Subject: Re: Win95
From: Ernie Wright <[email-masked]>
To: Multiple recipients of list <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 19 Apr 1996 23:30:12 -0700

Bill Harrington wrote:

> I should be picking up [Windows 95] in the next day or two... any
> precautions I should be taking before hand??

A couple of jokes occur to me, but I'll refrain.

Before installation, set your display driver to the default 16-color
VGA.  When I installed 95, my machine froze with a black screen on
boot-up because the 95 drivers for my display didn't support the
resolution/color depth I'd been running in 3.11.  Took me a couple of
hours to figure this out.

Try to find 95 replacements for the hardware drivers you now launch
from config.sys and autoexec.bat.  (In a clean 95 installation, these
two files are empty.)  Some Windows 3.x drivers will impair performance
or conflict with newer drivers.  The driver for my CD-ROM, for instance,
ran in real mode, which had performance and memory consequences.  And
the parallel port Zip drive won't work if you're running real mode
drivers under 95.

(An aside:  I got the parallel Zip because I need to give stuff to
people who don't have SCSI.)

The 95 installation will ask you whether you want it to save enough
information to be able to restore 3.x.  You do.  If you have serious
problems, this option will allow you to do a complete uninstall of 95.

Approach problems with patience and forbearance.  This is Microsoft,
after all.  And 95's not bad once you get it going.  LW likes it just
fine.

- Ernie