Windows 98 multitaking test

[Captain Video]

So I hear that Windows 98 has "poor" multitasking... so I decided to test it. I was able to: listen to audio off the net, surf the net, run a DOS game, send/receive email and I think I also copied from my HD to a floppy all at once (which took me moving fast to keep everthing going). The system seemed to hold up all right.

1. What is the issue with Win 98 and multitasking?

2. Does anyone who reads this care to try it on their Win 98 machine and see how much they can do all at once? hint, you have to send a big file to keep email busy, and a program that will run itself for a bit. Game, BASIC program, etc.

I would be interested to know how it works for others.

[This message has been edited by Captain Video (edited 11-10-2000).]

[Paleo Pete]

That's one of the things I do to put a newly built computer through its paces. Usually works pretty well, and I keep the resource meter and system monitor running so I get a running readout of what kind of load the machine is under.

I'm running a P-200MMX with 32MB RAM, and currently have 2 browser windows open, Zone Alarm running, McAffee, a Notepad file shrunk, and of course Juno's animated ads and pop-up ads everywhere they can think of to squeeze one in, and everything seems to be doing ok. That's about the normal when I'm on this forum. I often open the Calculator also, or Control Panel, run msconfig or sysedit, and other things, when I need to look up specifics. I often also open a third browser window, when I need to check a link someome posted.

All this aside, I have suspected the type of multitasking used by win95/98 for a while, as being one of the main problems with the OS. My P-60; Win3.11 machine can sit there and run for weeks and works perfect, not one error message after it had been up and running 2 months nonstop, while the win98 machine had to be rebooted every day or two.

I think this could be a result of Win 95/98 using Preemptive Multitasking while Win3.x uses Cooperative Multitasking. The difference is in the way they operate. Memory in win95/98 also needs to be cleared on a regular basis or performance suffers.

Cooperative Multitasking hands over resources to a particular application, and nothing else can run until that application gives control back to windows. (That's why you have to use the Switch To option in the Control Menu.)

Preemptive Multitasking gives resources to each application for a certain time, then switches it to the next application, whether the application gives control back to Windows or not.

On paper, it might sound good, but in practice, I'm not so sure it works as well as advertised...Is this the cause of the majority of lockups, BSOD's, Illegal Operation Errors and Invalid Page Faults? I wouldn't be a bit surprised, but can't pin it down...

At any rate, for the most part, Multitasking in Win95/98 seems to work pretty well, as long as applications don't try to grab memory already allocated to another program. By the way, that's what causes a General Protection Fault...

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[This message has been edited by Paleo Pete (edited 11-11-2000).]

[Captain Video]

That is interesting... I have had extermely good luck with Win 98. I run months between system crashes. I typically surf the net, email, Word Processing, and the like... and run a few DOS games.

I am always jumping between programs,and opening and closing program almost all at once. Like I said, I tried to do as much as possible at once, and the system did fine. Only thing was it did slow a little at points when I copied a file between the floppy and HD while doing other things - mostly the programs took a little longer to open.

In most cases Preemptive Multitasking should be better. Cooperative Multitasking depends on every program being properly designed, and letting go of the system. The problems you describe sound like program issues. I know that when I did freeze my system I was running a third party emulator.
It seems to be program specific. It seems the least commonly used programs generate the most BSOD, Crashes and the like.

[stu]

http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/cool.gif I quite often get the old "This progam has performed an illegal operation" messsage, almost daily. Running 98SE, I have had more problems than ever with 98. Uninstalled some programs that I had accumulated and the problem seems to deal with itself. I am just a novice at this game but nothing is as it is made out to be. It's up to the public to find the bugs so development companys don't have to pay for so much testing.

[LeeV]

Hi All,

I have WIN98SE on both of my P133's, one is a Packard Bell and the other is a "home grown" Microstar combo. These machines are real stable, and have never seen a blue screen. The Packard Bell runs constantly, and only gets restarted during installations, and when I "borrow" parts to test my other projects. I can open as many applications as I need too, it seems, but sooner or later I pay for it in speed. With 133MHz processors no surprise there!

However in the family are several other machines I work on that seem to have major issues with Win 98, all of these machines have non intel processors, and OEM installed win 98. Some reason these machines cant do a whole lot at once with out freezing or blue screening. I will mention that I have had good luck with a memory management program like FreeMemPro on my mom-inlaws machine which seems to have helped its ability to start and run multiple applications at once.

Back to topic... I'm starting to do a little research into Win NT Server, and two subjects multi-threading and multi-tasking pops up alot. I'm still trying to figure this out myself, but the impression I'm getting is that Win 98 is capable of multitasking, but doesn't do it in the most efficient way. Most of what I've found so far is a little lite on data and full of technobabble. I'm still rolling my pennies to get myself a decent book! http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/biggrin.gif

[Randy_tx]

The three best OS's at utilizing the PROCESSORS capabilities for multitasking/multithreading remain: Os2, Win NT & Linux.

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"As hard as a rock & dumb as a brick"...Windows CEMeNT

[Ghost_Hacker]

You forgot Unix the granddaddy of Linux. http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/smile.gif

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"It's just a whisper in my Ghost"

[This message has been edited by Ghost_Hacker (edited 02-20-2001).]

[Paleo Pete]

The difference between win98 and NT in regard to multitasking is the way they manage memory. Win95/98 allocate memory to certain addresses, then once that's done the address is unavailable until the OS gives it up or the application is closed. The OS is supposed to give control to each application in turn for a specific time then on to the next one, regardless of whether the application gives it back to the OS or not. That's where they have trouble, if for some reaon one application tries to use memory already allocated to another application, you get a BSOD.

NT uses a method very similar to the way expanded memory is handled, using small "page frames" to send requests for memory to, so when a program accesses memory in NT it is actually accessing a small block of memory (64K I think) which sends it to any open area of total available memory, rather than a specific location that another program can try to step on while it's still needed. That's also why NT always requires more memory in general than 95 or 98.

I'll look it up again and make sure that's basically correct, I'm going by memory right now since I don't have the book in front of me, and I think since I don't have any hair up there it all leaks out over time... http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/biggrin.gif



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