Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uwm.edu!rpi!dali.cs.montana.edu!milton!ashing
From: ashing@milton.u.washington.edu (Al Shing)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.ms
Subject: Re: Another county heard from
Message-ID: <6241@milton.u.washington.edu>
Date: 13 Aug 90 18:30:19 GMT
References: <545@mstr.hgc.edu>
Distribution: usa
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle
Lines: 55

In article <545@mstr.hgc.edu> nmiller@mstr.hgc.edu (norman miller) writes:
 >Imagine this: a firm announces a revolutionary product, say a new
 >coffee-maker.  The announcement is followed by reams of free
 >publicity in leading newspapers.  The hottest thing since the
 >invention of halvah, it's said.  The usual contingent of techni-
 >cal-novelty addicts, myself among them, rush to buy and test.
 >
 >Mild disappointment: it appears to be a sluggish drip pot,
 >nothing more.  This time they read the directions carefully and
 >try again.  Same thing: sluggish drip pot.  They've been had.
 >
 >What do the buyers do?  If the turnip in question is a coffee
 >pot, they cry foul and call the cops.  If it's a computer program
 >sold by the world's largest and richest software firm, they tend
 >to blame themselves for not having learned to use the software
 >properly.
 >
 > [Gripes about Win 3 deleted]
 >
 >Do I seem bitter?  I really meant to tell of my bafflement.  For
 >in fact, I have been alternately so enraged and yet so sure it's
 >my fault that I've installed and erased Windows four times in 2
 >weeks.  (That takes patience, by the way: Microsoft ships Windows
 >on microthin cheapos that may or may not be recognized by one's
 >disk drive.  And the first batch of Windows contained a floppy
 >which was not only empty, but hadn't even been formatted.)  So,
 >while I'm pretty certain by now that I've given Windows a fair
 >test, I hope that some of you out there will either confirm that
 >I'm right or point out some silly dumb-head thing I did wrong. 
 >Surely it isn't just the slowest drip pot ever made.  Or is it?
 >

Although I have Win 3 running smoothly on my 386, I was playing around
with my brother's 286 over the weekend.  Win 3 as implemented on his system
displays behavior such as you describe.  I didn't have time to check out
his implementation to see if I could fix it, but as you say, Win 3 was
hyped as the solution for computerphobes who really didn't care how his
computer worked, and only wants a nice GUI so he can point and shoot, so
to speak.

On his 286, Win 3 would start, display the wallpaper, and then exit to a
DOS prompt with no error messages.  Re-entering the win command would restart
Win 3, which would then initialize all the way up to the Program Manager.
He had troubles getting Win 3 to come up in Standard Mode at first, and
had to re-install the software before he could get this to work.

I'm sure that if I played around with his system for a couple of hours, I
could probably resolve most of his problems, but the point is that you 
aren't supposed to need an MS in Computer Science, and 20 years in the DP
industry to get Windows to run smoothly.  The average home office, or 
corporate user should be able to install Windows on his 286, and get it to
work properly without raising a sweat.  Obviously, this isn't the case.

-- 
    Al Shing (ashing@cac.washington.edu)