A look at the final beta of Windows XP "Whistler"
Clearly, Windows XP is the most important operating system release since Windows 95. And it's not just because this release includes the first major user interface (UI) change since then, though that's certainly one of the more obvious changes. No, Windows XP has been updated, tweaked, improved, and massaged from top to bottom, in order to create an OS that is equally useful for new users, typical home users, power users, and business desktops. Surprisingly, even its current beta form, Windows XP is a major success across the board, and it's an upgrade that's easy to recommend for almost any type of user, given some system requirement caveats (more on that later). Regardless of the Windows version you're using today, you're going to want Windows XP.
Before we proceed, I recommend reading through my extensive Showcase articles about this product, where I discuss a number of the key technologies that make this release special. In these Technology Showcases, I present behind-the-scenes looks at...
Given all of the information in these showcases, this review will focus on the changes, improvements, and new features in Windows XP Home Edition and Professional Edition, discussing where these features succeed and fail. Note that this review was written based on over a month of hands-on experience with several pre-Beta 2 builds, and I verified this information against latest pre-Beta 2 build before publication. Not much changed between my first introduction to the "Luna" user interface on February 5th and the release of Beta 2 on March 23, 2001, but I will be looking closely at Beta 2 and post-Beta 2 builds in the coming weeks. I installed Windows XP numerous times on several different machines, each with it's own unique add-ons and capabilities. I really gave this OS the complete run-through, and have been using it day-to-day for over six weeks at the time of this writing. I've taken it on cross-country trips, and threw every conceivable software package at it, including some ancient DOS games I haven't looked at in years.
Here's what I've found out about Windows XP Beta 2.
Installing Windows XP Beta 2
For the end user, there are three primary Windows XP Setup scenarios. In the most common, the user will receive Windows XP with a new PC and be required to complete a small portion of Setup, called the Out Of Box Experience (OOBE). The second most common Setup scenario is an existing Windows user that needs to upgrade to Windows XP; this version of Windows supports upgrades from Windows 98, 98 SE, Millennium Edition (Me), NT 4.0, and 2000. And finally, some users will choose to install Windows XP "clean," by wiping out an existing Windows install, or buying a new hard drive, and installing Windows XP manually.
The Windows XP Out Of Box Experience is painfully similar to that in Windows Me, with the same annoying Wizard character. Thankfully, it's also short, though it now incorporates the dreaded Windows Product Activation (WPA) process that we've all read so much about, if it determines that you're connected to the Internet. If you are not connected to the Net, you will need to activate Windows XP manually. And make no mistake,(networking geeks need not fear; you can, of course, set this up manually). Windows XP also includes a basic Internet Connection Firewall (ICF), which gives individuals at least some measure of protection against hacker intrusions.
For mobile users that bring a system home from work, a new feature in Windows XP makes it easy to configure a single network card with two network configurations. In Windows 2000, this would have required a manual change every time the system was brought online in a new environment, but Windows XP will auto-detect the environment and use the appropriate profile. This was one of the most eagerly sought-after features in Windows 2000, and it's nice to see Microsoft finally implementing it.
New deals with Ofoto and Kodak allow you to connect to these online photo printing services--through the Explorer shell, no less--and order prints of digital images stored on your hard drive (Figure).
