InfoWorld
Lead with Knowledge
HOME/ SITEMAP
SUBJECT INDEXES
App Development
Broadband
Business Intell.
Business News
Business Strategies
Careers & Mgmt
Collab. Software
Content Mgmt
CRM
Database
E-Business
End-User Apps
End-User Hardware
Enterprise Apps
Ethics
Government
Licensing
Middleware
Mobile Computing
Networking
Online Community
Operating Systems
Processors
Security
Servers
Storage
Telecomm.
Web Services
Web Technologies
Wireless
XSPs
NEWS
CTO ZONE
TEST CENTER
FEATURES
COMMUNITY
OPINIONS
RESEARCH
EVENT
WEBCASTS
ABOUT InfoWorld
ABOUT US
About InfoWorld
Services
Advertise
Contact us
Employment
WHITE PAPERS

Learn to secure your PCs from new and unknown hacker attacks.

Free IDC White Paper - Discover Secure File Sharing for the Enterpriseattacks.
SEARCH:  
Home  //  Article
Print Article    Email Article
Window Manager
Brian Livingston
You heard it here first

THIS WEEK I continue the top 10 subjects readers have nominated to mark my 10th anniversary as an InfoWorld columnist.

The end of MS-DOS: When Window Manager began, MS-DOS was Microsoft's most important product, and Windows 3.x ran on top of it. On May 3, 1993, InfoWorld's front page reported that the new DOS 6.0 mysteriously corrupted hard-disk files on a number of PCs that the InfoWorld Test Center had tested.

After Microsoft technicians flew down to critique the tests, InfoWorld was forced to report the following week that one-third of the corruption was not the fault of DOS. No one could explain, technically, why the other disk files were scrambled. Competing publications clucked that nothing was wrong with Microsoft's cash cow, DOS 6.

I was the first journalist to explain, in my column of June 7, 1993, exactly how a new disk-compression utility in DOS 6 corrupted files. And on August 23, I disclosed a free utility that showed a similar flaw in DOS 6's new disk cache.

The outcome: Microsoft was forced to recall all copies of DOS 6 from store shelves, at enormous expense. The problems were corrected in a new release called DOS 6.2 -- the last stand-alone version of DOS that Microsoft would ever ship.

The end of DR DOS: DOS 6 had been created to stop a competing product, Digital Research's DR DOS, that offered disk compression (later the operating system was sold to Novell and then to Caldera). My Nov. 15, 1993, column reported that Microsoft tweaked the beta version of Windows 3.1 to display an error message when it was installed on anything other than MS-DOS, in a successful effort to keep PC makers from shipping DR DOS.

The outcome: Microsoft paid Caldera a settlement last year, reported to be at least $150 million.

Undocumented features: I revealed in my Nov. 14, 1994, column that Windows 95 included several secret functions used by Microsoft applications. InfoWorld ran a front-page story the following week quoting such then-major companies as Lotus and WordPerfect saying they would've used these functions had they been disclosed.

The outcome: Microsoft released a white paper explaining that its applications used the hidden functions only in unimportant ways. This would later become more grist in Microsoft's antitrust case.

Removal of Internet Explorer: At the height of that antitrust trial, my March 8, 1999, column announced a free utility that removed Internet Explorer from Windows 98. Microsoft had spent millions arguing in court that IE was inseparable from Windows, but the utility was so simple that even a federal judge could use it.

The outcome: The utility's author launched a successful online business, embeddingwindows.com. The company has stripped Windows down so it runs in 32MB of flash memory and supports streaming video, among other things.

We'll conclude this series next week.


Livingston's latest book is Windows Me Secrets (IDG Books). Send tips to tips @brianlivingston.com.



RELATED SUBJECTS

Operating Systems
MORE >
SUBSCRIBE TO:    E-mail Newsletters  InfoWorld Mobile InfoWorld Magazine
Home  //  Article Print Article    Email Article
Back to Top
 ADVERTISEMENT
 

SPONSORED LINKS

Gateway: Your Reliable IT Provider of Business Technology Solutions
Learn to secure your PCs from new and unknown hacker attacks.
Get FREE Hurwitz Report: Control Your App Dev Costs with TogetherSoft!
Click here to receive a FREE Success Kit from Oracle.
SPEED, PERSONALIZATION AND INTEGRATION: THE KEY TO E-COMMERCE SUCCESS.

SUBSCRIBE
E-mail Newsletters
InfoWorld Mobile
Print Magazine

Web-based training
ABOUT INFOWORLD  |  SITE MAP  |  EMPLOYMENT  |  PRIVACY  |   CONTACT US

Copyright 2001 InfoWorld Media Group, Inc.