Windows 98 Professional Reference

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Windows 98 and Total Cost of Ownership

• Simplifying Management with Windows 98 System Tools
  • Updating Windows
• Limiting the Windows 98 User Interface
  • Creating a Limited Operating Mode Using System Policies
• Conclusion

By 1997, Microsoft had subdued all competition and stood alone atop a lucrative market with its versatile PC-based operating systems. By then, though, the company was facing a new and unexpected opponent. The so-called thin client solution, once denigrated as a throwback to the era of the obsolete mainframe, was gaining new attention because of advances in PC networking and Internet technology and because of new attention to the cost of supporting full-featured clients in the field.

Managers had come to realize that the labor cost for administration and technical support of a corporate workstation figured significantly in the overall cost of implementing the workstation. A simpler and less-versatile PC, they reasoned, would have the following advantages:

• Reduced capital cost (for a cheaper PC)
• Reduced labor cost (for technical support--because fewer things could go wrong)

Microsoft, having invested millions over the years to give Windows more power and flexibility, initially downplayed the idea that the public would actually want less power and less flexibility. Behind the scenes, however, they put their legion of large brains to work on addressing how they might position themselves to accommodate this new thin-client paradigm.

Over the years, Microsoft had been collecting data on work habits and accompanying costs associated with PC operations. They were also aware of the work of other groups, such as the Garter Group, which showed that the single largest line item associated with the cost of operating a PC was so-called end-user operations--unproductive labor costs generated by a workstation user interacting directly with features of the operating system and with non-work-related applications (as opposed to interacting with application(s) required for the user's work assignment). The Garter Group cost model is shown in Table 4.1.

Table 4.1 Total Cost of Operating a Corporate Workstation

Furthermore, although the capital, technical, and administrative costs are easily discernible from a corporate spreadsheet, the ellusive end-user operation cost is invisible, hidden in the overall labor cost, providing a permanent lag in user productivity.

It soon became as clear to Microsoft as it was to Microsoft's competitors that a maintenance-free PC with a more-limited, less-flexible user interface could provide a far lower total cost of ownership in many corporate environments. Microsoft's first act was to declare victory--Windows, they argued, already has the features necessary to create a limited-use environment that will reduce the cost of end-user operations. They then set to work developing additional tools designed to reduce administrative and technical costs. Their goal was to provide a system that offered not only the power and flexibility of a modern PC operating system (if you wanted it) but also the limited, low-cost operating mode of a thin client (if you wanted it). This virtual thin-client approach, according to Microsoft, is better than the permanent limitations of cheap, thin-client hardware. Total cost of ownership, they said, would not depend on a new kind of hardware but rather on new software and on a new approach to system management.

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NOTE: Microsoft nevertheless set to work adapting Windows for the approaching arrival of network PCs and other thin-client hardware units. A new generation of network-based Windows products, such as the new NT Hydra system (named for the many-headed serpent of antiquity) will support clients in a variety of thicknesses.

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With much fanfare, Microsoft launched their Zero Administration Windows (ZAW) campaign. Zero Administration is a set of existing methodologies and a promise to develop new methodologies to help reduce the total cost of operating a Windows system. Zero Administration features fall into two basic groups:

• Tools that simplify administration and technical support of Windows systems
• Tools that limit or standardize the user interface to limit the cost of end-user operations

Many of these Zero Administration features are built directly into Windows 98. (Other, more-advanced features will appear in NT 5.0 and future Windows releases.)

Simplifying Management with Windows 98 System Tools

The natural development of the Windows operating system has simplified some of the tasks associated with system administration. Windows 98 is certainly the most hands-off operating system Microsoft has developed. Some of the Zero Administration tools provided with Windows 98 include the following:

• Windows Tune-up Wizard: a tool that automatically tunes up your system (see Chapter 35, "Tools and Strategies for Optimizing Windows 98")
• Windows Update Wizard: a utility that automatically updates drivers and file system files via the Internet (described later in this chapter)
• System File Checker: a tool that looks for corrupted or modified Windows 98 system files (see Chapter 37, "Tools and Strategies for Troubleshooting Windows 98")
• System Information Tool: a utility that provides a central source for information on hardware and software system components (see Chapter 37)
• The Scheduled Task Utility: a tool that lets you schedule routine events so that they'll happen automatically (see Chapter 34)
• Windows Scripting Host: a feature that lets you write your own custom scripts for automating complex tasks (see Chapter 33, "Windows Scripting with Windows 98 Scripting Host")

These labor-saving features are discussed throughout the book. Refer to specific chapters for additional information. I mention these features here so that you can view them as a natural consequence of Microsoft's initiative to reduce total cost of ownership.

