The software writers are learning slowly. It is not what a program does that matters, but how easily it does it. Microsoft is putting together Windows 4. It main concentration is not on what it does, but how easily it does it.
Microsoft has produced what is called its first beta version and the computing press were given a peep in Sydney last week.
The program may not be called Windows 4. In the development stage it is being called Chicago internally, but it is difficult to see Microsoft abandoning the “”Windows” trademark altogether. Too many people see Windows is a computer program not flat glass in a frame. If the program does not run on Windows, they say, forget it.
The boffins say Windows takes up too much computer power and slows things down. The masses argue it is easy to use and therefore in the long run is quicker.
Microsoft might go for Windows 32, which is alludes to the fact it takes full advantage of the 32-bit processor and is also an upgrade on Windows 3.1. So Windows three point one becomes Windows three two.
Or it may be Windows 95, a reference to the year.
Anyway, there are at least 60 million Windows users out there and Microsoft will be looking to upgrade nearly all of them _ very quickly. At, say, $150 a pop, that is a tidy $9 billion. So a lot of turnover is at stake.
That being the case, Microsoft is not going to make the mistake it made with the early versions of Windows and Windows NT: put something on the market which does not work well.
At the press preview, it was interesting to here the Microsoft confess the sins of the past that they had earlier denied and confess, too, that the present version of Windows has, well, shortcomings.
Microsoft is proposing to do 400,000 hours of beta testing. It hopes to have the program on the shelf next year, but will not say precisely when because, “”if we commit ourselves to a date we may have to drop off features or put out a product that is not totally bug free. The features and absence of bugs is more important than the launch date.”
What are those shortcomings with Windows 3.1 and how will Windows 95 overcome them?
The umbilical cord with DOS is to be cut. Computers will boot straight into Windows. The old 8-character filename restriction goes. No longer do files have to be called things like RWSORDAU.DOC. Instead you can call the thing Red Order Wine Society August. Yes, spaces are allowed and you can have up to 255 characters.
Yes, you can still access DOS and run DOS programs.
There will be less double-clicking of the mouse, especially at the first stages. Apparently, first-time users of the program have trouble with double-clicking. Microsoft wants Windows 95 to appeal to first-time users with a minimum amount of learning. “”Plug and Play” is the buzz-word.
It did tests on novices showing it took and average of nine minutes to get Write opened in Windows 3.1 and only three minutes in Windows 95. Does that mean Windows 3.1 has not turned out to be as intuitive as it what cracked up to be three years ago?
The other shortcoming with 3.1 is that novices cannot understand file hierarchies _ another hang-up from DOS. They are now gone, replaced with folders and dragging often-used files to the desktop. It replaces the old start-up system which requires a certain amount of computer literacy to master.
Apparently fewer than 40 per cent of users do what Windows was designed primarily for: multi-tasking _ that is, you open more than one application at once and flick between them.
In the old version an application usually hogs the screen and the processor. This means you have to click in the top corner, click Switch To and then click the program you want. In Windows 95 all open applications have a small strip icon on the bottom scroll bar. Click it and you are in.
Microsoft Office uses this system with the Word, Excel, Power Point and Access icons in the top right as you are working on any Windows application.
Processor-hogging is a bigger problem. You sit dumb while a program laboriously prints 30 pages, or the modem is receiving a long file. Windows 95 allows that to happen in the background while you move to another task or game perhaps.
Windows 95 will also allow you to click an item in one application and drag it to another, instead of cutting and pasting.
The reason Windows 95 will be able to do this is because it makes genuine use of the 32-bit processor in the 386 and later machines.
“”You mean all this time Windows was not using the speed of these new processors?”. I’m afraid so. Windows is a 16-bit program that runs only a little bit better on a 32 bit machine. This is why the boffins still scoff at it, even though the mugs still like it because it is easier to use. Sending instructions to and from 16-bit to 32-bit software and hardware in the trade is called “”thunking”. Presumably, the computer engineer who dreamed that one up tried to put a 1976 engine in a 1972 Holden an the word resembled the sound of gears changing.
Windows 95 is the to be the right gearbox for the new engine. Excel, for example takes 11 seconds to load on this 486 machine. Windows 95 loads it in four seconds.
The new program uses a mapping trick for fast loading. When you first load a program it carves a map in that bit of the hard disk which is reserved as virtual RAM memory in what is called the swap file. It fools the program into believing the hard disk is in fact RAM memory. Next time the program is loaded it uses the map to load quicker.
This could ultimately be bad news for all those RAM producers who charge $100 a megabyte when hard disk drive space comes at $10 a megabyte.
Windows 95 will also remove the need for all those incomprehensible autoexec.bat and config.sys files (but will allow their creation if an application needs them). It also does not use INI files.
It replaces them with a register. If you load a new program the register records everything that the new program’s loading did to your files. When you remove the program, the whole lot goes. No nasty bits are left taking up disk space or causing the system to lock or throw up incomprehensible messages like “”Unable to find HWG.INI”, with the hidden meaning: shall I destroy all your work now or later?
On crashing (what, Windows crashes, surely not), Windows 95 promises to crash only the program you are using, not the whole lot. But there is a proviso. If you are using old (i.e. present) 16-bit programs all 16-bit programs might crash at once.
Microsoft hopes to have new 32-bit versions of Word and Excel out at the same time as Windows 95.
Windows 95 will provide a diagnostic as to why an application crashed which can be cut and pasted to another application so details can be sent to the software vendor with a polite note like “What the do I do now?”
Microsoft hopes the program will come down to 14 megabytes on the hard disk.
It will also make a lot of use of the right mouse button. Click it and you will get the properties and other information about whatever you mouse pointer is on, without executing any routine; the left mouse button does that.
Windows 95 will overcome the restriction on port numbers and will come with network on it. The theory is that a net can be started in one day and can be managed from any machine: no more network management by walking about.
There will also be in-built Internet plumbing. Good news for modem sellers because it will prompt people into asking what this is all about.
Microsoft hopes that 80 per cent of newly shipped machines will switch to the new program pre-loaded.
Some features will not be disclosed until the official launch.
Well, there’s the promises. The launch will be sometime next year.