Support Management Magazine - March 1997
I expect that some of you won’t always agree with me. That’s OK. If enough of you don’t agree, I’ll use this column to frame the debate. If I’m wrong, I’ll admit it. Hell, I may even apologize from time to time (assuming I’m wrong and all). But I won’t shrink from a good fight…ever. That I promise you.
This month we’re going to talk about Windows 95. We need to begin with a quick history lesson. Way back in 1987, Microsoft, under contract to IBM, wrote a new and wondrous operating system called OS/2. It bombed. Big. One of the big reasons it bombed big was that IBM was absolutely, positively sure that the world would follow them to the new "promised land." They were wrong. They totally misread the market. Microsoft watched as IBM foundered on the shoals of arrogance and decided, at that moment, that their "new" Windows product would not meet the same fate. Therefore, they would always introduce products that would allow users an easy migration path. Got DOS, add Windows. Got Windows 3.1, add Windows 95, etc. The final goal of their current strategy is Windows NT. Microsoft wants all our desktops on NT Workstation and all our servers on NT Server. Now NT is a wonderful and stupendous 32-bit, pre-emptive multitasking, multithreaded operating system utilizing all the processor protection it can get. But NT is also a hardware pig, we’ll all have to buy brand new computers. Hmmm! Sounds just like OS/2. No, says Microsoft, we need an interim level, a stepping stone to get users from the old and limited 16-bit DOS/Windows world to the new and explosive 32-bit NT world. We need an intermediate level, a system with one foot in the 16-bit world and the other in the 32-bit world, one eye looking forward and the other looking back. We need Windows 95.
It’s been a year and a half since Windows 95 burst on the scene with a $200 million ad campaign promising to be the ultimate panacea for all the ills that Microsoft had previously created with Windows 3.1.
Let’s take an up close and personal look at the hype versus the reality of Windows 95 in its current state and its impact on support and what’s in store for the future.
Now Microsoft tells us that "sometime in 97" (I am now officially declaring 1997 the "Year of the Driver!") we will be getting a new version of 95 called Windows 97 - and a new version of NT dubbed - 5.0… somewhere in the August/ September timeframe just like 95 & 96. This time both products will be released simultaneously (this will hopefully fix the chicken & egg browser election fiasco that began with WFW and continues to this day) and will continue the merging of the two desktop operating systems into one. The current NT 4.0 (which FYI requires completely new video & print drivers) has many more similarities to 95 than just the user interface, specifically system policies and a new combined/integrated Win95 registry. The new 97 products (Windows 97 & NT 5.0) will combine other elements like identical drivers for sound cards, video adapters and NICs, etc. While this will speed up the widespread adoption of NT (Microsoft’s goal and, in reality, a good thing), it also means a completely new set of drivers for the 97 versions which will almost HAVE to be incompatible with ALL the older versions of 95 & NT. Are we having fun yet?
Where do I want to go today? I feel like crawling under my mauve modular workstation and calling the help desk to come fix my new 10x cup holder. I don’t mind the customers and the technology, it’s supporting the annual paradigm shifts that’s killing me!
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