Updating Windows

Research has shown that one of the biggest time sinks in system administration is the need to update system software in order to maintain compatibility with new hardware and new versions of applications. Windows 98 includes a tool called Windows Update. Windows Update logs onto the Internet and consults a large, online database to see whether any drivers or system files on your computer need updating. Any out-of-date files are then updated from the Web site.

To access the Windows Update Wizard:

1. From the Start Menu, choose Windows Update.

2. Windows 98 will attempt to connect you to the Internet to access the Windows Update Web page (www.microsoft.com/windowsupdate/x86/en/download/default.htm).

3. When you reach the Update Web page, follow the instructions. If this is the first time you've accessed the Windows Update Web page, you may need to provide registration information.

Limiting the Windows 98 User Interface

The Windows 95 Zero Administration Kit was Microsoft's first effort to market the potential of Windows for supporting a terminal-like, dedicated workstation environment. The Windows 95 Zero Administration Kit was a ready-made implementation that used several existing Microsoft Networking features (most notably, the System Policies feature). The Windows 95 Zero Administration Kit also helped you set up a Windows 95 installation share on a server for easy network client installation and, optionally, configured the client to access Office 97 running on the server.

One important aspect of the Windows 95 Zero Administration Kit was that it classified Windows corporate workstations and client workstations according to two operating modes:

• TaskStation mode, in which the workstation is devoted to a single task, such as database entry.
• AppStation mode, in which a user may need to work with a few specific applications, possibly applications running on the server, such as those included in Office 97.

In both cases, the user's access to local file system and local operating system features is limited, so as to limit the cost of end-user operations.

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NOTE: At this writing, Microsoft has not announced whether they will release Windows 98 Zero Administration Kit. (Check the Microsoft web site at www.microsoft.com for the latest information on Zero Admin in Windows 98.)

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Microsoft implemented the TaskStation and AppStation operating modes through a system policy file with predefined policies for TaskUser and AppUser global groups. You don't need a special Zero Administration Kit to create a similar environment in Windows 95 or Windows 98. You just need a severe and systematic approach to System Policies, as you'll learn later in this chapter.

Creating a Limited Operating Mode Using System Policies

You can create an operating mode similar to the TaskStation or AppStation mode by using Windows 98 System Policies. Chapter 7, "System Policies," describes how to configure System Policies in Windows 98; see that chapter for information on System Policies and Windows 98's System Policy Editor.

Follow these steps to create a limited operating mode for Windows 98 users:

1. Make sure the workstation you're using is configured for Group Policies (see Chapter 7).

2. Create a global group called LimOp (or whatever), using User Manager for Domains on a Windows NT domain controller. (Remove any users or groups that may appear as part of the global group.)

3. Use Windows 98's System Policy Editor to create a system policy for the new group, using the Add Group command on the System Policy Editor's Edit menu (described in Chapter 7). The policy should be included in the config.pol file that is accessed by domain user accounts at logon. The policy for the new group should severely limit the user's access to system features and resources. The system policy settings for the AppUser group in the Windows 95 Zero Administration Kit are shown in Table 4.2 as they appear in Windows 98 System Policy Editor. This table is offered for purposes of illustration only. ( that the Windows 95 and Windows 98 policies differ slightly, so some settings may vary.)

4. Create domain user accounts for the users who will work within the new limited operating mode (using Windows NT's User Manager for Domains). Add the users to the new global group you created in step 2. You may want to specify a path to a logon script in User Manager for Domains by clicking on the Profiles button in the Add New User dialog box. The logon script can map a drive to the path that contains Desktop and Start Menu folders (more about this shortly, after these steps and the table).

5. Log on using the user account you created in step 4. The Windows 98 user interface should reflect the system policy settings for the new limited operation mode. If you don't see the new restricted interface, verify that your PC is configured for group policies and that your domain controller is accessing the system policy file at logon. (For additional information, see Chapter 7.)

Table 4.2 System Policy Settings for Windows 95 Zero Administration Kit AppUser Group

The Shell Custom Folders settings (refer to Table 4.2) provide an additional opportunity for customization and control. that, in Table 4.2, custom folder settings refer to the mapped drive O:. The Windows 95 Zero Administration Kit uses the mapped O: drive to define the location of the custom Desktop and Start Menu folders. A logon script assigned to each user account maps the O: drive to the location of the custom folders that this user account will access.

The Only Run Allowed Windows Applications setting, under Windows 98 System/Restrictions, is another useful setting that helps limit the user's choices. You can specify a list of Windows applications that the user can run; all others will be inaccessible.

Conclusion

This chapter discussed Microsoft's Total Cost of Ownership initiative and described some of the features of Windows 98 that help reduce the cost of operating a PC in a corporate environment.

User profiles are another useful feature that can help you limit the user's access to the system. See Chapter 8, "User Profiles," for a discussion of how to limit and customize the desktop environment through mandatory user-profile settings.

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