By Vivek Bhatia

Come 1998 and, most probably in the second half of the year, the $11-billion Microsoft will release the next version of its operating system, Windows 98. And the company is, to put it mildly, not going to make as big a deal of it as it did with Windows 95 in August, 1995. Remember the special song sung by the Rolling Stones, the full-edition ads in the newspapers--and the submarine parties? Well, I bet on my Organiser that Windows 98 will be bereft of all this--as well as the presumption on Microsoft's part that this new piece of encoding will change the world.

For, Windows 98 is merely an evolutionary feature enhancement of Windows 95. Of course, upgrading from Windows 95 to Windows 98 isn't the same as upgrading from Windows 3.X to Windows 95 because Windows 95 and Windows 98 essentially have the same operating systems--and this isn't just semantics. Software written to run optimally on Windows 95--which is all 32-bit--does not run Windows 3.X. Ergo, to fully utilise Windows 95, users need to use a software that will break with the past. From this perspective, Windows 98 is evolutionary. But what does this mean for the Windows 95-user?

Should you switch? Or not? Personally, the fact that Windows 98 is a minor improvement cuts both ways for me. It makes it easier to upgrade, but the incentive to do so is minimal. However, in a corporate Local Area Network, running a mixed Windows 3.X-Windows 95 environment is much tougher than running a Windows 95-Windows 98 environment. Here's my personal list of the two big features that Windows 98 offers:

THE INTERFACE: The big news is, of course, the so-called Active Desktop. Windows 98 gives users the option of converting their user interface to a Web-enabled one that uses elements of Interner Explorer 4 as the interface, and makes the hard disk--as well as the Internet--the same entity.

THE SET-UP: This is the first improvement you will notice. The installer assumes that any user will want his Windows 98 set-up to be similar to his Windows 95 set-up. A countdown display on the left side of the screen helps you follow the process. Meanwhile, expert users can select additional features by browsing the installation source after the installation has been completed.

Windows 98 also makes new hardware installation easier, offering in-built support for Universal Serial Bus (USB) peripherals (see And Now, The Wireless PC, BT, October 22). All you have to do is to plug the USB devices into the USB port, and the operating system will do the rest--including installing drivers automatically. Curiously, Windows 98's innovations are those that are available on Windows 96 or Windows 97. (There really has been a Windows 96 and a 97 since the Windows 95 that comes pre-installed on new PCs has changed during the last two years.)

While this collection of enhancements may not be the only reason to upgrade to Windows 98, newer hardware is likely to work well only with Windows 98. In any case, once Microsoft launches the product, any new PC that you buy will come with Windows 98 pre-installed. Which will be worth it since you won't have to pay for a mere upgrade. At last, some value for no money from Microsoft!