Utility programs provide functions left out of an OS, and the best ones become part of it
Peter D. Varhol
No desktop operating system is ever complete, and Windows 95 is no exception. Utilities, whether an OS vendor ships them in the operating system or an independent software vendor develops them, play a primary role in the growing and changing expectations we have of operating systems. Some make more efficient use of hardware, such as memory and storage, while others improve (or at least change) the user interface. Utilities may help the system as a whole run faster, or add features that were left out of the OS itself.
The first DOS utilities, packaged with the OS, were simple tools. Two of the most important were Format and Edlin, essential for formatting a disk and editing a (
small) file. Even then, however, third-party developers were producing extensions. PC Tools let you recover damaged disks or examine and modify the contents of physical disk locations. Norton Utilities let you unerase an inadvertently deleted file. Quarterdeck Office Systems, with Desqview, added one of the first multitasking shells to DOS, taking advantage of the 386 processor. Norton Commander was for many years a popular way to navigate the directory structure of DOS.
Why Utilities?
The obvious question about OS utilities is why they exist at all. If they are as useful as they seem, why aren't they included as part of the operating system? The answer varies depending on the utility, the OS, and their vendors.
First, utilities may fill a hole in the OS that no one knew existed until the OS got widespread use. One example is DOS 6.2's ScanDisk utility, which examines the structure of a compressed disk: Without disk compression itself, there was not much demand for ScanD
isk.
Second, most users might not need the utility. If only 5 percent of all users would need a utility (such as the system-usage monitor provided by Norton Utilities' System Watch), it makes little sense to invest the development time to build it into the OS and then require the additional computer resources to run it.
Utilities are a test bed for new OS technologies. If they are popular enough, they or similar tools may appear in the next major release of the OS, or in an entirely new OS. Microsoft incorporated many third-party utilities -- ones for managing memory, for example, or for undeleting files -- into DOS 5.0. Qualitas, Quarterdeck, and Norton (subsequently acquired by another utility giant, Symantec) had these utilities long before Microsoft.
Utilities for Windows 95
What has Microsoft included in Windows 95 that was not a part of its previous OS, and why? And an important follow-up question: What is left for utilities vendors to build?
The initia
l cynical response to that last question might be "not as much as there used to be." Windows 95 includes a better user interface and a better file manager/navigator, which can make interface shells such as Norton Desktop redundant. However, the increasing complexity of OSes brings out the need for more and different utilities.
Microsoft itself is shipping a companion set of utilities to Windows 95, called Microsoft Plus for Windows 95. Microsoft designed Plus to do two things: make the PC run better and make the user interface look better. In the "run better" category, the package provides utilities for system and disk maintenance, such as compression and defragmentation. The "look better" tools include Desktop Themes, which lets you load special background wallpapers and accompanying sounds, mouse pointers, colors, and other cosmetic changes, plus font smoothing and wallpaper stretching. There's also
an Internet navigator
, which provides graphical access to World Wide Web sites.
For all-important leisure activities, Microsoft Plus includes a new 3-D pinball game.
So why aren't these same features in the base OS itself? Well, they are, but not to the same extent as provided by the Plus package of utilities.
According to Alec Saunders, Microsoft Plus product manager, the first goal of these utilities is to make Microsoft money. Fair enough. However, in differentiating these particular utilities from Win 95 itself, Microsoft used performance and system resources as the deciding factor. For instance, the base Windows 95 is advertised to run on a 386 PC with 4 MB of memory, thus fulfilling a Microsoft promise to make the new OS work on many older systems. For more powerful systems, Plus enhances both operation and appearance. As an example, Saunders cites the Plus disk compression algorithm; it's optimized to run on the Pentium processor. Likewise, the wallpaper used in Desktop Themes looks and performs best with high-end graphics adapters and graphics acceleration. All these
utilities
will
run reasonably well on slower systems (such as the 33-MHz 486 used to test Win 95 and Microsoft Plus for this article). However, power users running a Pentium PC with a graphics accelerator will find that the Plus utilities improve many aspects of system use without degrading performance.
System Agent, Man
An important feature of Microsoft Plus is
the System Agent
, along with other affiliated agents. According to Saunders, Microsoft developed the System Agent to improve disk compression. The agent uses a "lazy compression" algorithm, meaning that it waits for idle system time and then compresses files. To do this, Microsoft needed a way of determining when the system is idle, and the System Agent was born. It uses preprogrammed rules to detect when the system is not doing anything and cues the disk-compression utility to start squeezing uncompressed files.
The System Agent uses the same criteria to schedule defragmentation, ba
ckup, and scan-disk activities. Agents can also control the launching and running of applications. If an application requires little or no user interaction, the System Agent can schedule the application launch and make sure it completes properly. Applications have to be "System Agent-aware" to receive this kind of service, and Microsoft includes an API that applications can call to do just that.
