Microsoft's newest operating system, Windows XP, was sent off to manufacturing on Aug. 24 in a maelstrom of criticism. To hear detractors tell it, XP will eliminate competition in the software industry and wipe out all vestiges of personal privacy. To be sure, Microsoft (MSFT
) has brought these troubles upon itself. For example, it picked a pointless and losing fight with Eastman Kodak (EK
), which complained Microsoft had rigged Windows to favor Microsoft's picture-handling software over Kodak's.
Something very important has been lost in the noise, however. XP is the most significant Microsoft product for consumers and small business since Windows 95 was released six years ago. With XP, Microsoft finally leaves behind the 20-year-old legacy of MS-DOS and builds instead on the much more solid foundation of the business-oriented Windows NT and 2000. And where networking was always a function grafted onto Windows 95 and its progeny, XP is built from the ground up as a networking operating system. An XP computer expects to be hooked up to a network, even if it's only a dial-up connection to the Internet. The payoff is especially great for laptops used in more than one networking setup, say at home and in the office. For corporations that have been running Windows 2000, XP is an incremental improvement. For consumers and small businesses, it's a big deal.
The current consumer version, Windows Me, is so cranky that I have been recommending Windows 2000 to consumers and small business, even though it was designed for large enterprises and can be tricky to set up. XP promises to be much more easily managed than 2000 and much better behaved than 95, 98, or Me, although individual applications may still crash. In 95-based consumer versions, an application crash triggers a warning that your program has performed an "illegal operation" or a "fatal error" blue screen. Usually you have to reboot the computer. In XP, you simply reopen only the problem application and go on working. In fact, you may go for weeks or months without rebooting.
This stability doesn't come without a price. Some software and especially hardware that worked with Windows 98 may not function with XP. The critical issue is the special software, called "drivers," that link hardware accessories to the heart of the computer. Drivers can crash any computer, so Microsoft made XP fussy about them. Unless your device comes with drivers written for Windows 2000 or Me, it probably won't install at all. And XP objects vigorously if a setup program tries to install drivers not certified by Microsoft's Windows Hardware Quality Labs. You can override the advice and install anyway, but it's a bad idea: You may get a crash-prone setup.
The networking heart of XP is a big help here. One of the first things XP does during setup is to go out to the Internet, dialing up if necessary, and checking whether any new drivers are available. This means that even drivers that weren't ready for inclusion on the Windows XP CDs now being stamped out could automatically be added by the time the software goes on sale in October.
PLENTY OF PRIVACY. XP is a true multiuser operating system. This means, first, that applications installed on one computer generally are available to everyone else on a network. Second, members of a family--or employees of a small business--each get his or her own account. Thus, you get your own copy of My Documents, and your data are inaccessible, and invisible, to other users. You get your own preferences for programs, your own mail accounts, your own Web bookmarks, and your own desktop layout.
When you turn the computer over to a different user, your session becomes inactive and inaccessible, but your program and files remain open. When you take over again, you enter your password and the computer returns to the exact state it was in when you left. (For security reasons, this feature is not available on business computers that log into a Windows NT or Windows 2000 network.)
After months of playing with a series of test versions of Windows XP, I have just started using the final code that will be installed on new computers and be available in stores on Oct. 25. In coming weeks, I'll be taking a closer look at this important product, examining its many new features and measuring reality against Microsoft's claims. But based on what I have seen so far, XP gives consumers the best reason to upgrade that they have seen in a long time.
Copyright 2001 , by The McGraw-Hill Companies Inc. All rights reserved.
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