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Windows Fixes Itself, Neuters Your Computer
by John Lavallée

Most of you have probably seen Microsoft's Windows 98 banners. You know, the ones promising such advancements as performance increases of more than one third over Windows 95, more ease of use, and of course, if you believe Microsoft, "it fixes itself".  Well I, for one, think that claim should be changed to "fix it yourself", after all the fun I had getting it to work.

My fun started several days after installing Windows 98, when I decided to change my video card's resolution:

[Win 98]:  What the hell are you doing?

[John]:  I'm trying to change my resolution.

[Win 98]:  Why would you want to do that?

[John]:  Because 640x480 resoultion really sucks.

[Win 98]:  Oh.  Well, I don't think you can do that.

[John]:  Why not?

[Win 98]:  I think it's a problem with your video card.

[John]:  But my video card worked fine with my old version of Wi...

[Win 98]:  LA LA LA LA LA, I'm not LISTENINNGGG... DO BE DO BE DOOOO...

[John]:  WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?

[Win 98]:  Cannot play back the audio stream: no audio hardware is available, or the hardware is not responding.

[John]:  What?

[Win 98]:  Do you know what the "dreaded blue screen of death" is?

[John]:  Uh, why do you ask?  Hey... what are you doing?  ACK!

[Win 98]:  You must restart your computer before the new settings will take effect.  Do you want to restart your computer now?

[John]:  (clicks "no")

[Win 98]:  Now shutting down your computer...

[John]:  (Comment removed to keep the internet a less-profane medium)

To make a long story short, Windows decided that my sound and video cards were conflicting, which it told me quite clearly by telling me that neither one existed.  Even though my video card is one of the newer-type "Plug and Play" (and pray) models, and both cards had the most recent Windows Hardware Quality Labs passed Windows drivers.

Windows was very helpful in fixing itself, in fact, once I deleted it from my hard drive, put in the CD-ROM, realized I had no real mode CD-ROM drivers, installed the drivers, ran the setup program, and told it what to do, it figured out the rest for itself, and now, I'm happy to report, I'm enjoying my preferred 800x600 64k resolution.  I just hope I never have to change it again.

Now, maybe I'm being a bit unfair.  Perhaps I misinterpreted Microsoft's "it fixes itself" banner... perhaps they meant something else.  For instance, I think my original installation of Windows neutered my computer quite nicely.  Fortunately, this has not yet happened to my current installation, which is happily screwing me over every day.