Windows Millennium

Despite its grandiose name, Windows Millennium is little more than a service pack for Windows 98, similar in scope to the upgrade from Windows 98 to Windows 98 SE: not much at all. There are a few nice tweaks, and some of Windows 2000’s good features have been integrated, but overall the changes amount to exactly that: tweaks. It still uses the Windows 95 kernel, and looks much the same as Windows 95/98. APC looked at Beta 2 of the product.
There are several new features designed to increase its reliability: system file protection and the end of real mode compatibility for DOS. The former is certainly a very sensible move. If an errant program overwrites a core system file. Windows Millennium will write the original right back, preventing the new program from breaking existing programs. The new program might not work, but the system remains stable.
The removal of real mode compatibility is more controversial. Windows will no longer ‘shut down to DOS’, and DOS drivers and TSRs cannot be loaded into the operating system on startup. If you want to run DOS applications in Windows Millennium. you have to do It within Windows itself. Some older DOS apps will not work at all, but most will run just fine. According to Microsoft, the removal of real mode DOS support should make the OS much more stable, and improve boot time, although you’d have to measure in milliseconds to tell if the process was any faster than Windows 98 SE.
Microsoft has also incorporated hibernate support into this release for faster startup. Like Windows 2000, the OS can dump the contents of memory to disk and shut down, so that the next time the system is started, it can restore it to its former state (down to the last key pressed) quickly. In practice, it’s quite a bit quicker than the normal shutdown/startup process, although the stability of the system will suffer for it — this is based on the Windows 95 kernel, after all, which requires fairly frequent system restarts to maintain stability.
Another reliability feature is the System Restore function, designed to do the same job that a number of third-party uninstallers do in Windows 95/98. Windows keeps a log of system events such as new files, Installed programs and registry changes. When you want to undo an action that has broken the system, you can go into the System Restore application and undo individual events, or you can select a date and time, and Windows will restore the system to the state it was at that time (although it specifically leaves the My Documents folder alone) — that is, it will reverse the events between the chosen time and the current time. Sounds great in theory, but APC is not sure how well it will work, especially for applications that do not follow all of Microsoft’s rules, such as apps that don’t write to the Windows registry or create an uninstall file.
Other new features
As you’d expect, the OS comes with the latest Windows updates already applied: DirectX 7, Internet Explorer 5 and the most recent hardware drivers. It supports ACPI device bay as well as Internet printing, which allows printer sharing over IP (a feature that NT/2000 users will already be familiar with). The CD player has been updated to match the Windows 2000 player, which can theoretically download CD album details from the Web but never seems to work. The OS also incorporates Windows Image Acquisition, which can be used to preview and download images from compliant imaging devices such as some digital cameras. Of course, the feature that will excite most people about the upgrade is the new games, including five Internet games. Pinball and Spider.
You have no choice but to have Microsoft Messenger, an instant messaging client, placed on the system. This is surprising, following the problems Microsoft has had with its ’integration’ of Internet Explorer into Windows.
Several new wizards are also in place to help with setting up a home network. One is the Home Networking Wizard, which sets up, in a basic, limited way, the sharing of files, folders and workgroups for home net works. It can also be used to create a floppy disk for spawning the configuration to other PCs on the network. Another wizard is designed to help with the configuration of Internet Connection Sharing, one of Windows 98 SE’s more difficult tasks. However, it doesn’t seem to help much.
One of the better features is the support for ZIP files as folders. Click on a ZIP file in Windows Explorer and It opens up a folder view of that archive’s contents, just as if it were a folder. The contents can then be manipulated. You can also create ZIP files from foldersand files quickly using the context menus in Explorer (right-click. Send to, Compressed folder). Those who want to compress their entire drive can do so with an updated version of Drive Space. In another nice touch. Millennium also borrows 2000’s ability to see and map FTP directories like normal folders.
The look of the help system has also been updated, and Millennium incorporates online help. It also introduces a preliminary version of Universal Plug and Play, which enables the automated update and installation of hardware drivers over the Internet. At Beta 2, however, it’s impossible to tell how well this works.
The installation process in Beta 2 has changed little from Windows 98. Except for the new applications you can install, the changes seem to consist mainly of a find and replace on the product name. It still requires patience and numerous reboots.
The release date and price have yet to be worked out, and APC has not seen an announcement about its official name (at this stage, Millennium is just a codename). Based on the features in Beta 2, it doesn’t offer a whole lot beyond Windows 98 SE. If Microsoft positions it as a full-blown release and charges its usual rates (typically about $150 for an upgrade), then the new features are probably not worth it. A more reasonable pricing plan would be the Windows 98 to Second Edition upgrade plan, which cost about $15 to $20 for an upgrade CD. At that price, go ahead.