Other 'Features'
Everything in the new Windows is blue, and I like it. All the
new icons, the desktop, the taskbar, are all really, really cool
in my own opinion. If you don't like them you can turn all of
it off, and go back to the old grey and blue windows.
The Start Menu has been radically redesigned, and I have to say I like it. I'm not quite sure how windows picks programs to go onto that list on the left, but the easy access to control panel and my documents is really handy.
All of the interface changes can be changed back to good old windows, which could come in useful if you're a long time user and can't get out of your old habits. System Restore makes a comeback in XP, though it's mercifully easy to disable! Driver rollback is another feature with questionable usefullness. Basically it allows you to return to the previously installed drivers after an update. I'm sure someone out there will find it helpful, but I sure didnt. There's IE6 (nothing special) Windows Media Player 8 (with high bitrate MP3 encoding) and a new version of MSN Messenger, nothing to write home about (but who really writes home about their computer?).
There's an updated Network Setup Wizard, which makes setting up or connecting your PC to a home network stupidly easy. You just put in your computer name, the workgroup name and whether you would like to share your internet connection and you're off. XP Pro also has an option called 'Simple File Sharing'. It basically removes Win2k's Permissions tab, and replaces it with 2 options. Do you want to share this folder, and do you want to allow user to change your files. While this may be useful for newbies, I found it annoying, and the setting is hidden towards the bottom of folder options, and it took me a while to find it. GRR. Anwyay, after disabling everything is back to normal. So now I can prevent fools from deleting my 600megs of Britney pics... I mean uhh, important work files.
There are however, other more useful features. First of all, integrated zip support. While not being the most feature-packed zip program, it's perfect for your average user. You can create and extract Zip files, however there is little control over the methods or levels of compression when creating a zip file. There is also integrated CD Burning. Once again, it is not an incredibly complex program, but for simple, write this data to CD tasks, it's excellent. The inclusion of these services is obviously a plus for the average user. Obviously these programs will not replace their proffesional counterparts (such as WinZip or Nero), but they may remove the need of them for your new or average user.
An interesting new feature is Remote Assistance. Basically, it enables Administrators or Invited users to take control of a system, as if they were at the machine itself. You can invite users by email, or using MSN Messenger. Obviously the person you're inviting to help you must be running some version of XP. You see the desktop and control the mouse and keyboard. You can chat with the person you're helping at the same time. This 'feature' raises a few issues. How hard can it be for an '3r33t h4x0r' to hack this program, enabling them to take control of a system without being invited to? hmmmmmmm. It can be easily disabled however, in system properties.
Realising that the number of people out there with always-on net connections (DSL, Cable) is growing, Microsoft has finally included a firewall solution in Windows. It's fairly basic, but it'll do the job, and will allow internet user to access certain defined services on your PC orhome network. This firewall solution is available on both Cable/DSL and dial-up connections. As always, ICS (Internet Connection Sharing) is included, and works as well as ever, unless of course you have a satellite connection like me. But i works perfectly for DSL/Cable and normal dial-up connections.
Among the aesthetic changes to XP is grouped applications. As you can see in the screenshot, all instances of the same application are grouped together if the taskbar is reasonably full. For some apps, this is great, but I found it annoying in when browsing in IE, as it take a while to read and pick which window you are going to, as opposed to just clicking the next window in the taskbar. It may sound weird, but you'll know what I mean if you try it.
Activation - Microsoft's
Biggest Mistake Ever?
Ahh, Activation. Yes it's really going to be part of Windows XP,
even though everyone thinks its an evil stupid idea. Basically,
XP generates a key for your PC, based upon its hardware configuration.
When you activate XP, you send this ID with your CD key, and MS
records it. HardOCP has an interesting article about it here. We are assured that upgrading our hardware
will not mean we have to phone up MS and explain to them the problem
just so we can get Windows working. Sure, I'll believe it when
I see it. Now I have no problems with companies like Microsoft
wanting to get paid for every copy of Windows out there, but in
my (and sever other people's I expect) opinion the Product Activation
scheme is not the best way to go about it.
Anyway, now there are these REALLY annoying popups that appear every 5 seconds telling you that if you don't activate windows in x days your house will explode, so I got rid of them. Bad Idea. Between school and finishing D2-Lord of Destruction, I totally forgot about activation. So, when I booted up my PC, 15 days after install, and tried to login, I got a nice little message along the lines of 'You have not activated Windows, you must activate it blah blah blah'. In the interests of this article, I decided to see what you could do while deactivated. Clicking no at this prompt takes you back to the login screen, where you can either try to login again (same msg) or shut down. Booting into any mode, other than Safe Mode (that includes Safe Mode with Network Support) gets you that message. You can however, use vanilla safe mode. That means you can still copy files and change stuff when you're de-activated. I suppose you could even use Window's basic features forever in safe mode. But I quickly tired of safe mdoe, and activated my copy of windows electronically, a perfectly painless process. It was however, a little unnerving to be sending MS info about my machine, when you've been led to believe that MS is satan.
Now, Agg asked me to test WPA, by changing my hardware config. Well a search thru the house turned up an old 250meg HDD, an old 2Mb S3 vid card, an old SB16 Sound Card and an ancient 10Mb SMC Network Card. I took out all my hardware save my MX and rebooted, no worries. Added the old HDD, no worries. Added Network Card, fine. Changed to the old vid card, no worries (well it took me a while to get it going before i realized it wasn't gunna handle 1024x768x32 too well :) ). Then I added the old sound card. For the numerically challenged, thats 4 pieces of new hardware after I activatd XP. When I tried to log in I got a little pop-up box kindly telling me to re-activate windows! Grrrr. Take it all out put my old stuff back in, still need to activate it. Bugger. So I rang the NZ toll free number. Then it was a few minutes worth of talking to some guy and telling him my CD key, then I was issued with a new one and I was sweet. No Hassles. Now, that's just fine for me, then only time I'm ever gunna change my config that drastically is a full system overhaul, which unfortunately doesn't occur that often, but think of the poor companies that have 100s of PCs to upgrade. Hopefully MS has kept that in mind and will have some option for the poor IT Managers.
In the time I've been writing this, there have been numerous breakthroughs in analysing the Activation scheme, and I'm sure most of you have read the article about the russians that practically cracked it. I reckon we can expect the Activation scheme to get far tougher, and much, much harder to crack as we near release day. We'll see how long it takes for the final scheme to be cracked after release. I reckon a month at the most. There's more info here and here.
Conclusion:
All in all, I love XP. It's got a lot to do with the blue scheme
and the new aesthetics, but its just so stable! It runs like Win2k
and looks better than the 'Home' versions of Windows. A few things
have been a little too dumbed down for my liking. As this is supposedly
the Professional release, you would expect the more advanced features
(eg, the Permissions tab) to be enabled by default. I don't particularly
like System Restore, but I suppose it can be easily disabled.
Unfortunately Low Disk Space alert is back, and I still haven't
found a way to get rid of it. Apart from a few minor niggles,
XP is rock solid. This is an impressive feat for a program thats
still a few releases from the Final Version! DOn't expect any
major changes in RC2 and the final release, I expect most of the
changes over the next few months will mostly be bug fixing.
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