Take The eXPerience In A Few Months Time (Microsoft Windows XP (Whistler))

Member Name: mdstone

Product:	Microsoft Windows XP (Whistler)
Date:	20/03/02 (706 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Faster, More stable, User security

Disadvantages: not yet fully compatible , expensive

I recently installed Windows XP Professional on my PC and I would like to share with other Ciao members my opinions on this latest version of Microsoft's operating system.

Microsoft have gone into a lot of trouble to stop people from making illegal copies of this software by putting an activation policy into it, whereby you not only have to have a valid product key, but you also need to connect to Microsoft's server and register your copy directly. A code will then be sent back to you so that you can use it to activate the software.

Rummor has it that an insider of Microsoft uploaded the product code onto the Internet before the activation policy could be iterigated into the software. So now we have lots of illegal copies of Windows XP floating around that are able to by-pass the product activation stage. A big slap in the face for Bill Gates no doubt!

First things first, I would not reccommend to anyone who currently has Windows 98 to install XP over the top of this, as I tried this and got a 'blue screen of death' halfway through installation and then second time round after install, it continually crashed with an extended memory error every time it got to the desktop.
This required me to format my hard drive and start from fresh. I did this by putting Windows ME on first and putting XP over the top of this, as I could not install XP from DOS.
Just to warn you that it took me an hour and a half to install XP on my PC with a 400mhz processor, so be prepared to grab yourself a cup of tea and return about an hour later.

Before you start, here's the system requirements:


PC with 300mhz or higher processor
Clock speed recommended; 233mhz minimum required (single or dual processor system); Intel Pentium/Celeron family, or AMD K6/Athlon/Duron family, or compatible processor

128MB of RAM or higher recommended (64 MB minimum supported; may limit performance and some features)


1.5GB of available hard disk space

Super VGA (800 × 600) or higher-resolution video adapter and monitor

CD-ROM or DVD drive

Keyboard and Microsoft Mouse or compatible pointing device


Once installed, the product itself is very stlyish and different. For a start, there is much more colour added to this version than previous and it also looks chunky in places. They say it looks like a kids program and I would have to say they would be about 95% right.
The best thing about XP has to be multiple users, as you can create different accounts for each person who uses your PC, without changing any of another person's settings. You can also stay logged in with one user and then log into another by switching users and therefore keeping two lots of applications running simutaniously.
A good little feature is that every user is assigned with a thumnial picture next to their name, which also happens to show you how many current unread e-mails you have (hotmail), by use of what is called a .Net passport.

With earlier versions of Windows it was possible for anyone to by-pass the Windows login by pressing 'cancel' and gaining access to your PC in read only mode. XP make's sure that if you dont know the password, then you can't get in. You are also able to create an NTFS file system on your drives as opposed to FAT or FAT32, which can increase security measures by restricting access to folders, making them invisible to users other than the primary PC user. We saw this on Windows NT and 2000, but XP has the added feature of being able to read all these file types.

I don't think any system is complete without having WinZip installed on it, but with XP there is no need beacause it has the ability to see inside zip files without having to download external software.
As standard, XP comes with Windows media player, MSN messenger and Internet Explorer 6.0. The latter, is probab
ly the only one which has some major differences, as it has extra security features to stop sites gaining information about your PC by extended use of cookies.

From what I have seen so far, it seems to be the case that XP is certainly the operating system for customisation. You can do absoloutely everything with it, from completely re-shuffling your taskbar and start menu, to organising the appearance and the way you look at files on your PC.
I can certainly say the appearance of XP is so different that you will be lost trying to move around your PC. Luckily you don't have to get used to these settings, as you can convert back to a previous Windows version style of browsing.

The only bad thing about XP at the moment is that some software like Norton 2001, Symantec Ghost and Easy CD Creator 5 to name but a few are incompatable. However, by the time most of you convert to XP all sofware will be more or less compatable by 2002. All companies are currently making sure that their latest products are able to work on this version.

One other problem I had was with my hardware. I think XP does not configure your hardware as good as previous versions. I say this because it was unable to properly pick up my second hard disk and made it inaccessable. When i tried to activate it inside the disk administrator feature it became an uknown file type and I ended up having to format 30gb of my data that I had built up over the past year, which I was very anoyed about.

Microsoft seem to have got it right with this one with regards to reliability. If a program were to crash, then instead of haulting other applications and your PC as a whole, you can stop the current troublesome application and continue running Windows without the need for the three finger solute (ctrl, alt & del).

Overall though, its probably, worth a shot in a few months time when everything is compatable, but dont go out rushing to buy this product too soon.

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