|
|
 |
 |
 |
|
|
|
|
|
-
What is Windows XP?
-
Windows XP is Microsoft's newest
desktop operating system for
both consumers and businesses.
Over the past few years,
Microsoft has been building and
supporting two completely
separate versions of Windows.
Windows 95/98/Me was designed
for consumers with an emphasis
on ease of use, compatibility,
and multimedia capabilities. At
the same time, Microsoft created
Windows NT for businesses who
need security, and reliability.
(NT version 5.0 is now called
Windows 2000). The Win9x and
WinNT versions of Windows may
look the same, but they have a
very different code base, and
don't use the same drivers.
Windows XP builds on the
stability and strength of the
Windows NT/2000 Operating
System, while incorporating the
usability of Windows 95/98.
Although Microsoft has referred
to Windows XP as a merging of
the code base between Windows
95/98 and Windows NT/2000, it
has a lot more in common with
Windows 2000 (NT 5.0) and is
sometimes referred to as NT 5.1
.
Top |
|
-
Why are there multiple different
versions of XP?
-
XP will initially be released in
two different versions: Windows
XP Professional (for businesses)
and Windows XP Home Edition (for
consumers.) Although the kernel
for both operating systems are
the same, the Home Edition is a
stripped down version of the
Professional version. Its main
focus is the consumer home PC
market, and it is designed to be
easier to use. Much of its
interface assumes that you have
a full time internet connection
and that your primary online
activities are browsing, e-mail,
instant messaging, listening to
MP3 and online music, and
sharing photos and other digital
media on the web. XP
Professional is designed for
business and advanced home users
who need security and enhanced
networking capabilities. It
looks and feels just like
Windows 2000 once you drop the
XP color scheme and choose
"Windows classic." Windows XP
Media Center Edition and Windows
XP Tablet PC Edition are special
versions of the operating system
designed for specific hardware.
You can only get these versions
when you purchase a the
specialized hardware directly
from the manufacturer.
Top |
|
-
What are the feature differences
between XP Professional and Home
Edition?
-
XP Professional and XP Home
Edition share the same kernel
(the "guts" of the operating
system), and this kernel is
based on the Windows 2000
operating system. The
differences between them are in
the level of security they
provide, networking
capabilities, and advanced
features. For business users,
Windows XP Professional is very
similar to Windows 2000 in its
feature set. XP Professional
supports multiple processors,
multiple monitors (up to 9),
Group Policy. Encrypting File
System, Dynamic Disks, IIS, a
built in backup program, and
advanced networking capabilities
(such as IPSec.) All of these
features are missing from XP
Home Edition. Another important
distinction between the two
versions is that XP Home Edition
cannot join a Windows
NT/2000/2003 domain. If you wish
to network with other PC's in
your home or office, you must be
part of a workgroup. If you're a
"power user" purchasing Windows
XP for your personal
workstation, Windows XP
Professional is a better choice
than Home Edition, if you can
afford the price difference.
Windows XP Professional is also
more secure than Home Edition,
which is an important
consideration for users with a
full time high speed internet
connection.
Top |
|
-
What are the differences between
Windows 2000 Professional and
Windows XP Professional?
-
Not much. Microsoft has added a
host of new features to both
versions of Windows XP, but
nothing that appears to be
absolutely compelling for
business users. One of the new
features called "Fast User
Switching" allows to to run two
separate logged in sessions at
once. This allows a user to do
everyday work such as e-mail
using a non-privileged user
account, and then run an
Administrative session at the
same time without rebooting or
resorting to the "Run As"
command. This also allows you to
quickly log onto any users
workstation and make
administrative changes without
logging them off. The remote
assistance feature of XP can
also help reduce support costs
by allowing your Help Desk staff
to interact with a user's PC
over the network. XP's built in
ZIP compression support can also
save your company a lot of money
in licensing fees if you are
currently using a third party
utility such as WinZIP.
Top |
|
-
What does the "XP" stand for?
-
The official Microsoft answer is
that XP stands for "experience",
in the sense that they are
combining their years of
experience creating two very
successful desktop operating
systems into one really great
product. Pundits have come up
with their own definitions of
XP, including "eXPensive" and "eXtra
Profits"
Top |
|
-
What are the system
requirements?
