4 ms·

On a sightly off-topic note, the last paragraph says: > Anyway: that was the sole significant improvement in networking in Win98 that I am aware of. The other

On a sightly off-topic note, the last paragraph says: > Anyway: that was the sole significant improvement in networking in Win98 that I am aware of. The other thing 98 could do was drive multiple monitors, if you had the right — that is, from an extremely limited selection — graphics cards. Otherwise, it was just 95B with more drivers and the odious Active Desktop built in. Looking back I now see that the Windows 98's "Active Desktop" was the first "builtin bloat" to the Windows Family. That was the first step that started the long march to current hated things like Cortana.

fredoralive 5y ago
I'd argue Windows 95 also had some bloat, notably it bundled a client for MSN, in it's initial form as a walled garden AOL and Compuserve competitor. Excellently timed just for the internet to become a thing and make that style of service irrellevant.
- lproven 5y ago
  [Blog post author here] True enough, but I slightly disagree. I had an account on it and I used the MSN. It was pretty good for its time, and streets ahead of AOL or CompuServe. Eventually it devolved into being just an instant messenger and a news website, and now, the instant messenger is gone. Secondly, if you didn't use MSN, you could just totally ignore it and it imposed no system load. In that way, it's comparable to Windows Movie Maker in XP: totally pointless if you don't need that, and you can't remove it or choose not to install it, but doesn't actually do anything at all and can be ignored. Whereas Active Desktop could not be ignored or removed (except by doing a custom install with 98Lite, which is why I linked to it) and it was necessary to use it to use the OS at all.
lproven 5y ago
[Blog post author here] I agree. Um, perhaps I should have used a less obscure word than "odious"? :-) "arousing or deserving hatred or repugnance; hateful; an odious crime; a false and odious comparison." This does neglect the reason, which was well-known at the time and may be forgotten by now. MS was subject to a monopoly lawsuit by the US Department of Justice back then, and was trying to show that IE was an inextricable part of the Windows OS. If IE were just a web browser, you could remove it and the OS would still function just fine; but if it's also the desktop, you can't uninstall it without crippling the OS -- therefore, it's part of the OS and MS couldn't be told to remove it. And that's the only real reason. The slight side-note being that "Active Desktop" was multithreaded, like the MacOS 8 Finder. In Win95 or MacOS 7, if you started a file copy (for example), the whole desktop froze until the copy was done. You couldn't do anything else except sit there and watch the progress bar. In MacOS 8, the Finder (the program that drew the desktop) got multi-threading along with lots of other improvements (desktop drawers, an easily-customisable Apple menu, and more). Start a big file operation and you could go do something else while it sat there working away in the background. IE4's Active Desktop brought this to Win95 OSR3, Win98, and NT 4 if you installed IE4. But it was the only improvement. The rest was, as you say, bloat.
- Sesse__ 5y ago
  > In Win95 or MacOS 7, if you started a file copy (for example), the whole desktop froze until the copy was done. You couldn't do anything else except sit there and watch the progress bar. In Win95, the copy happened on the destination folder's thread. You could still open other windows and keep browsing around, but that specific window would be unresponsive.
  - lproven 5y ago
    That is not how I remember it, from *extensive* use at the time, but I would have to spin up a VM to try it. I don't think you're right. The OS was still running; you could switch to an app and keep working, for instance. But Explorer had only 1 thread, AFAICR, and a large file operation visibly locked that thread.
    - mnl 5y ago
      I honestly can't remember about such details, but with IDE drives and 95A you were limited to PIO. You could enable DMA in 95B, it wasn't by default. It was in W98. That should make a drastic difference.
      - lproven 5y ago
        I think it depended on the disk controller, no? https://www.philscomputerlab.com/windows-98-dma-mode.html https://www.philscomputerlab.com/windows-98-dma-mode.html I wrote about this in PC Pro in about 1995-1996. Because it had a true pre-emptive kernel, it could do other stuff while waiting for disk I/O, and on NT, enabling DMA made a big difference. As I recall, on 98, it just made disk access a bit quicker, that was all.
- lmm 5y ago
  Active Desktop was great. Wallpapers are bloat, having something you actually want to glance at occasionally like news headlines on the desktop was wonderful. I still miss it.

