Windows XP

Product: Windows XP
From: Microsoft (released Oct. 25, 2001)
For: PCs capable of running Windows 2000.
Pricing: Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition - Full $199 (prices in US$)
Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition - Upgrade $99 Win98/NT/2000/Me
Microsoft Windows XP Professional - Full $299
Microsoft Windows XP Professional - Upgrade $199 Win98/NT/2000/Me
Pros: Windows engine (similar to that found in Windows 2000) is more robust than Windows 9x. Task-centric interface makes common operations easier. Wizard-driven interfaces for cameras, scanners, audio, video, etc. Built-in support for burning CDs, formatting and writing to DVD-RAM. Fast user switching allows easy and quick user logins. Remote assistance allows remote management and user assistance. A special "Win9x Compatibility mode" should ease some problems with older programs.
Cons: Windows XP has higher system requirements than Windows 9x; some compatibility issues. Controversial "product activation" scheme may cause inconvenience during hardware upgrades.
Strongest Competitors: other versions of Windows, Linux (especially desktop-oriented versions such as Mandrake 7.2), Mac OS X.

Introduction
In his demonstration at the product's official unveiling on Feb. 13th, Microsoft Chairman and Chief Software Architect says the company has spent nearly a billion dollars so far on the development of this Windows release. He claims that the workforce behind it numbers in the thousands and includes the same teams that laboured on Windows 2000 and Windows Me. The result, of course, is claimed to be the most important Windows release since Windows 95. (Funny how we heard the same line last year - Ed.) And the hyperbole is already streaming out of the hype machine in Redmond. Enthused Jim Allchin, platforms product group vice president, "it's almost a lifestyle upgrade." But, amazingly, you may be inclined to agree.

Startup
Windows XP includes several new features that could significantly change the way you use your computer. For starters -- literally -- there's a new Fast User Switching screen that greets you when the machine starts up or another user logs off. This screen shows icons (random photo icons are inserted by default; you can customize these at will) and a few lines of descriptive text for each user with an account on the machine. If user "Joe" has email, the number of unread messages is listed. If user "Josephine" was running three programs before she logged out, these programs are listed next to her icon. By clicking on her icon and, if required, entering a suitable password, Josephine opens up a desktop with her own customized settings, running her programs exactly as she had left them. The speed at which the system switches between user accounts is positively astonishing. On the Compaq M700 portable system on which Jim Allchin demonstrated the feature, the switching process took less than a second. (These models currently top out at 850 MHz. -- Ed.) On our own Celeron 450 test machine, it took a mere two seconds. So far so good....

The redesigned Start menu...The Desktop
When your desktop appears, the first thing you notice is... there's practically nothing on it. There's a cool-looking translucent trash can in the lower right corner (a rather more Mac-like position than in previous Windows releases), a redesigned taskbar at the bottom (mostly blue, with a 3-D shaded look and a green "Start" button, which, when you think about it, makes perfect sense) and, if one had been previously selected, a desktop pattern. Allchin notes that you can, if you prefer, show icons (My Computer, My Documents, etc.) or store any files you want on the desktop. But the radically redesigned Start menu is where the real action is. In an attempt to simplify things, the menu lists your commonly used applications in an easy-to-access area. The control panel is simplified and organized into more manageable groups. Little-used applications are hidden from view, until a click reveals them. The Start menu itself is much larger, presenting information without scrolling or submenu-hopping.

When a window is opened, you begin to notice the many small but not insignificant user interface changes that comprise "Luna," the new GUI of Windows XP. Windows have slightly rounded edges and subtle, true-colour icons and shading effects. The buttons and other window controls are all in familiar places, but have a pleasing and -- dare we say it? -- somewhat Mac OS X-inspired luminescent quality. Hovering the mouse over the close window icon causes it to glow red. Selection rectangles are a translucent colour, blue by default. No longer is there a three-pixel "dead space" below buttons in the taskbar.

And, when you start to work with the system, you soon see that the interface and taskbar improvements are more than superficial. Ever opened up several browser windows in Windows 9x or Windows 2000 and then tried to make sense of the page titles listed in the taskbar? Not an easy thing to do. Do this in Windows XP and after a second or two, the documents reassemble themselves into a neat pop-up menu in the taskbar above the application to which they belong. Mac OS X users loved this feature when Apple showed it off in January, and we think Windows users will appreciate it, too. David Coursey, executive editor for ZD Anchordesk, says, "I think Microsoft has finally beat the Apple Macintosh for ease-of-use." Wishful thinking? Read on.....

