The release of Microsoft`s Windows XP into the waiting arms of the masses is upon us. By now most should have had a glimpse of one of the betas or release candidates - if not a hands-on experience then at least a televised version.
I`ve played with the operating system since beta one, and had a fair amount of experience with build 2526 of Windows XP Professional. Release to manufacture, or build 2600, is what will be appearing in a store near you, although I only had about one week of playing with the final version before the public release.
Users upgrading to the new system from Windows 2000 will not find the leap into the new system as large as the transition from 98 or NT 4 to 2000. Built on the Windows 2000 kernel, the guts of the XP operating system are the same as W2K, similar to the difference between Windows 95 and Windows 98. But the facade is completely fresh - resembling Windows ME more than its Windows 2000 origins.
Users migrating from Windows 98 or ME to XP Home Edition will probably be most surprised by the system`s stability, thanks to the Windows 2000 cornerstone. Other features that will impress the previously disadvantaged home user include the system`s fail-safes to make sure users can`t irreparably damage the OS, as well as the excellent help and walkthroughs that far surpass previous Microsoft operating systems.
The good
The help and walkthroughs are extremely impressive. The first step is the Windows XP Tour, which offers a concise and well-produced guide of the new features for experienced users, as well as an excellent primer for beginners.
The help files are also layered in complexity, allowing the more experienced users to dig deeper to find out more information about the operating system, or to help the techies resolve the harder-to-reach problems.
For the more technically inclined, most of the safe-guards protecting the average user from him or herself can be turned off to avoid irritation. For the average user, however, Windows XP offers more control over a machine in a simpler manner than previous versions of Microsoft operating systems.
The bad
While Windows XP may be more stable, easier, and simpler to use than anything the boys at Redmond have managed to deliver before, it is certainly not without its bugs and problems. The system is capable of recovering more gracefully from most application failures than Windows 95 or 98, allowing the user to kill the offending application without facing the Blue Screen of Death, although total system failure is not unavoidable. A user won`t have to hit the reboot button on the front of the box quite so often, but the occasional hard reboot may still be in order.
There also seems to be a bug with the user profiles - now revamped to allow swapping from one profile to another without logging off. I was able to replicate a bug I discovered back in build 2526 in the final version which results in the complete loss of one profile directory, effectively destroying that profile`s My Documents folder, wiping out the profile`s mailbox, losing all settings, and killing all files stored on the desktop folder. Backups are evidently not a thing of the past.
There is also the risk that some older applications will not run properly on Windows XP. However, compared to Windows 2000, I found that some of the apps that had problems with the W2K environment ran perfectly on Windows XP. According to Microsoft, XP was tweaked to get around some of the incompatibilities Windows 2000 faced with older apps.
Windows XP also checks if any of the apps face a potential incompatibility problem, and allows you to download new versions if it knows of an app that could have compatibility issues. Mediamatics DVDExpress was picked up on my test machine as needing an upgrade.
XP is packed with new applications and tools, including Internet Explorer 6, Windows Media Player 8, MSN Explorer and Windows Movie Maker.
New features
IE 6 seems to suffer from some bugs as well as some strange configuration options. First of all, the security is very tight - a surprise considering it comes from Microsoft. While the default security settings allow you to surf in safety, I found that the high level of security stopped me from connecting to Absa`s Internet banking facility and - strangely - Microsoft`s Windows XP Update site. To use these services, I had to add the sites to IE`s trusted sites list.
Microsoft, obviously valuing hits more than bandwidth, has dropped the old "Error 404" page when an incorrect URL is typed, rerouting the surfer to its own search engine to help you find what you are looking for. While this rates high on the convenience factor, it is a bit presumptuous of Microsoft to use typos to garner hits, and one has to wonder whether Redmond is storing all of this information for later analysis of where people are surfing to.
There`s also a bug that Microsoft should have spotted, which causes the header of the page to not change from "Cannot find server" to the correct page header when refresh is hit.
Media Player 8 is pretty snazzy, and even changes its shape and style when new Windows XP themes are applied. Microsoft has cottoned on that its own WMA audio file system is not going to overthrow the MP3 format any time soon, and MP3s are now not treated as secondary citizens in the Windows environment. MP3 support has even found its way into Windows Explorer, allowing the user to sort music by genre, artist, or any other MP3 meta data in the directory listing.
Windows Explorer has a lot of cool new features beyond the MP3 support, including better picture preview, a peak into image directories without having to open them, and the bigger icons for newbies with eye-to-cursor coordination problems.
Experience XP
The good and bad mentioned in this review are just a foretaste of the new features users can expect from Windows XP. The new look-and-feel won`t suit everyone`s taste, and some folks privy to the OS before release date have already gone back to the familiar Windows 2000 environment. Windows XP is not bug-free, and users should not expect a quantum leap in computing, no matter what Microsoft`s marketing department tells them.
One reviewer commented, quite perceptively, that: "Windows XP is what Microsoft wanted to release with Windows 2000, but didn`t have the time to put it all in."
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