Is Windows 98 faster than Windows 95?
” (Never mind that since it’s an upgrade, the question shouldn’t be “if,” but “how much?”) The bad news is, Wintel users expecting a speed increase may be sorely disappointed. According to CNET’s initial testing, Windows 98 degrades performance by up to 23 percent on a lower-end system. Performance loss was not as severe on high-end machines–only 6 percent–but that’s still a reduction. However, Windows 98 improves performance on systems that are currently running Windows 95 and Internet Explorer 4. (The very fact that installing Internet Explorer 4 on your Windows 95 system slows everything down should form the basis for an excellent Netscape ad–if they ever actually advertised their browser, that is.) Note that Windows 98 apparently includes an admittedly cool dynamic and gradual defragmentation function, which should improve the performance of certain disk-based activities (such as application launching) over time. So it may turn out that, after a few weeks, Windows 98 will be fas
