Why I’m optimistic about Windows XP

Beta 2 code for Windows XP, Microsoft’s forthcoming successor to Windows Me and Windows 2000, was released Sunday to Microsoft Developer Network, TechNet, and marketing review customers. Last month, I visited the Microsoft campus in Redmond to get an in-depth preview of Windows XP. I came away impressed with Microsoft’s commitment to stability and application compatibility.

Over the course of two days of meetings with product managers, the word I heard most often was “experience”–not surprising, as that’s where the XP comes from. Microsoft’s mission in this release is to focus on the way users interact with the system. It’s aiming to make it not just possible, but easy, to accomplish common tasks.

The Windows XP client will come in two flavors: a Home Edition and a Professional version. The Home Edition brings some of the multimedia features introduced in Windows Me to the more stable Windows NT code base that serves as Windows XP’s foundation. But only the Professional version, which includes all the features of the Home Edition, will run on multiprocessor boxes, multimonitor configurations, and 64-bit platforms.

Professional also includes management tools, in the form of group policies, IntelliMirror support, and roaming profiles; and security, in the form of an Encrypted File System, file-level access control, and C2 certification. Many of these features are already part of Windows 2000 Professional.

Another nice feature in the Professional verison is Remote Desktop, which takes advantage of Windows Terminal Services. Remote Desktop lets you connect to your desktop at work from any other XP Professional client and take it over, so seamlessly that it appears as if you’re working on the remote computer. The remote PC is locked while you’re accessing it this way; if you want to collaborate on applications, you need to use the T.120 features of NetMeeting or some other T.120-compliant product.

Microsoft is putting a lot of effort into enhancing application compatibility in this release. I looked through a database of more than 1,200 applications that Microsoft’s quality assurance team is testing under XP. The software includes not only common business applications, but also a good mix of consumer programs, such as Quicken and various games. Microsoft aimed to have 80 percent of these working for the beta 2 code, and a higher percentage ready for the final release.

One way Microsoft can get some programs to work is by offering a “compatibility mode” for programs that ran under Windows 95, 98, NT, and 2000. These “modes” simply apply sets of known modifications that allow many common programs to work around incompatibilities between operating system versions. If an application you’re running doesn’t work under XP out of the box, chances are you can get it to work by applying one of the compatibility modes.

Other changes are more visible, but less important. The new interface is simply an evolution of the existing Windows look that’s been around since Windows 95. Folders that contain digital images now give you a preview of their content in their icons. The codecs for Windows Media Services are being upgraded.

Many of the features of XP are already present in Windows 2000, making the new operating system a less compelling upgrade for organizations that have already deployed the latest Windows. Microsoft seems to be building on the stability of Windows 2000 and expanding application compatibility into a wider universe of programs. Of course, the proof is in the actual testing, but this is one of the few Microsoft betas I feel comfortable trying out at this early stage.

Only one thing bothers me–Microsoft’s insistence on using Product Activation, a technology that checks as many as 15 hardware characteristics of the computer on which you install your software. If too many of those characteristics change in a short time (Microsoft isn’t telling what it’s criteria are), it implies that you’ve tried to install the software on a second computer, and Microsoft won’t automatically activate that copy. Luckily for business users, Product Activation is turned off for volume licenses.

I understand the company’s desire to avoid piracy, but with Linux on the verge of becoming a viable–and free–desktop alternative, now seems like an odd time to return to the bad old days of the early ’80s. I suggest cost-conscious companies try out Linux with Wine, Linux’s Windows emulator, at the same time they pilot Windows XP clients.

AOL e-mail snafu yields valuable lesson for IT

Last week my mother told me she was worried about e-mail. She exchanges messages with Buddy, a friend from her palmier days. (Luckily my father isn’t the jealous type. It helps that Buddy is 3,000 miles away.) Buddy had written to chide my mother for not writing. “But I did!” she cried. “Twice!”

Like many of you, I’m the first technical support contact for many of my family and friends. Luckily for my mother, we live just a few miles apart. I visited her computer and ran a few simple tests, and announced, to her relief, that the problem was probably at Buddy’s end.

Buddy himself, it turns out, was not to blame. Buddy is an America Online customer, and my parents’ e-mail service provider is EarthLink. This week EarthLink disclosed that AOL has been dumping messages EarthLink customers sent to AOL users, thanks to misconfigured AOL servers that were supposed to discard messages from spammers. Instead, the software purged users’ inboxes a little too efficiently.

Nobody likes to admit they screwed up, but these things happen. What’s troubling, however, is that the problem could have been solved much sooner. EarthLink learned of the problem last Wednesday, and worked with AOL to get it solved by Monday. According to a report on CNET’s News.com, however, Steve Dougherty, EarthLink’s director of systems vendor management, complained that AOL had not assigned executives at a level high enough to resolve the trouble more quickly.

Could this happen in your business?

Your reputation is probably your most important asset, and the easiest one to lose. Take steps to ensure that problems reach the ears of those who can fix them.

Have a written escalation policy, and make sure your staff knows about it. Post it on the Web so your customers can find it. You can perform a Web search to find examples of what other companies, such as CacheFlow, ePresence, and Emergent OnLine, use. You can also use help desk software with built-in escalation features.

The main point is to make sure nothing you do keeps your customers from conducting their business. Critical failures on their end demand a strong response on yours.

Escalating problems to the appropriate managers can help your company notice patterns in hardware failures or software faults that might not be apparent to the front-line support staff that hears hundreds of sad stories daily. You can then take systematic action to fix the problem, not just the symptoms.

If you discover a serious problem that may affect a large number of customers, come clean. Let your customers know what the problem is, when it can arise, and how to fix it. Though they may not be happy, they’ll at least appreciate your proactive steps to minimize their troubles.

Even announcing the outcome of a problem after it’s solved can help. Mom was thrilled to hear the official explanation of her problem. She asked, “Can you send me that story, so I can send it to Buddy?” I’m keeping my fingers crossed that the mail goes through.

CxOs: What keeps you up at night?

My readers–I love you all like family. But can the rest of you excuse us while I have a chat with Dad? That’s you, if you’re a CIO or CTO or upper-level manager–the individual responsible for implementing policies that give your organization an advantage over your competitors.

Normally the good folks at ZDNet who employ me let me use this space to bloviate on issues that I think are important for IT audiences. Every once in a while I need to step back and determine if my intuition matches reality.

I need to know–what’s keeping you up nights? What are you worried you’re not doing well? What do you need to know more about?

I’m looking for specifics, as well as general areas of concern. For example, everyone is worried about protecting their electronic assets, but maybe your worry is about maintaining compatible VPN clients from multiple vendors in a newly merged organization.

What are the priorities in your department for increasing your company’s bottom line? How are you trying to lower your total costs and raise your return on investment? That might mean outsourcing services, leasing equipment, or even renting employees. Or are you finding that managing all your work in-house–even though that might mean buying equipment and hiring staff–is proving more effective? If so, tell me why.

What kind of practices have you learned recently that can help your organization? As vendors roll out new products and technologies, their customers are constantly learning new lessons. What have you learned, Dorothy?

Speaking of learning, how do you keep your employees happy? Technical people can be difficult to manage. How do you train them and help them develop their careers without simply giving them the skills to move on to their next job?

Finally, what can we do to help you? We aim to provide the timely information, thoughtful commentary, and services and tools you can use. What more do you need, and in what form?

You probably didn’t click on my column expecting homework. I promise to return to punditry next time. But if you take a minute to e-mail me and tell me how ZDNet and I can help you, I’ll appreciate it. I may not be able to reply to each of you, but I will read each of your comments, and you’ll see the results reflected on our site.