Windows XP: Five reasons to be cheerful

Chris Setz is a well-known networking professional and frequent contributor to silicon.com TV programming. We gave him a copy of Windows XP ahead of its 25 October release and carte blanche to review it. This is what he wrote...

1. Starts and stops more quickly
How many years have been lost waiting for a boot or a re-boot? Who cares how it works - no device designed for humans should take longer than ten seconds to start or stop.

XP finally brings Windows Shutdown modes that offer the same sorts of benefits Auto-Resume portable PC users have had for years. It really is easier for the user not to have to shut down, in spite of the potentially devastating support problems it introduces.

You can flip shutdown modes by holding down the shift key when you see the dialog. Failing that, download the powerful XP Screensaver.

2. Corporate Skins
There are a 10Gb/s task force, ways to avoid flooding the LAN, and networking performance indicators in XP to monitor quality. (Right-click on the Taskbar and select Task Manager.) So now, maybe, is the time to brand the Windows Media Player in XP (not available elsewhere, known as WMPXP) and use it to deliver desktop-to-desktop video.

WMPXP supports analogue and digital TV (including multi-monitor and HDTV up to 200 dpi) and signal demodulation, tuning, software de-multiplexing, a guide store and USB array microphones with Acoustic Echo Cancellation.

You can enable IP data broadcasting to, say, extract streams from a digital TV signal. Only at work can users fully enjoy streamed content, until ADSL matures. Use WMPXP to watch Sting's XP concert, live from New York or for biometrics. Get the IT department under your skin. Not convinced? The least you can do is design a Corporate Theme for the My Documents folder. See XP as an XML-based Soap Client (http://www.w3.org/TR/SOAP ) and see the IT department as the first-choice web service (http://www.uddi.org ). Microsoft aims to be the second.

3. Wireless Networking
Means roaming the corporate intranet and maybe using mobile phone signals for data while outside. You can also use a mobile phone infrared link (both ways, so your phone can use your PC's comms too). Should increase the number of public places (like airports) offering roaming. Roaming should be free-to-air!

XP includes a media access control (MAC) bridge using the Spanning Tree Algorithm so everything around a user can operate as a single IP subnet. Add that to the Universal Plug and Play feature in XP that supposedly enables auto-discovery and configuration of anything (including the office coffee machine, as long as Microsoft approves) and you have a tempting path to inextricable chaos - everything will stop at once! You really will need networking professionals if you want to get any work done!

4. Local Support
If a user needs help, the extensible, full text, Boolean search mechanism encompasses multiple remote and online sources - so that makes lots more places that can't help you do the simplest of things. The old-fashioned support department motto "Going for Bronze" comes to mind.

In XP, when the user seeks help, the administrator can define the list of support databases that can be searched. A company-specific Q&A can be added to the compiled HTML Help files database. It would be interesting if that database itself could be downloaded as an XML Schema. Wise to put your own FAQ URL in the Add/Remove Programs dialog box too. Maybe I'll change my current favourite support motto - 'Never Knowingly Understood'.

The facility to seamlessly switch users (available in Unix for years) will help support people quickly log in and out without the user being able to prove that subsequent problems were introduced by them. Provided there's enough RAM (double the stated 128Mb, as usual) it really is seamless.

5. Remote Support
This is my favourite XP feature. You can completely Remote Desktop someone else's machine using bandwidth-lean Terminal Services - with file system, printer and port redirection, audio and a shared clipboard. The not-yet-released power toys (including a Super Fast User Switcher, as well as Virtual Desktop Manager, Command Window Here, TweakUI and Alt-Tab replacement) should have already been included.

All in all, IT should be a partnership between the industry and the users and this feature empowers IT people everywhere. I trust AutoUpdate - letting Microsoft update Windows, because it works (so far), but it doesn't solve the problem that the corporate desktop needs constant tuning to keep the organisation in harmony.

Some corporates still cling to the command-and-control mentality that tries to prevent users form using the OS - it'll never catch on. The challenge is to help users do what they do better. Now, with XP's Dynamic Updates, administrators can specify and centrally distribute controlled-releases whenever users next connect, so they'll all be on the same page.

The IT department can skin the OS and be relaxed about the inevitable personalisation that goes on. The Auto-Update bandwidth-throttling feature, for instance, can slowly download browser plug-ins in the background. What's wrong with that? Security nightmare - yes (there's a password recovery disk) preventable - no. Embrace it or boycott XP (http://www.boycottxp.com ).

Finally, support people can work remotely, whether the user is present or not. This feature was always possible but as it is now built in it will raise the status of the IT department. And that, as far as I'm concerned, is what is needed as we go forward.

Chris Setz has business interests in the UK and the US and publishes DSL-Times (http://www.dsl-times.com ) - an online news feed for the DSL industry. He is chair of the US-based Network Professional Association (http://www.npa.org ).

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