Re: Win95 Again!

Roland John Turner (rjturner@nospam.socs.uts.edu.au)
Wed, 10 Jan 1996 14:26:13 +1100 (EST)

Joshua Graham Pitcher wrote:

> Running most software under DOS was a major pain in the ass! DOOM II worked ok
> but with no sound FX,

That's what DOS-mode is for. It can be invoked dynamically - i.e. without a
reboot.

> ST-TNG CD-ROM wouldn't run because it claimed that
> windows was running in the background, and told me to quit windows before
> continuing.

There's a DOS-mode setting for disablng detection of Windows. (Ah yes,
the radar detector detector detector wars :-))

> Rebel assault also had problems.

Haven't tried it. X-wing runs beautifully though. I'd be surprised if
any LucasArts stuff had insurmountable problems.

> Other programs such as Protel
> EasyTrax for DOS Printed Circuit Board designer ran in a DOS window, but
> since my windows resolution is 1024x768 and EasyTrax runs in 640x480, the
> detail was very small and difficult to read.

?

If you run a 640*480 app in a window with the card in 1024*768, the
picture is going to be small. What else do you expect? If you want
640*480 to be full screen, make it full screen, same as Win3.1. (Same
key sequence: <Alt><Enter>)

> When I re-installed Borland C++ 4.5 the DLL's it uses were not installed
> correctly, requiring me to manually copy them into the windows directory.

Hehehe. This is what Borland gets for not licensing MS-Setup :-)
Fortunately, MS have fixed this. Anyone can write a SETUP.INF for
their app, then have users use the Win95 Add Software applet to
install or uninstall it, instead of supplying their own setup program.
It amazes me that it took MS so long to think of this.

> As far as Office 95 goes, It is certainly a nice suite, with added
> functionallity. But the desktop is so similar the the previous Office (for
> Win16) that I find it hard to see any advantage in using the new version(s)
> (Unless they've fixed the master document problems in Word 6.0).

Container app, the little red underlines on missplet words (although this may well be present in earlier versions). Niceties mostly, plus far greater speed.

> People claim that Win95 is more crash-proof than ever, but I hase spent so
> much time tweaking WFW that it rarely (almost never) crashes on my system
> any more.
>
> I accept the fact that most of the problems I outlined above are probably due
> to my Ignorance of the new OS, but I feel I have made a good attempt to try
> and solve them with all the documentation supplied. And in any case, I don't
> really feel like spending another year or so tweaking my Win95 system just
> so I can get it to the same state as my current DOS/WIN system.

If you aren't willing to accept a learning curve, then any new OS is going to
be a problem. If you depend upon tweaks and a great deal of knowledge
to keep Win3 running, you are going to find yourself in the dark
with Win95 - it's far more sophisticated, but there's a stack to learn!

- Raz rjturner@nospam.socs.uts.edu.au

"It often upsets a man's God fantasies to have (Misquoted? from )
someone shoot down one of his helicopters." (Ben Elton's "Stark" )