Making an Intelligent Choice Key Criteria for Selecting the Right Operating System How Windows 95 stacks up against OS/2 Warp? The operating system is both the brain and the central nervous system of your computer. It affects everything that happens on your computer. So if you are thinking about buying a computer or want to upgrade your current model, choosing the right operating system is a key decision. You need to consider four critical areas when evaluating your choice in operating system: reliability, usability, productivity enhancement and technology advantages. Reliability How does the operating system protect itself and the computer when something goes wrong with your software programs? OS/2 Warp is designed with a feature called OS/2 Crash Protection, which allows the computer to continue running even if an application fails. The premise of this safeguard is that all applications run protected in their own address space. The fate of one application does not affect the system or any other application. OS/2 Warp merely shuts down the faulty application while other programs continue to run. This robust design makes for an extremely reliable operating system capable of handling mission critical, line-of-business applications. Windows 95 is not fully protected from all application failures. The new applications written specifically for Windows 95 can process information in the same area of the computer's memory as the operating system. Therefore, if a problem occurs in that common portion of memory, the application can crash the entire operating system. Older, 16-bit application that fail can cause other applications -- and possibly the whole system -- to lock up as well. Once this happens, you can only recover by rebooting your system. Unlike OS/2 Warp, applications in Windows 95 are not completely protected in their own address space. DOS applications have an additional problem because Windows 95 lets them manipulate the hardware directly. This too can cause the entire system to crash. Can the operating system corrupt my data? How can we be confident of data integrity? With OS/2 Warp, your data is secure. Data, applications, and the operating system, itself, are processed in separate "rooms" within the computer's memory. Furthermore, if you have more than one application running at a time, each application is processed in its own separate "room." With Windows 95, situations occur where data can be corrupted. For example, data is vulnerable when an application stores it in an area called the system cache, prior to writing the data to its permanent storage location. If the system crashes before the contents of the cache are saved, then the data is lost. Furthermore, if a second application stores data in the cache before the original contents are saved, this overwrite also causes the data to be lost. Usability Since the icons on my desktop represent actual files in my computer -- and I can move them from one place to another -- how does the operating system track the relationship between these icons and the actual files? With OS/2, the system tracks the icons dynamically. What this means to you, the user, is that every time you make a change to the file, the icon knows it. It's easy to break the Windows 95 icon structure with shortcuts. When you create a shortcut, a pointer to the file location is created. If you then move the file, the pointer is not updated to the new location. So when you click on the icon to get to the file, the system has to search the entire hard file for the file based only the file size and date stamp. If your computer is attached to a network, Windows 95 will search the entire network and this can take a very long time. If you move the file to a different disk volume, the system will not find the file at all. Learning and using a system is much easier if you do all the tasks in the same way. Does the operating system use a consistent interface for all functions? The OS/2 Warp user interface is completely consistent. For example, the drag-and-drop capability applies to all functions. Windows 95 does not maintain a consistent interface. The Win 95 drag-and-drop features are only applicable to some objects. There are exceptions that you need to remember. For instance, you cannot drag objects to the My Computer folder. If you want to delete a dial-up networking connection because you no longer need it,you cannot drag its icon to the Windows 95 Recycler. Windows 95 does not let you drag items to the start menu either. In addition to the drag-and-drop inconsistencies, use of the right mouse button is inconsistent. In most places you can push the right mouse button to invoke a pop-up menu. If you try to do this at the Start button, it will not work. Productivity If you don't buy applications specifically written for the 32-bit operating system and instead keep running the applications you already own, will the operating system still improve your productivity? Improvements in productivity come from an operating system's ability to perform preemptive multitasking. With preemptive multitasking, an operating system controls which application is running at any time. In an operating system without preemptive multitasking, an application can wrest control of the computer and not release it until its work is complete. There are no caveats to OS/2 Warp's multitasking capability. Consequently, with OS/2 Warp, you can simultaneously fax a note to someone, download a file from the Internet and more, while you run your favorite 16-bit Windows application. Windows 95 cannot perform preemptive multitasking when 16-bit applications are running. Therefore if you plan to use mostly older 16-bit applications, you should not expect to see productivity improvements. There are also times when Windows 95 cannot multitask 32-bit applications. Windows 95 uses older 16-bit code for two very important modules( Window management and Graphics Device Interface). When an application needs to use these modules, they have to wait in line until the previous application gives up control, the operating system cannot preempt it. If a 32-bit application needs to use one of these two modules, it may have to wait for it. That application is not able to multitask while it waits. In addition, 16-bit applications can inhibit the multitasking related performance of the 32-bit applications. When you run a mix of 16-bit and 32-bit applications, Windows 95 resorts to a less sophisticated form of multitasking called cooperative multitasking. How well does the system run multimedia applications when its doing other functions at the same time? With OS/2 Warp's preemptive multitasking, multimedia applications run smoothly even when the system is doing other functions. Therefore a video clip running while other tasks work in the background will look the same as a clip running by itself. The multitasking problems mentioned previously compromise Windows 95's performance as a serious multimedia production platform. If a Windows 95 system is doing other operations while running an audio or video clip, you can perceive break-up in the sound and jumpiness in the pictures. Technology Advantages Are the new 32-bit operating systems based on the old DOS technology? What are the benefits or drawbacks of this design implementation? OS/2 was designed to overcome the shortcomings of the older (DOS) technology. Furthermore, each new release of OS/2 improves the implementation of that design. Shedding the confines of DOS technology allowed OS/2 to become a robust and enduring operating system. Windows 95 is based on DOS technology that dates back to the early 1980's. The older technology affects Windows 95's ability to multitask and to effectively manage the memory in your PC. For example, Windows 95 may report "out of memory" messages, when, with the same amount of memory, another operating system such as OS/2 Warp can would continue to work and even launch more work. From a technology perspective, Windows 95 offers nothing new.