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(continued...) The set-up may sound techie but HyperOs supply excellent step by step instructions and once installed operation is simple and intuitive.
Each computer can be named to indicate its intended purpose e.g.
as a clean working installation, for specific user requirements and network settings or for hacking around with new drivers, application updates and evaluation applications.
The icons indicate the currently active computer and are colour coded to each partition's file format.
Although operations such as modifying partitions need to be executed in DOS, they can be launched from the My Other Computers window with HyperOs automating the process and providing helpful information and prompts in the DOS environment.
At the end of any such operations a menu of available OS's is displayed with an indication of the last OS used.
HyperOs 2003 is available in a number of versions starting with R2 supporting 95 and 98 only, then in addition 10 (R3) or 20 (R5) ME, NT, 2K and XP systems for £149 and £199 respectively.
Other versions also offer HyperDrive functionality to run Windows 98 entirely in 768Mb of RAM for speed and security as any corruptions or web cookies are destroyed on switching systems.
NT is the most difficult OS to manage and for CAD work 2K and perhaps XP are the most likely platforms.
It is possible to think of many practical benefits of using HyperOs; phasing in new releases of a CAD modeller, experimenting with new OS releases, minimising IT support time by restoring a 'known good' system with minimum fuss, allowing users an installation they can 'customise', not to mention the opportunity to readily maintain system performance.
The bottom line however has to be that mission critical operation can be resumed within minutes of even a catastrophic failure of a Windows installation.
And yes, my machine feels distinctly faster than yesterday.