If the state of application compatibility for Windows XP clients is in its infancy, app compatibility for the various Whistler server betas is embryonic. That fact, more than almost anything else, is a guarantee that Microsoft won't ship the 32-bit or 64-bit version of Windows 2002 until 2002, according to testers working with the beta builds of the product.
Microsoft announced officially earlier this week that it is christening the various Whistler server builds as "Windows 2002." The company has been saying since earlier this year that its Whistler server products would follow its Windows XP client products to the market by several months.
While various Microsoft partners and industry watchers have speculated that the company is running late on its Windows XP clients, citing schedule alleged to have leaked to the Web from within Microsoft as proof. Microsoft itself is still targeting this summer as the date it plans to release its Windows XP Home and Professional clients for manufacture.
According to Microsoft's most current internal release schedule, a copy of which was viewed by Ziff Davis, Microsoft is planning to release its Windows XP clients to manufacturing on July 25th.
At the same time, according to the internal schedule, Microsoft is targeting July 2nd as a tentative date to release a third beta of its 32-bit and 64-bit Windows 2002 server products. The latest RTM (release to manufacturing) date for those operating system is now January 23, 2002, the schedule reads.
What's not working
Why is Windows 2002 lagging Windows XP by six months at the moment? Testers working with Beta 2 releases of the Windows 2002 server iterations (Server, Advanced Server and Datacenter Server) note that--just as in the case of the client--application compatibility is a problem.
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