Should You Set Your Sights on Windows XP

Microsoft's Windows XP has received a fair amount of hype in the lead up to its release-Matt Lake and Josh Mehlman assess its usefulness for businesses.

After a build up of Hollywood proportions, Microsoft has released its final cut of Windows XP. PC makers received final code at the end of September, and you'll be able to pick up your own copy from October 25, although some vendors will most likely release systems with XP pre-installed before that date.

So is XP worth all the hype? Grudgingly, we say yes. This major upgrade at long last ends the distinction between the corporate (and more stable) Windows NT/2000 and the consumer-oriented Windows 95/98/Millennium. XP provides similar variations of the same OS for both low-end and business: XP Home and XP Professional editions. On the outside, XP looks radically different from any previous Windows version. It's spiffier, with both aesthetic and functional redesigns, and features log-in screens across both versions-something many Windows 95/98 users have never seen.

Like any radical overhaul, XP takes some getting used to-we often lost patience with it-but, after time, it's hard not to like the new design. While its new, hand-holding "task-oriented" design may annoy experienced users, Microsoft nevertheless managed to create an OS that works equally well for novices, corporate users, and enthusiasts. Despite hefty system requirements (a Pentium II-300 or faster, 128MB of RAM, and 1.5GB of free disk space), onerous product activation, and some not-so-obvious touting of Microsoft's business partners, you'll want to consider an upgrade-if not immediately, certainly the next time you buy a PC. For corporate desktops, administrators will find compelling reasons to upgrade, and even to bypass Windows 2000 entirely.

Product activation and interface
Installing Windows XP will involve less guesswork than previous versions. Microsoft is releasing a compatibility checker called Upgrade Advisor that you can download or get on CD from computer retailers. The Advisor checks system-level software and hardware drivers against a database of compatible products and warns you of any possible problems with your configuration. This is a handy feature, and one that can download an updated list of compatible products when you run it, if you allow it to.

We did encounter some compatibility problems with a few standard-configuration PCs only a couple of months old (modem enumerator software, virus checkers, and Roxio's DirectCD and rollback software GoBack were all flagged as problems). But after uninstalling some apps and getting updated versions of others, the operating system did install OK. (While this was a nuisance, it beat the Windows 2000 experience of installing an operating system and losing hardware altogether.)

Activate me
If you've ever upgraded a Windows OS, you're probably used to entering a lengthy CD key, or code, to install new Microsoft software. But if you buy XP off the shelf, you'll go through another compulsory step called activation. Most PC vendors who preinstall XP will have completed this task for you, and versions bought under corporate site licenses don't need to be activated. Activation isn't the same as registration (which asks you to provide personal info to Microsoft), but you must complete activation within 30 days of installation, or the OS will stop working. While we understand the intent, it's a slightly annoying roadblock.

Expensive extra licenCes
The activation antipiracy step prevents you from installing XP on more than one computer, and it's a bit of a nuisance, especially if you don't have an Internet connection set up. Online activation is painless, but the telephone method takes 10 minutes or longer and involves reading and typing about 100 digits. The activation scheme checks the IDs of 10 different hardware components to create a special code for your PC. If your hard drive dies or you change your network interface card or reconfigure more than five of these components in your system, you'll have to reactivate your copy of XP. Reactivation is a relatively painless process in which you must call Microsoft, explain your situation, and get a new activation number-not difficult, but it could prove annoying.

Under the bonnet
Under XP's prettier face, the new OS sports a set of godsends that Microsoft calls PC Health features, rewritten since their Windows Me introduction. There's a rollback feature called System Restore that takes XP's system state back to a previous date in the event of some catastrophic problem, which is akin to, but not as thorough as, Roxio GoBack. There are also two new features to prevent device driver disasters. Microsoft maintains a list of known defective drivers and if one is installed, it won't work and a dialog will tell you why the driver wasn't installed. There's a driver rollback feature, too. Whenever you install a new driver, Windows keeps a copy of the old driver, and if something goes wrong, it's easy to roll back to the original.

XP's new Help And Support feature is easier to navigate. It features shorter topic lists that expand as you click them, instead of reams of task-driven help topics, and includes close links to the Microsoft Knowledge Base and online support, Windows Update, and other tools. We put three questions to three versions of Windows-Me, 2000, and XP-and found that XP's help was generally easier to understand, especially compared to Windows 2000's.