Richard regales us with his tale of woes.  To which I reply:

I have addressed this issue countless times in the past.  Richard is not
alone with his problems, there are others who share them, and have other
issues with Windows 95.  However, I do not share Richard's problems, nor do
a lot of other people I know. Whether this is due to luck or something
else, is something I am not prepared to discuss.

About the only thing I can say is the universe of Windows is far, far more
complex than the universe of MPE.  The combination of components, hardware
and software, for Windows totally eclipses the one for MPE.  With MPE, the
base is rock solid and the same for everyone. To wit, an HP 3000 from
Hewlett Packard.  Period, end of story.  For Windows, it ranges from top
quality system from HP, Compaq, IBM and several other, to galactic refuse
from another planet.  (Well sometimes it seems that way.)  The components
inside an HP 3000 are virtually all from Hewlett Packard, except for memory
in some cases and disk drives, also in some cases.

When was the last time you installed a flaky video card with substandard
drivers in your HP 3000, or a soundcard which you bought for $20 from the
guy on the corner?  Did you let your kid play Duke Nukem on your HP 3000
last night?  Did you surf the web this weekend, downloading and installing
all sorts of junk on your HP 3000? Hum?

I run Windows NT SP3 on my systems.  Server on one and workstation on the
other.  I installed SP3 after I brought the system up as NT with no
problems.  I also added the vendor's extensions which provide for power
management and other laptop features, again with no problems.  (I have it
down to a science and I do it by the numbers, so much so than I can
generate an NT system, all patched, from scratch in a very short amount of
time.)

I then installed MS Office 97, and apply the 7MB patch (7MB!!), also with
no problems.

A few days ago, after doing some disk swapping, putting a 4GB disk drive in
production, I was left with a 1GB disk drive with no home.  I pulled apart
a 3 year old laptop, pulled out the 330MB disk drive and installed the 1GB
drive.  I loaded a fresh version of Windows 95 OSR2 on that puppy, and it
works great.  OSR2 needs no patches, if you do not use USB.

I have heard of a lot of problems with IE 4.0 and since I do not like the
browser metaphor for a desktop, I have not been inclined to install it on
any of my systems.  I elected to stay with IE 3.2 which does everything I
need.

I must once again re-iterate that I rarely, if ever, have any problems with
Windows 95 or NT.  I do like NT better than 95, and I have made it my
desktop OS of choice, because it performs better and is faster than Windows
95 on my laptop.

But once again I must remind you Richard, that I select my systems and my
components and my environments.  I did not choose my current laptop without
doing some research.  I made sure the laptop supported NT.  I verified this
by checking out the vendor's web site support page.  I also put in 64MB of
RAM and now a 4GB IBM hard drive.

I also carefully select the software I install on my systems, especially
utilities software.  I have tried Nuts & Bolts and Norton Utilities.
 Neither of them is on my current system(s).

Another point Richard makes is that he uses the original version of Windows
95 to which he applies SP1 and subsequent patches.  I have done that, many
times, without problems.  However, I much prefer installing OSR2 which has
all the patches and several new features.  Overall, though, I prefer NT 4.0
SP3 to Windows 95 or even 98.

After years of this stuff, and hundreds (thousands??) of systems, these are
my observations.  The 486 is useless for Windows 95/NT, gives too much
problems, not enough performance.  Minimum system is a Pentium 133 with
32MB.  Sweet spot for RAM is 32MB for 95, 48-64MB for NT.

One last time, get good, supported hardware, and do not install everything
 you see or download.  Be selective!


Kind regards,

Denys. . .

Denys P. Beauchemin
Hicomp America, Inc.
(800) 323-8863   (281) 288-7438  Fax:(281) 355-6879
denys at hicomp.com       www.hicomp.com



-----Original Message-----
From:   Richard Gambrell [SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
Sent:   Wednesday, February 25, 1998 8:53 PM
To:     [log in to unmask]
Subject:        Re: Express 4 power patch (Official answer)

Denys P. Beauchemin wrote:
> Neil, well stated.  Microsoft does handle the patching process very
well.
>  Download the patch, or service pack, or service release, run the
> (sometimes huge) program, and reboot the box if it is required.
Simple,
> easy and it works fine, lasts a long time (r).
>
[snip]

Well, maybe Denys is running a different O.S. than I, or maybe I'm just
naturally unlucky, but I really think we must be in different time warps
even though we both get the same e-mail.:-)

When I install MS patches, I pray I can still login. Have you ever
applied the host of patches available to an original Win95 installation,
one after the other? Even in date order, with a reboot between everyone
it still sometimes has trouble - and you have to login each time, too
(it isn't good enough to just reboot the machine to the login prompt).
Heaven help you if you install Internet Explorer in the middle of the
patching process!

At least with MPE I don't have to install PP1, then PP2, then PP3, then
PP4, plus each reactive patch by itself with a reboot in between each
one!

On the very machine I'm writing this on, I can't create a new permanent
desktop for myself (or if I do, I get the universal, never-ending hour
glass when I login the 2nd time) - even though others with existing
desktops can login without trouble. [Norton Utilities doesn't find
anything wrong.] I went to reinstall OSR2, but I have to have the
Internet Explorer disk (since I installed that, too.), but I left that
in the office...  Guess it must be ICQ's fault [no, I didn't install it,
but yes, I have a teenage son]...

I'll take MPE for patching any day over Windows (3.x or 95 - I don't
[yet] know NT) or MS Office (any version).

Cheers,
Richard Gambrell