Third-Party Survival Tactics
Microsoft has a business group for working with third-party developers -- including utilities developers -- for Windows 95. According to Deborah Epstein-Celis, a product manager with Microsoft's third-party software group, Microsoft attempts to build a base level of features into the OS and then counts on utilities to round out the less basic needs of diverse groups of users. Many of these utilities are pioneered and marketed by other vendors, some in direct competition with Microsoft.
Symantec's Norton division released Norton Utilities for Windows 95
concurrently with Microsoft's release of the OS. Norton Utilities includes tools, such as Disk Doctor and Disk Edit, that have become standard fare for power users trying to get the most from their PCs. The Norton Utilities for Windows 95 contains many of the same utilities found in previous versions, including a "safe" format and a system information reader. These are supplemented by
Space Wizard
, a system diagnostics utility, and the System Doctor. The System Doctor monitors system resources, including CPU, virtual memory, and unfragmented disk space.
Norton Navigator, a companion product for Norton Utilities, is an enhancement of the Windows 95 Explorer. Navigator lets you set up "multiple virtual desktops," different looks and configurations that you can quickly load and switch between. Navigator also incorporates tools for preparing files to move to other systems, such as a way to create self-extracting archives and a uuencode/uudecode utility for sending binary files across
the Internet.
Quarterdeck's QEMM memory manager, in the old days of DOS, made parts of the upper memory area available to store drivers. Today, it enables Windows 95 to compress data in memory and make it appear as though the system has more memory available.
For diagnostics, Cybermedia's First Aid 2.0 will examine error messages and other system problems and recommend solutions. Mastersoft's Viewer95 supplements Win 95's existing image viewer by supporting Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) images.
Evolving with the OS
While new versions of utilities may often do the same tasks as their older versions, the new ones don't always work the same. Like the OS itself, they change, offering new capabilities and finding better ways of doing old things. For example, Norton SysInfo originally obtained much of its system-configuration data by reading the CMOS memory that maintained the information used to boot the PC and recognize devices such as hard disks. However, CMOS memor
y is static. Under most circumstances, it cannot automatically recognize and adapt to changes in the system hardware. It's possible that information in CMOS, and therefore the information reported by
Norton SysInfo
(and other similar utilities), could be incorrect.
But an industry consortium led by Intel is in the process of developing the Desktop Management Interface (DMI), part of whose role is to dynamically determine the system configuration and status, prepare and execute queries of system resources, and perform fault diagnosis. The PC updates the DMI data whenever the configuration changes, so the information provided to network administrators is always up to date.
Future iterations of utility software will make use of the DMI, and other new capabilities of the PC architecture, to read system information. This will ensure that system information is accurate and up to date: accomplishing the same task as before, but in a different and better way.
Agents of
the Future
Microsoft's introduction of the System Agent -- and its OS hook -- portends a new way of thinking about utilities. Developers can adapt an agent to many tasks besides detecting system idle time and launching other utilities. The system agent of the future might be able to detect unstable conditions and warn the user before a failure occurs, or perform housekeeping chores such as backing up files.
A preview of what you can use a system agent for comes from Charles River Analytics (Cambridge, Massachusetts), the developer of Open Sesame. Open Sesame uses system agents, along with a neural network, to "learn" your normal pattern of actions and then assist in performing common activities. For example, if you routinely open a word processor and resize and reposition the document window in the same way every time, Open Sesame will "observe" this behavior and ask if you want it done automatically. Open Sesame has been so useful as a Macintosh utility that Apple is incorporating som
e of its functions into its next-generation Copland operating system.
An agent itself may be an OS utility. Agents can be used to perform many tasks behind the scenes, either by themselves or in conjunction with other utilities. An agent can change the scheduling algorithm to allocate CPU time between running processes or change the priority of the processes. These types of agents need artificial intelligence, such as the neural network used by Open Sesame, to detect complex patterns of operation and behavior and then use that information to tune the OS.
A Future for Utilities?
The relationship between an OS and a utility is symbiotic. The OS provides the "host," without which the utility cannot survive. The utility, on the other hand, can actually help the OS perform better or behave more reliably. If a utility is incorporated into the OS, it can improve its overall capability, just like beneficial microorganisms in the human body.
A smart developer will make sure
a utility evolves into something completely different, yet just as useful, as its predecessor, and begin the symbiotic process all over again.
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Microsoft's own Internet Explorer utility, included in Microsoft Plus for Windows 95, provides GUI access to the Internet and the World Wide Web.
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Norton's System Information tells you all about your PC, including BIOS, memory, and video.
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Windows 95's System Agent allows you to schedule actions, alerts, and program launches by time and other conditions. System Agent may represent a whole new area of smart Windows utilities.
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Norton's nifty Space Wizard helps free up room on your hard disk and clear up clutter in the process.
Peter D. Varhol is chair of the graduate computer science department at Rivier College in New Hampshire. He can be reached at
pvarhol@mighty.riv.edu
.
Filling in Windows Blanks
