Imagine that the contractor who is building your new dream home works for Microsoft. These are the steps he’d likely take:

1. Pour foundation. Realize foundation is on wrong lot; dig up foundation; find correct lot; pour new foundation.

2. Put on roof. Realize walls have not been framed and roof is on foundation; dismantle roof; frame walls; reinstall roof.

3. Hang drywall. Realize house isn’t wired for electricity; dismantle drywall; add wiring; rehang drywall.

4. Move furniture in. Realize that flooring isn’t installed; build floor around furniture.

5. Allow homeowner to move in. Realize interior walls aren’t painted; tell home owner to move out; paint house; reinstall home owner.

I’ll never understand why Microsoft can’t make a stable product. What’s the big deal? Perhaps the problem with Microsoft is that Windows was just a poorly designed system to begin with. My own Windows PC crashes so often I’ve been seriously thinking about jumping to Linux just for its much-touted stability!

Prepare for Trouble

In any event, Microsoft is set to cause you more problems in the very near future as you move your users and PCs to Windows 2000 and AS/400 Client Access Express for Windows. In an authorized program analysis report (APAR), IBM defined a whole list of problems with the beta releases of Windows 2000 and Express client’s Secure Sockets Layer (SSL). You can hope these problems are resolved before the general release of Windows 2000, but don’t count on it. I think it’s revealing to see what some of the current problems are if for no other reason than to see the troubles that can occur when you try to marry stable and unstable computing platforms. Let me summarize them for you:

1. The installation process freezes when you attempt to install the SSL component during Express client installation. To fix this, you’ll have to reboot the PC. Apparently, you cannot install SSL as part of the normal Express client installation. Instead, you must use the selective installation feature of Express client to install this component by itself. Before you attempt the selective installation, however, you’re going to need some fixes from IBM. You must download and install a Client Access Express service pack (SF58121) on the PC and a PTF (SF59005 for licensed product 5769-XE1) on your AS/400 before you can perform the selective installation.

2. The second problem IBM discovered with Express client and Windows 2000 is that connecting to the AS/400 via Express client and SSL may take an inordinate amount of time on the first attempt. There’s no explanation for this—just the warning. I guess IBM wanted you to expect this ahead of time so you wouldn’t call and bug them. Yeesh!

3. Once you finally get SSL installed and connected, you probably think you’re home free. Think again. According to IBM, if you attempt to access the Client Access Express desktop icons or attempt to access any of the Express client menu items from the context menu, the Windows Explorer.exe application may hang. As of the time of this writing, there is no solution to this problem except to reboot (i.e., remove homeowner, paint walls, reinstall homeowner).

4. If you want to take advantage of the very cool new Client Access Express Operations Console, you must ensure that the PC it is running on has Windows 2000 Professional installed. Operations Console won’t work with the server edition of Windows 2000.

Of course (and you’re probably coming to expect this by now), you’re still likely to encounter problems. Apparently, if you use dial-in Remote Control System (RCS) with Operations Console, when you are done, dial-up networking does not disconnect when you hang up. Ooh! The phone company will love this one! To completely disconnect, you must...hold on, this will surprise you...reboot the PC!

Other problems have been discovered, too, but you get the idea. If you want to read about these problems, point your browser to IBM’s AS/400 Technical Support Web page at as400service.rochester. ibm.com/ and click on the Tech Info & Databases link. You’ll see a submenu open. Click on the Software Problems—APARS link. Once you get to the APARs home page, click on All Info APAR by Release and search for APAR II11853. You can also search on this Web page for other Windows 2000 problems.

Stability Desired

The AS/400 is an incredibly stable platform. Microsoft Windows, on the other hand, is a bug-ridden, unstable platform. When you try to merge the stable with the unstable, you’re bound to encounter problems. Although Client Access Express is a relatively clean, bug- free package, any flaws it does contain will only be exacerbated by a product such as Microsoft Windows. It’s too bad Microsoft can’t learn from its mistakes and build a decent product like OS/400. I guess we should just be thankful that Microsoft hasn’t.