-
It seems that Microsoft has
always configured its Operating
Systems for the future
generation of hardware, and XP
is no exception. Unless you
bought a PC recently, you'll
probably want to upgrade your
desktop PC before you upgrade
your OS.
|
Windows XP system
requirements
|
|
Components |
Minimum |
Recomended |
|
CPU |
233Mhz |
300Mhz |
|
Memory |
64MB |
128MB |
|
Disk Space |
1.5GB |
2.0GB |
-
When
considering these system
requirements for your workstations,
keep in mind that RAM is a larger
bottleneck than CPU speed. (i.e.
Adding 256Mb of RAM will give you a
better performance boost than
upgrading your processor speed by
200 - 300 Mhz). Windows XP is also
designed to take advantage of
Intel's Pentium 4 instruction set
(SSE/SSE2), so you'll see slightly
better performance on the newer
processors. XP Professional also
supports multiple processors.
In addition, Microsoft recommends
that your BIOS should be newer than
January 1, 2000 if you wish to use
the hibernation and advanced power
management features of Windows XP.
Top
|
|
-
What are the upgrade paths for
Windows XP?
-
For Windows NT 4.0 or Windows
2000 Systems:
You can upgrade to Windows XP
Professional only.
For Windows 98, 98SE, and
Windows Me Systems:
You can upgrade to either
Windows XP Home Edition or
Windows XP Professional.
For Windows 95 Systems:
There is no upgrade path. You'll
need to buy the full version of
Windows XP and perform a clean
install.
Top
|
|
-
What about Product Activation?
-
The product activation feature
of Windows XP (and Office XP) is
designed to discourage casual
copying of the software. Once
you load Windows XP and type in
the Registration Code, it
creates a unique ID for your
workstation based on your system
configuration and prompts you to
register that ID with Microsoft
within 120 days, or your
Operating System will no longer
function. Although the process
only takes a few moments to
complete over the web (and
slightly longer over the phone),
this requirement has caused a
storm of controversy. ( For more
information, see Microsoft's
Product Activation FAQ) Product
Activation is only required on
the retail and some OEM versions
of Windows XP and not on the
volume licensing program that
most businesses use. Windows XP
upgrade licenses acquired
through one of Microsoft©s
volume licensing agreements,
such as Microsoft Open License,
Enterprise Agreement, or Select
License, will not require
activation. Installations of
Windows XP made using volume
licensing media and volume
license product keys (VLKs) will
have no activation, hardware
checking, or limitations on
installation or imaging.
Top
|
|
-
What information is transmitted
to Microsoft when I activate
Windows XP?
-
The Installation ID created by
Product activation is
specifically designed to
guarantee anonymity and is only
used by Microsoft to deter
piracy. The Installation ID is
comprised of two different
pieces of information © the
product ID and a hardware hash.
The product ID is unique to the
installation of Windows and is
created from the unique product
key used during installation.
(The product ID can be found by
viewing the Properties of My
Computer. The hardware hash is
an eight byte value that is
created by running 10 different
pieces of information from the
PC©s hardware components through
a one-way mathematical
transformation. When you
activate your product over the
web, the installation ID is
submitted to Microsoft, and then
a digitally signed certificate
is sent back to your PC.
Activation is not product
registration. The only
information required to activate
is an Installation ID created by
the software and, for Office XP
and Visio 2002, the country in
which the software is being
installed. No personally
identifiable information is
required to activate.
Top
|
|
-
What happens if I don't activate
Windows XP?
-
If you don't complete the
product activation process after
30 days, Windows XP will still
boot, but you'll be unable to
launch Windows until you call
the Microsoft Clearinghouse and
enter the code.
Top |
|
-
Is there an XP Server?
-
No, there isn't. "XP" is only
the designation for the
Microsoft's desktop Operating
System. The newest server
version is Windows Server 2003
and was released in April 2003.
Microsoft has decided to split
the development and release
cycles of desktop and server
operating systems to better
serve their customers. Consumers
(and the PC industry) like
frequent OS updates to keep up
with newest trends and hardware.
