Lauded as the most significant change to Microsoft’s PC operating system since Windows ’95, Windows XP is the most inviting invigorated version yet, replete with abundant utility for the pro and the propellerhead, draped in gracious user-friendliness for the novice and the newbie.
The Graphic User Interface (GUI) for Windows has endured a lavish make-over – and we’re talking Oprah-calibre, Trailer Park Trash to Princess of Monaco marvellousness. Set with a default “Theme” of soft colour schemes, framed by curvaceous contours and peppered with cute icons and cuddly buttons, the mere look of XP makes computer usage seem about as daunting as cotton candy.
Within this warm and inviting layout lies another Windows’ innovation, the sensible arrangement of computer tasks and file stores in logical, intuitive groupings. It would appear that Microsoft has come to understand the modern computer user and what it has come to expect a modern computer to do. Moreover, Microsoft seems cognizant of the fact that the “modern” computer user demographic ranges from the Ma and Pa Kettle set to the avid Alpha Geeks re-inventing the function of the mouse trap; from the FW:FW:e-mail mogul to the cyber musicologist ripping CDs faster than you can say “vinyl-has-its-merits.”
Everything within the gorgeous GUI has a function within its form. The “Start” menu is no longer just a list of files and applications within a pop-up window; it’s more like a table of contents mapping out both the abilities of the computer and the content of the user stored therein. The Start menu is now sectioned into common computer activities, folders full of similar files and tasks of similar function, all neatly sub-sectioned by menu headings, sub-menus and sub-headings.
Want to look at your pictures? You’re one click away from your “My Pictures” folder, now a denizen unto itself, because digital imaging has proven itself a preferred pre-occupation for most users. Further, right from that folder XP offers a variety of one-touch tasks: view a picture, view them all like a slide-show, pull some off a digital camera, off a scanner (off the TV if so equipped); edit that picture; print it, e-mail it to Ma and Pa Kettle or rip the whole folder to a CD-R or up it to the Kettle Family website.
With this same point & click simplicity, XP integrates most every function with related functions, often automating what is otherwise a tetchy, lost-in-popup, navigational-splattergun ordeal. Within the new Windows Media Player, for example, one can listen to, sort, edit, archive and burn-to-CD music and movies and other multimedia all within one application. Similarly, in Windows Messenger, one can text message, voice chat or video conference with the click of a button (and all those services are free, innately, Internet connection fees notwithstanding). Basically, XP is so effortlessly empowering it’s otherwise the stuff of science-fiction.
XP intends to make a sit-down at the computer as natural an event as talking on the telephone, channel surfing on the TV, using Interac at the check-out stand; the technology involved need not be understood, just easily employed, and there it is.
Of course, as effortless as XP makes it all look, Microsoft has gone to great lengths to make it all work with remarkable precision.
Built on the WindowsNT/2000 architecture, the world standard by which most business computers operate, XP is a pro and power-user calibre operating system hiding in Saturday afternoon clothing. While it’s made to look cuddly and squishy, painless and undemanding for the user, XP is no less robust than that which the career computer user would demand-in fact, it’s more so.
XP is offered in both a Home Edition and a Professional Edition but at the core it’s the same, supercharged wonder software – the latter version just has a few extra tycoon-class functions not really vital in the home-use environment. And while Win98 and 2000Pro are completely different and otherwise incompatible operating systems, XP combines the function of both, is compatible with thousands of components and software (the popular and/or crucial stuff, obviously) already on the market and otherwise exclusive to one earlier operating system or the other. XP is even smart enough to fake its identity (to 9x, 2000 or even DOS) when retro, uncommon or obsolete components and drivers are otherwise required. If compatibility is really an issue, XP simply won’t allow user to put diesel in the gas tank; wait until a better driver is developed or upgrade the obviously inept component.
Where crash-inducing conflicts were a common conundrum with elder version of Windows, XP utilises the ubiquitous “Windows Update” with exacting deftness. It will now also carry drivers, patches and software updates from most third party (non-Microsoft) developers, sift through individual PCs via Internet connection and find errant, dated or missing software in its central database, download and install it. Currently – or previously, as it were – such files and fixes used to float aimlessly on many a wayward websites while assuming the user had the smarts and the patience to find the little debuggers, download them and install them. Through XP, Windows Update is finally doing what its appellation always implied: It keeps your Windows PC up-to-date, easy as Ma Kettle’s sugar pie…
Windows XP, Home and Pro included, apparently outperforms all earlier versions of Windows in both speed and stability, and bench tests by respected third parties* would seem to confirm that fact. In my short, 7-day test run of the retail version (I’ve also fiddled with earlier “test” versions of XP) the eXPerience was, in fact, delightfully stable. Moreover, the rare moments of instability (it’s not perfect; locked up in a serious Unreal Tournament deathmatch, darn it) were not the disasters that they might have been, thanks to XP’s multifarious recovery system(s).
However, XP ran notably slower on my PC than it purports (slower than WinMe, as it happens). That said, I’ve been meaning to add more RAM for a while now, for while my machine’s processor exceeds the recommended CPU speed (300MHz) by almost four times, I have a mere 128 MB of RAM, Microsoft’s recommended (with caveats, see chart) amount but obviously not enough to maximize XP’s potential. As a general rule, regardless, PC users are wise to double or triple any software maker’s specification “recommendations” and just snort knowingly at those ludicrously inapt “minimum PC requirements” – same applies with XP.
There is one common lament to XP that can only be considered a “downside” as such because of the status quo. That is to say: as always, Microsoft expects users to purchase and install XP on exactly one computer. Until now, it was easy enough to install Windows on both your desktop PC and, say, your laptop …maybe the spare clunker in the rec room too, while logically assuming that if you are the only user, why not “use” that one Operating System on other computers, because you can only sit at “one” computer at a time (but heck, might as well install a copy on Aunt Ruth’s PC, for all she uses it – and lawnmower-loaning neighbour Bob needs a fresh install on his machine, and you did break his Skil saw…). With computers, the Internet, and Telecommunications being what they are today, that single-user assumption is archaic.
Windows XP must be “activated” before it will run (or it will stop after 30 days) and doing so also forever binds the copy to that single PC (component changes/upgrades notwithstanding). Sound like a money-grab? No more than has ever been, and no more than the lack of doggie bags at all-you-can-eat buffets. Read the user agreement for any previous version, it’s always been the case (to one extent or other.) With “Activation,” Microsoft has merely decided to forgo the honour system. Microsoft does offer a meagre discount on a second XP purchase for families with a second computer in the house.
So on that note, XP Home Edition is truly a step up, a true and worthy “upgrade” to Windows 98/Me (not Win95) and a total relief to users always a little trepidatious about computer use. It’s widely available in new, pre-fab computers, which most likely come with an optimal component configuration to make for a genuinely luxurious “Out of the Box” experience. Building one’s own computer or otherwise requiring a clean install of XP is going to cost you almost double that of WindowsMe (Full Version) and if you’re building to a budget, you’d be penny-wise to wait – XP is definitely the better Windows, but Me isn’t exactly broken, either.
As for XP Professional, well, it is, indeed, a significant upgrade… However, I’ve not had the chance to give XP, either of the versions, a vigorous shakedown; I’m not ready to say one way or the other how rock solidly superior, rock ‘n rolled-up the Pro really is. These are only first impressions, after all. Digital Journal is already on the case, obviously, and we’ll have a fully scorched, benched and pressed assessment of XP in our next issue.
