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Sub: Out of the Box with Win95 Folks-Here's my out of the box experience with Win95. 8/24/95 12:01AM-I am at ComputerCity trying to be one of the first to get Win95 and also to see if the number of folks at the store meets expectations. About 50 folks are in the store and perhaps 35 are congregating around the Win95 display, waiting for the shrinkwrap to be broken. It is, I grab a copy, stand in line for 20 minutes waiting to be checked out and then head home to get some much needed rest. I love this business. 8/25/95 11:30PM I was out of out of town the last day and a half and was unable to try to install Win95. Now I'm back at home ready to install it on my Dell Precision 60 (a 60MHz Pentium with 32 MB of RAM, STB Express PCI video card, Soundblaster16 card, 3Com 3C509 Etherlink III card and double-speed CD-ROM drive). I currently have Windows for Workgroups 3.11 on my machine and I'll install Win95 over it. I slip the CD in and double-click setup. All goes fine until the setup program asks me for my serial # on the CD. I type it in and I'm greeted by the message "SUWIN caused a general protection fault in Module AL3164P.DRV at 0001:1909." The machine is locked tight, so I power it off and try again. 8/26/95 12:45AM After three more tries with the same outcome, I decide to bag it and start fresh the next morning. 8/26/95 7:45AM I power up my Dell with renewed spirit, intent on getting Win95 up and running. I go through the same procedure as the night before with the same results. After three tries I reluctantly conclude that I should seek help (mistakenly not for me-for the computer). 8/26/95 9:00AM I dial Microsoft's Win95 toll support line. The phone rings and it is answered by the usual voice mail greeting instructing me to press a number to get technical support. I follow the instructions and and I'm transferred to a support engineer (or so I thought). After a few clicks I get a busy signal and the line goes dead, back to a dial tone (so far the most helpful sound I've heard). I try again four more times with same result. Must really be something to this Plug and Play. 8/26/95 9:17AM On the sixth try, the phone actually rings when I'm transferred (Yippee!). However, my jubilation is soon replaced by the somber realization that I will be on hold for a very long time as the phone is answered and smooth jazz music plays in the background. A fellow who identifies himself as Russ Craig announces that 'We're pleased to have you on the Microsoft Support line, your call is important to us and we're trying hard to get a support engineer to you just as fast as possible. There are currently 267 customers on hold with the longest waiting 49 minutes. Your wait time may be shorter than this so please stay on the line. Next up is Miles Davis with more cool jazz.' I got to know Craig very well over the next 3 hours. He played music from Steely Dan, Grover Washington, Dinah Shore, Laurie Carson, Herb Alpert and many, many others. 8/26/95 11:35AM I've been on hold for quite some time and I'm really getting into this smooth jazz music. I resolve to go out buy some Miles Davis CDs just as soon I get Win95 installed. In the meantime, I've balanced my checkbook, paid my weekly bills, downloaded from E?world the latest quotes for the stocks in my portfolio, updated my ClarisWorks business mileage spreadsheet and reconciled my 401K statement on my other computer. In fact, I've found waiting on hold is a real productivity booster since I can't go anywhere (for fear of dropping out of the queue and being force to endure the angst of calling in again). So I might as well take care of all those tasks I've been putting off for weeks or months and get some real work done. Russ Craig pipes up for the umpteenth time, 'We're pleased to have you on the Microsoft Support line, your call is important to us and we're trying hard to get a support engineer to you just as fast as possible. There are currently 87 customers on hold with the longest waiting 115 minutes. Your wait time may be shorter than this so please stay on the line. Next up is Sade so relax and enjoy.' 8/26/95 12:16PM I'm stunned when a human voice interrupts Russ Craig's latest gruesome hold statistics and announces that he wants to help me. After 3 hours of hold time I'm naturally suspicious of such statements but I play along anyway. He asks 'What seems to be the problem?' (Problem? What was I calling about anyway? Actually, if I only been a hold a little longer I could've balanced the federal budget and cured the common cold). I relate my sad tale to this good natured fellow and he tells me he must put me on hold again and research this "issue". After about 15 minutes he is back and suggests that my video card is at fault. I should change my video driver to VGA (640x480 at 16 colors). I point out that Dell shipped this machine with the STB Express card so that multi-media titles would look good in the STB's millions of colors. I asked if there was a Win95 driver for the STB card. He puts me back on hold for a few more minutes and then announced that no Win95 drivers for the STB card are included with the CD. BUMMER. He suggests that I call STB to get their latest drivers(later I check their BBS only to find that there are no Win95 drivers for my card). 8/26/95 12:40PM Before I'll let my technical gold mine hang up, I insist that we walk through the install and see if switching back to VGA cures my problems. We do the install and when I type in my serial # my Dell reboots. I have to admit this is a more interesting way to reset my machine, but I'm still no closer to getting Win95 installed than I was 12 hours ago. My technical wizard suggests we try again. Same result- a long-winded version of the three finger salute. Next, Mr. Support proposes that we try the install from DOS. I dutifully follow his instructions and after running setup from DOS, Scandisk automatically runs and reports that I have some file fragments that need to be fixed. I should run Scandisk for Windows. But I don't have Scandisk for Windows (by now readers familiar with computers should recognize this situation as a variation of Pournelle's Law-Every time you want to do something on a computer you have to do two other things first, one of which is impossible). 8/26/95 1:00PM Mr. Support instructs me to continue with the installation even though I haven't run Scandisk for Windows. I follow his orders. I get to the point where I have to put in my serial # and with great hope, type it in. A new dialog box informs that QEMM is running and Win95 will have difficulty recognizing my hardware unless I disable QEMM. Mr. Support informs that I should make it so. I quit the installation and head back to DOS to fine tune my autoexec.bat and config.sys editing skills. I sure will be glad when I get Win95 installed and I'll never have to edit those pesky critters again. I carefully REM (remark) out every hint of QEMM in all of my configuration files and start my Win95 installation up for the umpteenth time. 8/26/95 1:16PM I type in my serial # and Voil?! Win95 proceeds with the installation. After 20 minutes of copying files I bid Mr. Support adieu since he has many, many other poor souls to help on their path to computing Nirvana (no pain, no gain). The Win95 setup program informs me that it is time to restart my machine and boot up with Win95 for the first time. Some how this first time just isn't as exciting as it would have been if it had happened 13 hours earlier. 8/26/95 1:38PM My machine reboots and in a few minutes I'm up and running Win95. Unfortunately, I've got to mow the lawn, pick up my shirts at the laundry, get some groceries and help my son with his homework. So...using Win95 will have to wait. Sell Internet Servers, Dreux