Corporations don't like to
update their infrastructure and
retrain their IT staff that
frequently. So, you can expect
Microsoft to release a new
desktop operating system every
2-3 years, and a server
operating system every 4-5
years.
Top |
|
-
Will my software run on Windows
XP?
-
Windows XP is built on the
Windows 2000 kernel, so for
business users who are already
running applications on Windows
NT 4.0 and Windows 2000, the
upgrade should be pretty smooth.
Microsoft says that over 90
percent of Windows 2000/NT and
Windows 9x applications
distributed in North America in
the past three years already
work on XP. Notably, one of the
applications that doesn't work
is Novell Client 32 V4.80. This
incompatibility will have an
impact for business users who
are still running in a Novell
environment, but I'm confident
that Novell will probably
release a new client within the
next few months. For home users
who are more interested in
gaming, there are several issues
with older games that rely on
DOS. A large percentage of the
games we've tested in our labs
work just fine with XP, but
serious gamers may want to
consider dual booting XP with
Windows 98 to support legacy
games, and older controllers.
Also, since XP is a new
operating system, your system
and disk utilities, as well as
AntiVirus software will not work
with Windows XP and will need to
be upgraded.
Top |
|
-
Hardware
Compatibility?
-
According to Microsoft, Windows
XP supports 12,000 devices
straight out of the box,
including the top 1,000
best-selling devices sold during
the year 2000. At this writing,
over 300 hardware devices have
earned the new XP logo--meaning
they've been subjected to higher
testing standards. However there
are still a large number of
hardware devices that aren't
compatible and are waiting for
updated drivers. These include
multi-function
printers/scanner/fax machines,
web cams, CD writers, etc. You
can use Microsoft Compatibility
Advisor to check your system
before you upgrade, and/or check
with your hardware manufacturer
to see if they've posted new
drivers for Windows XP. Please
keep in mind that it is the
hardware manufacturer's
responsibility to write XP
compatible drivers for their
products - not Microsoft's. In
fact, not supporting a new
operating system is a tactic
used by some manufacturers in
order to get you to upgrade your
current product. Microsoft
released an avalanche of
technical details, driver
guidelines, and beta software to
manufacturers a full year before
Windows XP shipped in order to
give them as much as lead time
as possible. In a random survey
of legacy (pre-2001) printer and
scanner drivers available for
XP, we noticed a definite
support trend that favored the
higher end (and higher profit)
devices and left entry level
models (or those commonly given
away with Win95/98 PC's)
unsupported. It's really not
that hard to write a driver (or
update software to work with
Windows XP) but some
manufacturers just refuse to do
it. You should always check the
status of your existing hardware
before upgrading to XP.
Top |
|
-
What about performance?
-
There has been a lot of
Microsoft bashing going around
in the press and on discussion
forums regarding XP's
performance and most of it has
been crap. Many of the published
evaluations you'll see are
between the Win9x platform,
which isn't really fair because
XP is built on the NT/Win2000
code base. Of course it's faster
and more stable than the 5 year
old code for Windows 9x
(including Windows Me). However,
when you compare Windows XP with
Windows 2000 they're pretty
evenly matched. On systems with
+600Mhz processors and 512Kb of
RAM, our XP installations run
just a hair faster than the same
systems running Windows 2000. XP
also has a definite advantage
over Windows 2000 on Pentium 4
processors.
Top |
|
-
How secure is Windows XP?
-
Again, this depends on what you
are comparing it to. XP is
vastly more secure than Windows
95/98/Me (which didn't have any
security), and is on par with
Windows 2000. There has been a
lot of hype about the Remote
Desktop and Remote Assistance
features which can allow another
person running Windows XP to
interact with your desktop,
however there are several
adequate safeguards in place to
keep someone from doing this
without you knowing it, and so
far hackers haven't figured out
a way to exploit it. Another
controversial topic is
Microsoft's use of full raw
sockets API in Windows XP that
could theoretically allow
hackers to use XP workstations
as "zombies" in a broad based
denial of service attack.Of
course these issues are in
addition to any programming
errors, code glitches, and
oversights that may come up in
the course of any operating
system release. In our opinion,
a properly configured Windows XP
Professional system is no more a
risk than a Windows 2000 system.
Top |
|
|
|