Task-oriented Design
Allchin focused on four areas where Windows XP shines: Photos, Music, Video and Remote Assistance. Not surprisingly, considering his stature as a jazz/fusion musician of some renown, he started with a demonstration of several significant enhancements to Windows Media Player. Media Player 8 is superficially similar looking to the 7.0 release, but with some nice improvements. The menubar can be hidden, for a more aesthetically pleasing, non-rectangular consumer-appliance style player. The icons along the side (Now Playing, Media Guide, Media Library, etc.) can now be hidden completely. The player has a cleaner blue and silver look that's much nicer than the drab gray default skin of MP7.

Other Media Player improvements include a Find function that can search for categories of music for playing, burning to CD or downloading to a portable player. The player now downloads so-called metadata in the background, to bring background information on artists to the screen transparently and without manual intervention. A "Buy Music Online" link provides a (presumably sponsor-driven) online shopping capability. And, of course, there are wild new skins to play around with.

Also interesting are new media-savvy enhancements to the Explorer shell. Now, when you select an MP3 or WMA audio file in a window, the options to play, burn to CD and so on are displayed right onscreen in a task palette on the left side of the window. (And, presumably, still available as a pop-up context menu by right-clicking.) The Internet-enabled CD player automatically grabs song titles and artist data from the online CDDB CD Database. Folder icons of "ripped" CDs in the My Music directory automatically gain an icon showing their respective album covers.

Windows Media Player 8 will require an optional, extra-cost MP3 Creation Pack in order to support encoding to MP3 as well as Microsoft's proprietary WMA standard. No big deal, considering the vast number of MP3 encoders already on the market, but a nice enhancement, nonetheless.

Video
DVD playback is simplified, with movies now appearing directly in the Media Player window, as opposed to previous releases, which bundled a separate DVD Player. However, you still require a DVD codec or hardware decoder card to be installed. We tested it with PowerDVD 3.0. Microsoft will offer an extra-cost DVD Decoder pack, based on DVD decoder technology from CyberLink, InterVideo and/or Ravisent. Movies, too, automatically download metadata in the background to provide movie buffs with additional information on the production. Apparently, this data persists on the local machine even when not connected to the Net.

Cameras and Scanners
The Cameras and Scanners wizard in Windows Me turns up in Windows XP, with a few neat improvements. Images are automatically pulled from a supported camera (we saw it demonstrated with a USB-connected Kodak unit) and displayed -- remarkably quickly -- in thumbnail format on-screen. As in the Windows Me edition, images can be zoomed, rotated and so on, but there are a couple of new options, too: a slideshow feature complements the thumbnail mode for those wanting to show off their images and a new "email this image" function invokes a wizard that offers to compress big files for easier emailing.

There's also a feature that allows you to automatically upload the images to the Internet, via the built-in Web server in Windows XP, and another that enables you to order prints over the Internet. All of these features are ho-hum to those who already know how to do this stuff, but may be a boon to beginners. But the big change is in the printing feature: A Photo Printing Wizard can automatically format images in a variety of multiple-images-per-page formats and print them directly from the desktop shell -- ideal for printing a batch of wallet-size photos, contact sheets or other popular formats. This will save almost anyone time, plain and simple.

Remote Assistance
Building upon the Terminal Server, NetMeeting and Remote Access capabilities it has offered for years under Windows NT and 2000, Windows XP provides a feature Microsoft calls Remote Assistance. With it, users can allow an expert to remotely connect to their computer and, if permitted, take control of the system and actually fix the problem, right over the Internet. A built-in chat mode and screen-sharing features add to the versatility of this feature, which essentially eliminates the need for a third-party utility such as pcAnywhere, Timbuktu, or AT&T's VNC. Obviously, this raises some security and privacy concerns, but Microsoft maintains that the sessions are fully encrypted and require the user to specifically allow remote access and interaction. Hackers won't be able to just waltz in and take control of your machine with this new feature. We hope.

More New Features
Not all of the features planned for Windows XP were shown off at the press event. Microsoft reportedly plans to include a feature called Credential Manager (part of the company's HailStorm initiative announced in March) to help with the increasingly complex security issues users demand. With it, the system remembers your accounts for Hotmail, MSN and Web upload directory passwords, making seamless integration with the internet a snap. A function called Dynamic Setup expands upon the Windows Update idea, promising rapid access to drivers and software updates over the Web. Microsoft says the Professional version of Windows XP will be a superset of the Home edition, with additional network capabilities, support for multiple processors and more security options.

