouse
  problem related to a poorly seated I/O card. The CD still isn't working
  even under DOS. It's fortunately time for an upgrade as it's single
  speed.

  If it wasn't the mouse, it was something else. Applications would
  suddenly hang up and I'd have to get out of the system out with a cold
  boot which is of course, not recommended.  Once I did do a reinstall
  right over the original using the floppies, but too many things still
  hung up.  So.. for now at least, I gave up.

  Back to my post mortem.  In fairness, I suspect most of the problems I
  had were directly related to the fact that my machine is an odd
  collection of pawn shop and recycled parts and that the old WFWG on my
  system may already have quirks from my unmitigated tinkering.


  Other gripes:

  1.    I really think MS should have made long filenames an option.
  And should have made it OFF by default.  If they had done so, '95 would
  not have rendered so many utilities unusable and would have permitted
  DOS backups without the inelegant LFNBK.  By naming some of the WIN 95
  subdirectories and files with long filenames Microsoft consigned all of
  us to long file name hell.

  2.  Not so long ago, Doublespace and Stacker were virtually -no pun
  intended- the same. '95 handles Doublespace and Drivespace drives in full
  32 bit mode.  Could '95 really not recognize and handle Stacker in 32 bit
  mode? Certainly so, if MS had wanted to. These wouldn't be marketing
  ploys, would they?

  3.  Speaking of marketing ploys-- ta daaaa>>>> MSN. The Microsoft
  Network has a long way to go.  When I access the Internet directly its
  fast.  Even on my 14,400 modem I find access acceptable (except for the
  Netscape churning I mentioned before). MSN is slow and the interface is
  awful.  I never did find the files that were available for download and
  found getting around impossible even though Im a refugee from CIS and
  GEnie with an occasional visit to AOL and Prodigy.

  4.  Further, the fact that MSN was able to recognize that I needed the
  software update without my telling it to check for it, was scary.  What
  else was MSN reporting about my machine? I cant judge whether this is a
  plus or a minus-- there are so many ways to do everything that it gets
  confusing.

  Until only a few months ago I was quite satisfied with DOS and only came
  kicking and screaming into Windows for easy Internet access. Therefore
  the move from 3.1 to WFWG to 95 has been rather fast.  I know that I
  still  have a lot to learn. In any case, this was only an experiment.
  I'll probably return again for a longer visit. In the meantime:

  I hadn't really fully appreciated how well WFWG worked for the things I
  do.  I'm not heavily into multi-anything.  I use a suite of Internet
  clients, along with WPWIN 6.1, WP5.1 (DOS), Telix (DOS), SLMR (DOS),
  Printshop Deluxe and a few other applications on a regular basis.  Now
  that I am back in WFWG, I have created icons for my most used DOS
  applications and find they run as well, if not better, full screen under
  WFWG.  Taking a hint from the '95 desktop, I have cleared the clutter.
  All I see when I load windows is my open "Internet Suite" including
  Telix and Slmr with the iconized internet clients along with four
  program groups.  Everything else is below the screen and if I really
  need them there is the scroll bar.

  My office is just beginning its migration to Windows using WFWG. I
  realized that I can be more useful to them if I learn more about WFWG.


  Leonard Grossman is a Chicago attorney with the Office of the
  Solicitors in the Department of Labor and is a booster of the great BBS
  that got him started: Chicago Syslink, now based in Berwyn, Illinois. He
  is active in several local user groups.

                         ww



