Steal the enemy's base at the start and build a technological empire.

Chapter 203 Windows Version of Star Browser

At 8 p.m., the lights were still on on the third floor of the office building.

When Ling Yun pushed open the door, there were more than twenty monitors in the testing area, each screen lit up, displaying different Windows versions: 95, 98, and NT. The machines emitted a low hum, and the sound of the cooling fans spinning was particularly clear in the quiet night.

David peeked out from behind a machine, his eyes heavily rimmed with dark circles, and he was holding a notebook.

"Boss? Aren't you supposed to be back tomorrow?"

"It's a day ahead of schedule." Ling Yun put his luggage at the door, took off his coat, and asked, "How's the progress?"

"Come with me."

David led him to the workbench in the center of the testing area. Three mainframes were placed on the table, each connected to a monitor and a keyboard and mouse. The left screen displayed Windows 95, the middle screen displayed Windows 98, and the right screen displayed Windows NT.

"We'll test in groups by platform." David started up the middle machine. "Windows 98 is the most important; its market share is rising rapidly."

The screen lit up, and a blue sky and white clouds boot screen flashed by. After entering the desktop, David double-clicked an installer. The progress bar started moving, from 0% to 100%, taking about forty seconds. After the installation was complete, a new icon appeared on the desktop: a blue planet background with a white shooting star trail in the center, and the words "Star Browser" written below.

Double-click the icon.

A browser window pops up, and the interface is basically the same as the Starry Sky system version, but the title bar is the standard gray-blue of Windows.

"The UI rendering uses the native Windows control library," David said. "For compatibility, we rewrote the entire UI layer. The core is still our own, but the outer layer is wrapped as a Windows application."

How's the startup speed?

"Faster than both IE and Netscape." David started a timer, closed the browser, and restarted it. "Cold start averages 1.8 seconds, IE takes 2.3 seconds. Warm start is 0.5 seconds, IE takes 0.7 seconds."

What is the memory usage rate?

David opened Task Manager. "Opening five tabs uses about 32MB of memory. IE uses about 38MB under the same conditions, but we support more features."

"What exactly are the more numerous?"

"First, it has a built-in Star Language plugin." David clicked on a small bubble icon in the upper right corner of the browser, and the sidebar slid out to show the Star Language login page. "Users can log in directly without having to open the Star Language client separately."

Is it stable?

"Currently, it has run continuously for 24 hours without crashing during testing." David closed the sidebar. "However, there is a problem: Windows 95's COM component support is incomplete, and the sidebar occasionally lags. We have implemented a downgrade solution; the sidebar is disabled by default in Windows 95, and users can manually enable it if needed."

How much compatibility testing should be conducted?

"There are twelve hardware platforms, ranging from the Pentium 75 to the latest Pentium II 300; graphics cards from the S3 Trio64 to the Voodoo2; and network cards from 10M to 100M." David opened his notebook. "We've identified seventeen problems so far, four of which are critical and will affect usability. The rest are minor issues, such as differences in font rendering and color deviations."

"What is the serious problem?"

"First," David walked to the Windows 95 machine on the left, "some older graphics card drivers are incompatible, which can cause browser windows to distort. We've already tested it, and when it encounters an incompatible graphics card, it will automatically switch to software rendering mode, but performance will drop by 30%."

"Is there any solution?"

"We'll contact the graphics card manufacturers for the driver source code and do the adaptation," David said. "We've already contacted S3 and Trident, and they've agreed to provide the technical documentation, but we need to sign a confidentiality agreement."

"sign."

"The second serious problem," David said, walking over to the NT machine, "is that the NT system has strict access control, and our installation program requires administrator privileges. Regular users may experience installation failures."

"What are we going to do?"

"We rewrote the installation package, and there are two versions: an administrator version and a regular user version. The regular user version has limited functionality, but it can still be used normally." David paused, "but this will double the maintenance costs."

"Let's do it first," Ling Yun said. "We'll consider unification once we have a large user base."

"The third issue," David sat back down at his desk, "is the automatic update mechanism. Under Windows, we can't directly replace system files like with the Starry Sky system; user authorization is required. Microsoft's regulations require digital signatures; otherwise, security software will block it."

How much does a digital signature cost?

"Twenty thousand dollars a year, awarded by Verisign," David noted in his notebook. "We need to apply for one."

"I'll apply tomorrow."

"The fourth problem," David looked up, "is also the most troublesome: ActiveX plugin support."

He opened Internet Explorer and visited a webpage that used ActiveX technology, where a video player was displayed.

"Many corporate websites, government websites, and bank websites use ActiveX as a security control. If we don't support it, users will encounter problems accessing these websites."

Is it technically very difficult?

"It's a huge undertaking," David said frankly. "ActiveX is Microsoft's proprietary technology, and the documentation is incomplete. We spent a month reverse engineering and barely managed to achieve basic support, but it's unstable. Moreover, we have to adapt it separately for every new ActiveX control we encounter."

Ling Yun remained silent for a few seconds.

"Let's keep that a low priority," he said. "Prioritize ensuring stable browsing of regular web pages first. ActiveX support will be a long-term project; we'll work on it gradually."

"What should users do if they encounter a website that is unusable?"

"They were prompted that 'this website requires Internet Explorer' and provided a link to download IE," Lingyun said. "Being honest is better than crashing."

David wrote it down in his notebook.

At that moment, a test engineer walked in from outside, holding two printed test reports.

"David, the regression test results from yesterday are in." She handed over the report. "The issues on the XP platform are mostly resolved, but three new bugs have been found on the ME platform."

"ME?" Ling Yun frowned. "Isn't it supposed to be released next year?"

"Microsoft sent us a preview version," David explained. "They hope that Starlight will support all versions of Windows, including future ones."

"How much has the testing scope been expanded?"

"From Windows 95 to Windows ME, five major versions and eight sub-versions." David flipped through the report. "We now have twelve full-time testers, working in three shifts, executing 1,200 test cases every day."

What is the coverage rate of automated tests?

"Core functionality accounts for 85%, and edge computing for 45%," David said. "And it's still improving."

Lingyun walked to the window and looked outside. The Silicon Valley night was quiet, and the headlights of cars on the distant highway looked like a flowing river of stars.

"It'll be online by New Year's Day," he turned around, "Will that be enough time?"

"If things continue at the current pace and there are no major new problems, it should be fine," David said cautiously. "But we've included a one-week buffer period. If any unforeseen issues arise, we can postpone it until January 8th."

"Try not to delay it," Ling Yun said. "It will be launched on New Year's Day. Many people will have time to download and try it out that day."

"Then we need to add more people," David said. "At least five more test engineers and two more developers."

"Let's transfer a few people from the systems department to help out, and at the same time recruit new people," Lingyun said. "Let the administration department post job advertisements tomorrow."

"clear."