Windows 98 crashes during Gates demo

At a Spring Comdex demo of Windows 98 on Monday in Chicago, Bill Gates gotto see what's it actually like to use NT's little brother. The OS crashedwhile the world's richest man was demonstrating it to a packed house,sending its dire death message onto huge monitors for all to see. As Microsoft product manager Chris Capossela quickly moved to remove the offensive message from the screens, Gates quipped "This must be why we're not shipping Windows 98 yet."

Welcome to reality, Bill.

Until the crash, the demo was creating applause and murmuring from thecrowd, which was also shown a demo of Windows NT 5.0. NT didn't crash,however, despite its much earlier beta state. Gates' message--for 98 as well as NT 5.0--was that the integration of the Web into Windows makes theOSes easier to use.

"You just learn one thing," Gates said, "and that's the browser...All the work that is being done in the future simply takes advantage of the great HTML offerings. It is all about ease of use and allowing you to think of offline use of the computer and online use of the computer as the same thing."

Despite his earlier proclamations that Windows 98 was simply "a point release," massive delays in Windows NT 5.0 have prompted Microsoft--andGates--to change their tune about Windows 98 recently.

"Windows 98 will take over from Windows 95 very rapidly," he said. Gatestouted new 98 features such as USB support, multi-monitor support, and lesscryptic error messages that real people can understand. Windows 98 alsolaunches programs faster than Windows 95. One crowd pleaser included thelaunch of Adobe PhotoShop simultaneous on both Windows 95 and Windows 98.On 98, the program came to life instantly, while on 95 the hard drivechurned away.

Also on Monday, Microsoft announced that it will optionally hide theill-received Active Channel Bar when it ships Windows 98 to OEMs in May.The Channel Bar is a feature designed to promote the Web sites of Microsoft partners, such as Disney and Warner Bros. Microsoft foes haveargued that giving such heavyweights a place on the Windows desktop isunfair. As Microsoft is under a lot of scrutiny from the government these days, it decided to axe the bar. Microsoft will now allow hardware vendorsto optionally not display the bar when they install Windows 98 on newcomputers