Special Report: Windows 95
August 21, 1995

• Proceed with Caution -- FIRST LOOK Wait for the first batch of bug fixes before broadly deploying Windows 95
  Strengths and Weaknesses -- Desktop Operating Systems: Windows 95 a worthy upgrade, but proceed with caution
  PC Week Labs Scoreboard -- PC Week Labs compares desktop operating systems on a host of variables
  Performance Benchmarks -- Is your hardware ready?

500 Windows 95-specific applications

Download our exclusive listing, which includes company names, products, ship dates, pricing, and upgrade policies. This is available as a 73K zipped Excel 4.0 spreadsheet file or a 160K comma-delimited ASCII file

Known compatibility glitches with existing applications

Includes product, vendor, problems, and solutions. This is available as a 29K zipped Excel 4.0 spreadsheet file or a 38K comma-delimited ASCII file

• Mail Call -- Exchange Inbox delivers small but welcome improvements
  Strengths and Weaknesses -- Exchange Inbox
  PC Week Labs Scoreboard -- PC Week Labs evaluates Exchange Inbox on a series of features
• Facelift -- Windows 95's look and feel mimics Mac OS and OS/2 Warp, but the overhaul is still skin-deep
  
• Appsolutely -- Win32 can improve the quality and reliability of software development
• Deploy -- An hour invested in testing internal apps will save hundreds of hours chasing bugs once Win 95 is deployed
• Homegrown Apps -- In-house developers will benefit from the the long-awaited arrival of Windows 95
• Life begins at 32 bits -- IT departments will likely see a significant slash in the time--and expertise--needed to handle client-related network issues due to Windows 95's neworking features
• Exchange server beta hits the right note -- Exchange provides administrators with extensive control over messaging traffic
• Promised LANd -- Administration tools--coupled with coding pain and perseverance--pave the way to Windows 95's promised LANd
• Registry and System Policy Editor are valuable Windows 95 resources -- Registry simplifies the management and support burden of the network administrator
• Frills aside, useful Internet and system utilities included in Plus -- In PC Week Labs tests, Plus for Windows 95's DriveSpace 3 offered better compression than the version bundled with Windows 95
• NetWare 4.x client fills Windows 95 NDS hole -- In PC Week Labs test, Microsoft's 'Maple' beta easily installed NDS support as a Windows 95 network service
• Two of many Windows 95 titles to come -- PC Week Labs takes a look at two new Windows 95 books

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