ePUB Illustrated — November 2001 | Are You XPerienced?

If you are a long time Windows 95, 98, or Millenium Edition user in the print publishing world, I have a pop quiz for you. What do those four phrases have in common? If your answer is "they occupy 75% of my work day" then I have news for you! On October 25th Microsoft released an upgrade to the Windows operating system called Windows XP (for experience). Windows XP seeks to revitalize your computing life with real stability and ease-of-use improvements that will keep your BSoDing-Illegal-Operating-Control-Alt-Deleted PC from giving you the fits when you are in the middle of that career making or breaking job. But did Microsoft accomplish their goals with Windows XP? Read on my rebooting friend!

9x? NT for Me!

You bought Windows 95, three years later you shelled out the dough for Windows 98, two years later it was Windows Millennium Edition, and then a few short months after that you were confronted with Windows 2000… now you are faced with another upgrade to Windows with XP. You may be questioning whether these upgrades are all necessary and to sooth that fear Microsoft has built in new features and built on top of their most stable code to bring you the best Windows experience (pardon the pun) they can.

The brains behind the XP operation is the kernel of the operating system. The kernel is what runs the show, the conductor of your computer orchestra if you will. To be frank, the Windows 95, 98, and Millennium kernels were Frankenstein's of the OS world. Microsoft basically put code from the old DOS system of typed command lines and code from Windows 3.1 into a blender and hit frappe! This monstrosity called the "9x" codebase, while successful in sales, caused blue screen frustrations for the average user.

Meanwhile, the techies in Microsoft's Redmond, Washington, headquarters had a separate version of Windows called Windows NT that was the mainstream for businesses and the server market. Windows NT, built on a more solid foundation of 32-bit code, was much more stable and did not suffer from the same instabilities that the 9x family suffered. The logical question you have probably asked yourself is "why did they dish out a 'garbage' OS to the normal user with 9x?" The answer is that the average user likes to play games, create and use digital music, and watch movies… things Windows NT was simply not designed for. Windows 9x supported all these "home" user features, albeit at a frustrating success rate for users.

Microsoft realized over the years and iterations of their OS that users wanted both "home" features and rock solid stability. Enter Windows XP! XP finally makes the merge of consumer features and professional stability yielding 9x usability and NT prowess in one package.

The Professional

All of this stability stuff sounds great to you. You have cash in hand and because of marketing hype cannot wait to start buying XP. Hold your horses! There are two versions of Windows XP and I would hate for you to buy without knowing the difference, so here goes:

Windows XP Home Edition - XP Home brings you all the great benefits of the NT kernel but with some sacrifices of advanced features that Professional Edition has. XP Home is also more focused on the digital lifestyle of music, movies, and digital photos.

Windows XP Professional Edition - XP Professional packs all the same features as XP Home but with the addition of multiprocessor support and support for your computer to join WinNT domains on a network, among other less notable Pro features. Also, XP Pro is more geared to the power user and network administrator. If you do not feel like you fall into one of those categories, XP Professional may not be for you.

The Look, The Feel, of Windows XP

In addition to the stability enhancements it brings to the PC table, XP brings a wealth of usability features as well. The first thing you will notice when you power up your PC with Windows XP is that it boots in a fraction of the time. Microsoft aimed to shrink the time you spend twiddling your thumbs at startup, and by ePUB's tests they have succeeded. Our test machine (specs will be listed in the summary of this article) booted in about 30 seconds, literally half the time of Windows 98.

The next big surprise of XP comes for users at the logon screen. Many Windows 9x users have never seen a logon screen for their Windows while NT/2000 users will be glad the horrid "Press Ctrl-Alt-Delete to logon" screen is gone. In its place is a simple point-and-click interface that selects your username for the machine. For unfamiliar 9x users, this log-on feature allows each user of your machine to have their own Windows interface! Any appearance or functionality changes you make remain only for you. Conversely, if you work in a multi-user environment, coworkers will never again change or delete your files and settings accidentally or otherwise since they are keept separately.

When you are done ooo-ing and aah-ing at the logon, you get to start ooo-ing and aah-ing at the desktop. The plain-Jane gray Start menu and taskbar are now green and blue respectively. The Start menu is now oversized and has a different look to it completely. (See sidebar at the left for a Start menu screenshot.) In the left side of the Start menu your eight most used programs are listed. This means that as you use certain programs more the list will change automatically. In the right side of the Start menu, you will notice links to things like My Computer and My Documents. The reason: Microsoft aims to ship an OS with a clear desktop. In fact, only the Recycle Bin appeared in the bottom-right corner of the desktop on our evaluation copy of XP.

Once you begin to use the new Windows the feature we think that designers and printing specialists will enjoy most are the photo management tools. Most notable is that XP has integrated support for many digital cameras. Just plug-in your USB cable and Windows will prompt you for action. On our test system using a Kodak DC3400 camera we were able to just attach the USB cable and Windows immediately recognized the hardware and was able to acquire all the images from the memory card without any drivers or other input by our staff. Once the files were on our hard drive, XP showed all the images as previews, not generic icons. In the left-hand pane of the folder window, we had options to show all the photos as a slideshow or even order photos as prints over the Internet. This tight integration allows much freedom and usability when managing your digital assets.

To XP, or Not to XP

I extensively tested the evaluation copy of Windows XP Professional on a Dell Dimension XPS T500 system with the following specifications:

My overall impression of Windows XP was positive from a print professional's standpoint. The aforementioned photo tools were very helpful when managing an archive of images, with the slideshow function becoming a favorite function of mine. From a software standpoint, XP ran all of my software smoothly and with stability unseen in Windows 98 or 95. Only one program experienced an error that required it to be closed and that was the included Windows Media Player. XP has yet to encounter an error that requires me to reboot the machine for any reason.

If a Windows XP upgrade is in your future remember that you have the two options: Home or Professional. If you work in a large office with many Windows machines on a network or are running a dual-processor workstation, Professional is your upgrade path. Home edition will work wonders for your machine if you are a small design firm or single user in a non-networked environment. Please also note that current Windows NT 4 users can only upgrade to XP Professional.

Shut Down

Windows XP seeks to propell your productivity into the stratosphere compared to your buggy existence with previous Windows iterations. ePUB's testing reveals that XP may help you do just that through its stability, usability, and digital imaging enhancements. The Windows XP Home Edition Upgrade retails for $99 while Professional will set you back $199 for an upgrade. Minimum requirements are a 300 MHz processor with at least 128 MB RAM. Find out more information at http://www.microsoft.com/windows