This article came from a fellow named Keith Wortham.

In anticipation of a PC MAGAZINE review of the well promoted but NON-AVAILABLE Microsoft Windows 4.0, he went ahead and wrote it in the typical objective style the magazine usually uses with Microsoft products. He is planning to submit it to the magazine before they can come out with their own bubbly review of the promised product.

As you know, the magazine carries big ads for Microsoft. From what I am told, ZIFF-DAVIS, which owns PC MAGAZINE, ALSO OWNS A SUBSIDIARY THAT HAS THE MARKETING ACCOUNT FOR MICROSOFT! (Does that strike you as a bit of a CONFLICT OF INTEREST, and ample incentive for total non-objectivity?)

Quoting Keith Wortham:

The latest issue of PC Magazine contains the exciting and long awaited news that there will be an article on Windows 4.0 appearing in the next issue. To save those of you who do not subscribe from having to buy the magazine, we thought we would try to anticipate the expected high points of the coming article. If you have any inside information or would like to add your predictions, please feel free to do so.

!!!!!!!!!! AMAZING WINDOWS 4.0 !!!!!!!!!!

We are privileged this month to bring you our long overdue article on Microsofts groundbreaking Operating System, the incredible Windows 4.0. Our exceptional journalistic standards demand that we preface this article by a restatement of our policy concerning review of non-shipping products. While our policy has always been that we would review no product that is not actually shipping at the time of publication, WE HAVE CHANGED OUR POLICY FOR THIS ISSUE ONLY. Our policy for this issue is that we will review any product that someone tells us might possibly be developed at any time in the future. After this issue, our policy will revert to what it was prior to this issue until such time that Microsoft begins to again consider their next edition of software and begins another high-visibility promotion geared to discourage users from looking at the competition.

We put the wonderful Windows 4.0 operating system through our grueling Winbench benchmark program which was magnanimously donated to PC Labs by Microsoft Corporation. Our test bed was the standard platform used by most PC users – a Cray Supercomputer with 3 Gigabytes of RAM and a $9000 Windows graphics accelerator card with 512 Megabytes of SRAM. Our testing was made more difficult by the fact that no actual code was available at the time of the procedure. We did have available, however, a screen shot of the stupendous Windows 4.0 which we put through its paces. Our staff was speechless over how pretty the screen shot was. We also had the benefit of the assistance of 12 Microsoft employees who provided invaluable imput, and also took us to lunch as well as provide us all with free copies of MicroSoft Office.

The tremendous Windows 4.0 was a dream to install. We didnt even have to open the box! All of our applications were immediately migrated into the new OS, except the OS/2 applications. They mysteriously disappeared. We were told that this is a bug in the way that OS/2 apps are written and that this was IBMs problem. The screen shot scored a respectable .000001 Winmarks on our testing platform. Microsoft officials assure us that performance of the actual code promises to be even better. The only compatibility problem arose when OS/2 for Windows stubbornly refused to load the screen shot. Microsoft officials advise us that this was also IBMs problem.

Microsoft officials told us that 4 Megabytes of RAM minimum would be needed in the release version. However, they also said that they would recommend 32 Megabytes for typical usage. Microsoft officials said, and we agree, that all serious PC users will have 32 Megabytes of RAM on their systems by the time Win 4.0 is released. Windows 4.0 is too sophisticated an OS for those that refuse to keep up.

We were at first concerned with the reports of the apparent absence of 32-bit code contained in Windows 4.0. However, the Microsoft officials soon set us straight. Due to Microsoft still having the patent pending for the new technology, MS officials couldnt tell us how it worked, but told us of a new Microsoft compression technology. It turns out that all of the apparent 16-bit code present in Win 4.0 is actually 32-bit bit code that has been compressed by Microsoft to look like it is only 16 bits. Microsoft officials say that this is the wave of the future in 32-bit computing.

In order for you to take advantage of the power of Win 4.0, Microsoft will be releasing three new products. These products are Visual COBOL, Visual Assembler and Visual Machine Language. The Microsoft representatives gave us a sneak peak of the Visual Machine Language product. Visual Machine Language will contain the famous Microsoft App Wizard. At first the App Wizard looked like it was only generating huge random streams of ones and zeros. However, one representative assured us that this was not the case and that MS had used it to write most of the Windows NT code.

In summary, we can state without any fear of being accused of hyperbole that the most excellent Windows 4.0 is the greatest technological breakthrough since the discovery of fire and the invention of the wheel (neither of which, unfortunately, is patented by Microsoft… yet). The God-like Windows 4.0 ranks right up there with the other accomplishments of Microsoft, such as the graphical user interface, the mouse, memory management and on-the-fly disk compression.

It is at this point that we should state PC Magazines new policy with regard to software patents, viz., We feel strongly that any software patent not held by Microsoft is void and bad for the industry.

There will be a plethora of applications specifically written to take advantage of the astounding Windows 4.0. All major software developers are expected to begin work on products immediately after reading this article. Versions of WordPerfect and Lemmings for Win 4.0 should be shipping by the time you read this. If you cannot wait for your copy of the sexy Windows 4.0, we suggest you immediately go out and buy a copy of the highly innovative MS-DOS 6.2. Follow that up with several copies of the award winning Windows for Workgroups 3.11. If you are still impatient, buy the long awaited Windows NT, which is available in bulk quantity from your local retailer at huge discounts. By that time, if the most esteemed Windows 4.0 is still not shipping, buy a few more copies of Windows NT.

While we usually dont give awards to products that are not even in Alpha release, we feel that we have no choice but to award our prestigious ZIFF-DAVIS Editors Choice to the awesome Microsoft Windows 4.0. And even though it is only April, we have also given it our ZIFF-DAVIS Year-End Technical Excellence Award in ALL categories for the years 1994 through 1999. We expect an even better version of Windows in the year 2000. So, what are you waiting for?

* Note: All words (except fire and wheel) and all alphanumeric characters in this article are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation.