nelson_p@apollo.HP.COM (Peter Nelson) (06/11/90)
From: nfs@cs.Princeton.EDU (Norbert Schlenker) :When my copy of Windows 3.0 arrived from Microsoft (in 3 days rather :than the quoted four weeks!), a quick glance at the manual revealed a :requirement for 6-8Mb of hard disk space. I freed up some space, :installed the package, and discovered the disk estimates weren't far :off - C:\WINDOWS ate 7.5Mb of my hard disk. If I want to swap, I need :(probably) another 2-3Mb of disk space. : :But Windows 3.0 doesn't fit that mould. It is another example of the :software bloat that we have all come to know. Frankly, I don't know :whether I will install it - I question whether it is worth giving up :10Mb. I wonder whether others will feel the same way. YES! I'm glad somebody finally raised this issue! I was amazed when I saw how much disk space had vanished after installing Windows 3.0. I haven't done an inventory yet to discover where it all went but Windows is at least THREE times as big as the next biggest package I own (probably Zortech C++, counting all the insert files, libraries, and tools). Windows is vastly bigger than Desqview 386. I have a 40 meg drive partitioned into 32 and a 10. I'm not in any danger of running out yet, but backups have become a real nuisance. I used to do differential backups and alternate to a full backup whenever the differential would require more than a 1.44M diskette (usually about once a week). I use Fastback and a Full used to take 6 diskettes. Now with Windows it takes **12** diskettes and a lot more time! I'm still studying Windows to see whether I can actually use it productively for anything. I'll issue a review after a while. So fa,r I'm finding quite a few problems with it, especially running DOS apps. As I mentioned before, Windows 3.0 apps are hard to come by and very expen$ive, so for me at least Windows will live or die depending on how well it can run DOS apps. ---Peter