REVIEW: WARE IS IT GOING? : WINDOWS 98 HOLDS LIMITED APPEAL.

Byline: David Bloom Daily News Staff Writer

Call it the Pretty Good Upgrade.

But unless you have new hardware, really love Internet Explorer 4.0, or just have a jones for adding to Bill Gates' little pile o' cash (now estimated at a nice, round $50 billion), do you really need to spend a C note or more to upgrade your computer to Windows 98?

Probably not.

Not that you could tell, given the noise that's greeted the first name-change upgrade to Windows in three years. The Seattle area hasn't had this much hype since the last Pearl Jam album. And in some ways, the release of Win98 is similar to ``Yield.''

In both cases, stores opened just after midnight to sell copies of the work to ardent supporters. Critics called each product solid, with some interesting new wrinkles, but far from revolutionary. And each was destined to be a big seller.

It must be something in the water, or the coffee, up there in Rainland. But understand, this set of improvements isn't going to have the same impact that Windows 95 did.

Windows 95 justified the hype surrounding its release. It dramatically improved on its predecessor, Windows 3.1, with numerous major changes in the way people used their PCs.

But even Win95 has been accepted slowly by many people with existing systems who often have been reluctant to give up programs that won't run on the upgrade.

The same questions, only more so, are expected to hold up adoption of Win98, according to International Data Corp., which projected recently that Win98 will sell about 15 percent more slowly than its predecessor in its first 18 months on shelves.

That still means gargantuan numbers, 12.8 million copies in the first year, according to International Data, and 66 million over the first three. So slow to adopt doesn't mean ``no'' to adopt.

It does show, however, that Win98 isn't necessarily the operating system for the rest of the DOS universe, said Jessica Branson, associate editor of CNET.Com, a large technology-oriented Web site.

``If you buy a new system, Win98 is what you're going to get,'' Branson said. ``If you're on an old system, though, you're probably not going to benefit from Windows 98. It's really not for everyone. The bottom line is the real people who benefit from this are Microsoft and the computer industry.''

Family PC magazine, which gave early versions of the program to 10 test families for five months to see how it would hold up in real-world testing, could only give Win98 so-so reviews, said Bob Ryan, the magazine's senior editor for hardware.

``We are ambivalent because there's not one great compelling reason to upgrade,'' Ryan said. ``If you have a system using Windows 95 that does pretty much all you want, and it's not crashing, we don't see the point of upgrading right now. If you're satisfied with your desktop, why muck it up?''

Win98 does offer many nifty, if not knockout, improvements on its predecessors.

To start with, there's Microsoft's controversial efforts to integrate its Web browser, Internet Explorer 4.0, as a natural part of Windows, rather than as a glommed-on extra, to be used or not as desired.

It's part of a larger strategy to expand the computer desktop into the Internet, to even transform it so that it runs more like the World Wide Web.

Win98 is more stable than its predecessor, with many bug fixes and improvements to the system's basic operations, though it, like Win95, is still perched like an elephant on the rickety platform of MS-DOS.

By including native versions of hundreds of little programs, called drivers, that help the system to talk to peripherals such as hard drives and scanners, Microsoft has eliminated a major source of crashes. And by including native support for Universal System Bus devices, and for DVD-based drives, it will allow much more flexibility for gamers and others wanting to add to their systems.

The system also includes WebTV for Windows, a controller designed to work with interactive television systems as the Great Convergence of the Net and TV arrives in the next few years.

And in a long-overdue move, the company includes a number of ``accessibility options'' for the handicapped, including the ability to magnify text for the vision-impaired. But it's the kind of little thing that the Macintosh OS has had for years that only now is being added to the dominant PC platform.

Ryan also pointed out that many of the improvements are available for free, allowing a person to create most of Win98 without spending anything more than some time on the Internet.

If you have the patience, Internet Explorer, many of the bug fixes and the Direct X controls for gaming, all can be downloaded for free from Microsoft's Internet sites.

The program does include a number of useful utilities, including an updated disk defragmenter and a program that automatically updates the system by regularly checking for patches, bug fixes and other improvements on the Net.

But overall, it may not be worth it to many folks until they buy their next machine, or their next big hardware add-on.

``There are going to be specific instances where Win98 is a no-brainer,'' Ryan said. ``Unfortunately, for most people, it's very much of a brainer. They can probably postpone the upgrade until they get their first USB scanner or they install a TV-tuner card.''

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For further information about Windows 98, and whether it's right for you, consult some of these Web sites:

CNET.Com, which did extensive reviews of the program (www.cnet.com/Content/Reviews/Compare/Win98).

Windows magazine and the Web site of its parent company, CMPNet, which created what it calls a Windows 98 ``megasite'' (www.cmpnet.com/win98).

Family PC, whose pro-and-con analysis is best summed up by the site's title: The Same but Different (www1.zdnet.com/familypc/content/9805/win98/).

Microsoft, of course, has its own extensive set of Web sites for Windows 98, and related software and improvements (www.microsoft.com/windows98/default.asp).

--- David Bloom

CAPTION(S):

2 Photos, Box

PHOTO (1--Color) Microsoft Corp. CEO Bill Gates discusses the newly released and much hyped Windows 98 in San Francisco Thursday.

Paul Sakuma/Associated Press

(2) Bill Gates

Cleaned up with Windows 95

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