There's also a special application compatibility mode that allows Windows XP to create an environment that simulates the operating system for which the program was designed. With it, Windows XP promises to be better able to run programs designed for Windows 95, 98 and other old releases. There will, however, be some applications that just won't run. Microsoft has wisely limited the ability to directly address the hardware in Windows NT and Windows 2000 and this feature has been brought forward and further improved with Windows XP. In XP, the OS now implements a secure driver model that won't allow uncertified drivers to be used (or, if you prefer, a suspect driver will alert you of the possible consequences and allow you to give it a try anyway). This should significantly reduce "oops I trashed my OS" type errors. In general, we found Windows XP to be compatible with most drivers and applications designed for Windows 2000. (A complete hardware compatibility list is posted on Microsoft's website.) There's also a System Restore feature, similar to that found in Windows Me, that can help you recover from errors.

The official product names are Windows XP Home Edition and Windows XP Professional. A Server version, expected in Q4 of 2001, wasn't even mentioned at the presentation, although Erik Moll, Windows Marketing Manager for Microsoft Canada, confirms that it won't bear the Windows XP moniker when it is released four to five months after the consumer versions reach retail shelves. Nor was there much information offered about the roadmap that leads to "Window.NET," currently code-named Blackcomb. Another tidbit of trivia: the company says the forthcoming Microsoft Tablet PC will require Windows XP.

The system's controversial "product activation" scheme has been a sore point for some. In case you didn't read our earlier Whistler reports, this "feature" will require you to confirm a unique product ID with Microsoft before it can be used. It's clearly intended to reduce piracy of Microsoft products, but may cause inconvenience during hardware upgrades, such as when swapping motherboards or hard drives. With that said, most legitimate users probably won't have a problem with it, and the company has already confirmed that re-registration for product purchasers who need it will be available.

Incidentally, one of the aspects of Windows product activation most people won't see pops up as an annoyance should your PC's onboard battery die or your CMOS settings change, as they might after using the "Clear CMOS" jumper on most motherboards.

When you try to boot up Windows XP, a Windows Product Activation dialog pops up, stating "You cannot log in right now because the computer time is not set correctly. Please restart the computer in safe mode." Then, in Control Panel, open Date and Time and correct the settings. Pity the poor users who can't figure out how to do this! They'll effectively be locked out of Windows XP by the copy protection system.

There are a couple of other WPA issues that could potentially cause problems for some users. Imagine, for example, that you have Windows XP upgrade problems -- not all that unlikely, really. Imagine you end up having to reinstall XP several times (which, firsthand experience suggests, may not be all that uncommon). What if you've activated it a few times before you discover some new problem? After a few activations, you'll have to call Microsoft's customer support department -- automatic internet-based installation won't work any more.

Another possible problem could occur if you forget to activate your system. We did this on one of out test systems, and found ourselves locked out of the computer.

On the plus side, Microsoft has relaxed WPA somewhat from its original, much-criticized design. Windows XP allows up to six hardware devices (hard drive, processor, motherboard, network card, etc.) to be changed without requiring reactivation; additionally, the activation system resets every 120 days, allowing another six changes every four months.

Market Factoid: Less than 10 percent of the Windows 95, 98 and corporate NT desktop computers were upgraded to Windows 2000 last year, according to Gartner.

Conclusion
Should you upgrade? At the press event, David Coursey of ZD Anchordesk raised a few chuckles from the audience when he asked Bill Gates and Jim Allchin whether this release was intended as "Windows for the inexperienced." After all, he observed, "I can already do everything you're showing me." Therein lies the challenge to Microsoft. To quote Albert Einstein, the key is to make things as simple as possible -- but not too simple. If the new capabilities are attractive, or you crave greater ease of use, better security and increased robustness from your PC, Windows XP is likely to be a worthwhile upgrade. Computer users already satisfied with Windows 2000 or Me and using other tools to accomplish the multimedia tasks that Windows XP delivers, will probably find it a case of "Windows Me2."

Beta 2 of Windows XP was officially released to beta testers on March 25; release candidate 1 was distributed beginning in early July. RC2 was released in late July and the final RTM ("Release to Manufacturing") code shipped August 24th -- exactly six years to the day after Windows 95 went on sale. The retail code shipped Oct. 25.

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For Further Reading
Microsoft: www.microsoft.com/windowsxp (including screenshots)
For a comprehensive look at the development process of Windows XP, see "A Whistler through to XP history" at the SuperSite for Windows
For more screenshots, see our image gallery or Paul Thurrot's reports on the SuperSite for Windows.
Report: Wireless Windows XP
Windows XP: Clean Install or Upgrade?
Windows XP Tech Tips

IT Library

The Techno Zone

User Account

Windows XP

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