MS 'Whistler' Looks Solid To ZDNET

dynoman7 writes: "eWEEK Labs has tested the first public beta release of Whistler, which became available Oct. 31. They think it is 'stable.'" He points to a review at eWEEK, also playing on MSNBC. It's a bit of a mixed review, actually -- the review points out that by "leaving its Windows 9x code base behind, [Microsoft is] creating many potential Windows platform compatibility problems in the process," and notes of the included "remote help" feature, "[G]iven Microsoft's well-documented security gaffes, sites will have to carefully evaluate the potential security risks of such a widely deployed remote-control feature." Whatever its faults, this Windows-to-come is supposed to have improved type handling and other goodies which every other OS will inevitably be scrutinized for, including [your favorite].

Comments

forgot a sentence

[Adramelech]

the review points out that by "leaving its Windows 9x code base behind, [Microsoft is] creating many potential Windows platform compatibility problems in the process,"

This is a distortion of what the point of that sentence was in the first place. If one takes in to account the sentence just before it in the actual article, the point that there will be compatibility problems is negated:

Whistler contains an application compatibility environment designed to allow the operating system to run many applications intended for Windows 98. This is particularly important because, with Whistler, Microsoft is leaving its Windows 9x code base behind, creating many potential Windows platform compatibility problems in the process.

don't mod me down just because I disagree with the post. I'm just clarifying something.

I'm beta-testing it...

[Teferi]

...and here's what I think.
I hate the dumbed-down interface. Period. The new start menu is no more intuitive than the old one, and I'm thankful that there's at least a way to switch back.
I also -hate- the new "View as Tiles" mode in Explorer. It scales the icons up hugely with no anti-aliasing - and then makes the clickable area extend to the side. Can you imagine how confusing that'll be to a complete novice?
Theme support is spotty and inconsistant - Explorer remains unthemed, as does IE. (Same thing happens with Windowblinds, both these apps bypass the normal Win32 widget stuff)
Besides the modified UI, it's just plain ol' Win2k with a few added services and minor tweaks.
I realize most of this may be due to the fact that it's a beta, but I'm rather disappointed with what I've seen of it so far.

"If ignorance is bliss, may I never be happy.

Re:not me, unfortunately :)

[g_mcbay]

Clearly your problems are laptop related. Poorly supported crappy components, I'd wager...Why bother writing anti-Microsoft FUD focusing on the fact that Windows runs poorly on that system and then, at the end, barely mention in passing that Linux also runs pretty poorly?

Oh yeah I forgot, this is Slashdot.

I'm testing it. It's okay

[ajv]

Win2K is my primary win32 operating system. I run all my games on it (Baldurs Gate II, Combat Flight Sim 2, Red Alert 2, Flight Sim 2000, Total Annilihation, Quake 3 (@ 89 fps, 1024x768, 32 bit, everything turned up high)) without a problem. I also do a variety of other things that drive it hard, including compiling, testing, security stuff and so on. The uptime is exemplarly; at home I have had my new Dell on for the month that I've had it without a reboot until I loaded Whistler last night.

Whistler Pro - I turned off moron mode as I found it difficult to live with the new interface, which might be fine for my mum, but useless for me. Remember, this is a Microsoft beta (equivalent to 0.4-0.7 or therabouts in most open source software). When I was beta'ing Win2K, Win2K went from NT 4.0 look with new barely new color schemes and Win98 pop outs in build 1477 through to Win2K's look and feel in about six hundred new builds. Expect Whistler's appearance to change until about April next year.

It seems stable enough. It has ATA-100 support (something that I had to retroactively add to Win2K when I got my Dell) and the screen drivers seem snappy enough. I'm intrigued to find that people are already reporting stuff doesn't work as everything I've tried (including a couple of games) works fine for me. My Logitech USB joystick just worked, and my USB Canon Ixus similarly just worked (in fact, the new features in Whistler for this stuff is just fantastic).

I like the new user "disconnect" feature. It allows multiple users to remain logged on and you can quickly move between them (if you have adequate memory).

I like the way print drivers seem to be kicked out of kernel mode. My 710c never gave me grief in Win2K, but now there's even less chance with Whistler.

Other than that, it's too early to make a full judgement. I've already found one potential security flaw and I have a negative installation experience during the express upgrade, but as I'm a tester and this is a beta, I've told Microsoft about both issues, and they'll fix it, like they did with the six things I found during the three years I tested Win2K. If every one of the "beta" testers did this, the product would be a far better product for it.