InformationWeek

November 17, 1997

More Third-Party Help For Windows

New and improved utilities plug holes and enhance Microsoft operating systems

he Comdex/Fall trade show in Las Vegas this week is a showcase for new and improved versions of utilities for Windows 95 and Windows NT. That's because those operating systems need plenty of third-party help.

"The Windows platforms provide the base-level functionality, and that leaves a lot of opportunity for enhancements," says Rob Enderle, an analyst with Giga Information Group in Santa Clara, Calif. These products focus mainly on "plugging the holes and enhancing the user experience," thus leaving an important market open for innovative companies, he adds.

V Communications Inc. in San Jose, Calif., will announce at Comdex that it's shipping System Commander Deluxe, which lets users install and use more than one version of an operating system, or more than one functional operating system, on a PC. The $89.95 product lets users install Windows 95 on a Windows 3.1 machine, for instance, without disabling the older system. It works with Windows 95, Windows 3.x, Windows NT, DOS, OS/2, and Unix.

Mijenix Corp. in Madison, Wis., will announce that it's shipping FreeSpace, an NT and Windows 95 utility that lets users selectively compress files and programs, as well as optimize Windows 95 disk clusters. The product will be priced at $49.95.

For NT users who can't wait for NT 5.0's new security and administration model to arrive late next year, Mission Critical Software Inc. in Houston just began beta testing its Domain Consolidation Toolkit. The product consists of two utilities that simplify merging NT domains in enterprisewide NT networks.

Without the toolkit, the task of modifying Windows NT domain structures to reflect business changes such as mergers and reorganizations is a painful manual task that can take administrators months.

The company did not give a final ship date for the toolkit, bu t says it will be incorporated into its Enterprise Administrator product, which is priced at $900 per domain and $14 per user account.

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