fredoralive 5y ago

I'd argue Windows 95 also had some bloat, notably it bundled a client for MSN, in it's initial form as a walled garden AOL and Compuserve competitor. Excellently timed just for the internet to become a thing and make that style of service irrellevant.

lproven 5y ago
[Blog post author here] True enough, but I slightly disagree. I had an account on it and I used the MSN. It was pretty good for its time, and streets ahead of AOL or CompuServe. Eventually it devolved into being just an instant messenger and a news website, and now, the instant messenger is gone. Secondly, if you didn't use MSN, you could just totally ignore it and it imposed no system load. In that way, it's comparable to Windows Movie Maker in XP: totally pointless if you don't need that, and you can't remove it or choose not to install it, but doesn't actually do anything at all and can be ignored. Whereas Active Desktop could not be ignored or removed (except by doing a custom install with 98Lite, which is why I linked to it) and it was necessary to use it to use the OS at all.

lproven 5y ago

[Blog post author here] I agree. Um, perhaps I should have used a less obscure word than "odious"? :-) "arousing or deserving hatred or repugnance; hateful; an odious crime; a false and odious comparison." This does neglect the reason, which was well-known at the time and may be forgotten by now. MS was subject to a monopoly lawsuit by the US Department of Justice back then, and was trying to show that IE was an inextricable part of the Windows OS. If IE were just a web browser, you could remove it and the OS would still function just fine; but if it's also the desktop, you can't uninstall it without crippling the OS -- therefore, it's part of the OS and MS couldn't be told to remove it. And that's the only real reason. The slight side-note being that "Active Desktop" was multithreaded, like the MacOS 8 Finder. In Win95 or MacOS 7, if you started a file copy (for example), the whole desktop froze until the copy was done. You couldn't do anything else except sit there and watch the progress bar. In MacOS 8, the Finder (the program that drew the desktop) got multi-threading along with lots of other improvements (desktop drawers, an easily-customisable Apple menu, and more). Start a big file operation and you could go do something else while it sat there working away in the background. IE4's Active Desktop brought this to Win95 OSR3, Win98, and NT 4 if you installed IE4. But it was the only improvement. The rest was, as you say, bloat.

Sesse__ 5y ago
> In Win95 or MacOS 7, if you started a file copy (for example), the whole desktop froze until the copy was done. You couldn't do anything else except sit there and watch the progress bar. In Win95, the copy happened on the destination folder's thread. You could still open other windows and keep browsing around, but that specific window would be unresponsive.
- lproven 5y ago
  That is not how I remember it, from *extensive* use at the time, but I would have to spin up a VM to try it. I don't think you're right. The OS was still running; you could switch to an app and keep working, for instance. But Explorer had only 1 thread, AFAICR, and a large file operation visibly locked that thread.
  - mnl 5y ago
    I honestly can't remember about such details, but with IDE drives and 95A you were limited to PIO. You could enable DMA in 95B, it wasn't by default. It was in W98. That should make a drastic difference.
    - lproven 5y ago
      I think it depended on the disk controller, no? https://www.philscomputerlab.com/windows-98-dma-mode.html https://www.philscomputerlab.com/windows-98-dma-mode.html I wrote about this in PC Pro in about 1995-1996. Because it had a true pre-emptive kernel, it could do other stuff while waiting for disk I/O, and on NT, enabling DMA made a big difference. As I recall, on 98, it just made disk access a bit quicker, that was all.
lmm 5y ago
Active Desktop was great. Wallpapers are bloat, having something you actually want to glance at occasionally like news headlines on the desktop was wonderful. I still miss it.