Time to Upgrade that Windows 3.1 Machine

By Hervey Allen (hervey@oregon.uoregon.edu)

While the thought of upgrading your Windows 3.1 operating system may seem daunting, now may be the best time to take the plunge. If you're still running Windows 3.1 on your computer, Microcomputer Services staff strongly recommends upgrading to a newer operating system (e.g., Windows 98, Macintosh OS, Windows NT, etc.) to avoid future problems.

We're making this recommendation now to ensure that campus departments have sufficient time to plan ahead for next year's budget, which will be in place July 1, 1999. We also suggest that any such upgrade be scheduled for quiet periods of the year, such as summer term or spring break.

What's Involved? Before making a change, you'll probably want to consult your local computer support person, if you have one, to formulate an overall plan for your work group.

As you may already suspect, a system upgrade is not a trivial operation. You'll most likely need to purchase a new computer and some new software, transfer your data, and prepare yourself for some initial training or learning to become comfortable with your new system. There are other factors to consider as well. You may have a personal attachment to using a program that has served you well and may not look forward to learning a new one. And then there are the costs: the real cost of purchasing new equipment to run the newer system, and the intangible costs of time and possible frustration. Despite these obstacles, we think there are many good reasons to upgrade now. Some of these are cited below:

• Windows 3.1 is a discontinued product, and has been for almost four years.
• The last version of Microsoft Office available for Windows 3.1 (Office 4.2) is no longer compatible with Office versions for the Mac and PC.
• There are basically no new applications for Windows 3.1 and none will be available in the future.
• Many older 486 and 386 class computers won't work correctly on January 1, 2000. This means that Windows won't work correctly, either.
• Windows 3.1 offers very little to no support for modern hardware (e.g., printers, scanners, large hard drives, USB devices, etc.)
• Windows 3.1 has no built-in support for PCMCIA cards for portable computers. This makes using newer PCMCIA cards very difficult.
• Windows 3.1 has no built-in support for networking, which makes networking a Windows 3.1 machine much more difficult.
• Windows 3.1 is not supported by BANNER and can't run the new BANNER GUI system
• 486 and 386 machines have almost no market value, so they are generally not worth upgrading
• Future versions of the Duckware CD-ROM may not contain any Windows 3.1 software.
• While Windows 3.1 will run on newer hardware, it can't take advantage of it. For instance, no single Windows 3.1 application can use more than a theoretical maximum of 16MB of RAM. This makes manipulating large files very difficult.
• There are very few new support staff personnel with Windows 3.1 knowledge or training, and there will be no new training of any Computing Center support staff in Windows 3.1.
• Many Windows 3.1 machines have hard drives that are five years old or older. These hard drives had a life expectancy of no more than five years. It's critical that you have backups of your data!

Windows 3.1 and Y2K

If you're interested in learning more about Windows 3.1 and year 2000 (Y2K) issues, see the Microsoft's Year 2000 web site at http://www.microsoft.com/technet/year2k/product/product.htm

Test your hardware. You may want to download a small DOS utility that will test the hardware on your machine for Y2K compliance. This utility is available at http://www.nstl.com/html/ymark2000_instructions.html

Y2K at the UO. For an overview of Year 2000 issues and to see what the UO has done about Y2K compliance, go to http://y2k.uoregon.edu/