Windowsxp Professional

A Review   by   Tom Deno

 

 

The new Windowsxp Desktop is a mystery until you've used it for a while.   Most users seem to choose the “Classic” version of the Start Menu, and try not to use the improvements offered in XP.   Maybe this choice should not have been given?  Some users are confused between the XP and Classic versions offered.   This leads to “half and half” configurations, and the attendant increased confusion.   

 

The compressed notification area on the Taskbar is a joy.   With many programs inserting unwanted icons here as default instead of user’s choice, the hidden feature is much needed.   It should be much easier to remove unwanted and unused icons from this area.   A user should not have to use MSConfig to remove them permanently.   Most users do not know how to use this feature and are reluctant to make changes using  MSConfig.   It should be included in Customize Notification behavior section of Taskbar and Start Menu Properties.

 

The Start Menu confuses most users.   The left side panel includes two areas of program icons with titles.   They are not titled, the separator bars are hardly visible and in the top “most used programs”, the icons change from time to time.   Did I mention confusion?  There must be a way to add programs to the top-left panel, but I've not yet found out how.  A right click will allow unpin but how do you pin?  Just found out by going to Help menu, even though it took a while, which is a lead-in to the next subject.  

 

The Help Menu has been significantly improved.   Not just the Help and Support area itself, but also the notes that open when the mouse pointer is placed on icons.   I have never seen as much information revealed.   Nice going!  Unfortunately, the help offered by the Internet Connection to Microsoft Support is still a maze of confusion.   There is a ton of help there, I am sure, but just try to find it!   A major overhaul is needed in Support.Microsoft.com.  

 

I teach the Control Panel session of our Windows Basic class for seniors.   The idea of gathering up the 30 some subjects controlled by the Control Panel into nine subjects is a great idea, after you understand why this makes sense.   Most users do not open Control Panel very often.   This was a shock to the instructor, but the confusion (did I mention that?) that comes with age is certainly understandable, if you just read the titles in the Classic version of Control Panel.   The real help with the XP version is in narrowing down the task that the user is trying to accomplish.   One of nine is a lot easier than one of 35.  

 

Two areas in Control Panel are a real revelation to the students:

 

First, is the Wizards feature.   Once they discover the purpose and ease of use, they start to expect and search for a Wizard for everything they want to do.   Bring ‘em on!

 

Second, is the Accessibility feature.   Older users almost always need the vision helps provided here, and some also need the sound features.   The instructor can also use the Magnifier, for hard-to-see items on the projected image .  The Navigator "voice" is somewhat garbled and sometimes needs an interpreter to be understood, even after playing with the speed/pitch/volume controls.   This feature could be a wonderful help for seniors with arthritic hands and poor sight: it just needs a little tweaking.   The Font and Icon sizes almost always need to be increased for seniors.

 

How about adding a “right pointing” mouse pointer for us lefty’s.   

 

My Documents Folder is a good place to store all backup data.   If you want to store your data internally, this is a single folder to backup.   It is always available from the Startup Menu and gives the user a known place to look for music, pictures, etc.  

 

Windows Explorer is still buried in Accessories.   Why?  And why is it not titled "File Manager" (as in Windows 3.1) since that is what it is?  "Explorer" sounds like a “tour of Windows."  It also sounds enough like Internet Explorer that it causes. . .   yes, confusion.  

 

Regarding Windows Explorer (AKA File Manager) there is a little-known right-click in any file column title bar that provides additional titles that can be checked to add columns.   However, there is no way indicated to add data to those new columns.   This would be an excellent place to allow the user to add comments (one of the column choices) about that file:  i.e., where it came from, why it is there, what the obscure title of the file means, etc.  

 

Search (AKA Find) has an obnoxious dog “cutie”.   He's a sibling of the paper clip [Clippy] in Word.   They both need to be banished to the center of Lake Washington with concrete blocks!  Consider the state of mind of the user trying to locate something under duress and a time schedule.   What do you encounter: a cutie dog trying to cheer you up with a wagging tail.   Thanks, but no thanks.

 

In Performance and Maintenance, when you click on “Free up space on your hard drive” the Disk Cleanup for (C:\) window opens in Minimized mode behind the open Performance and Maintenance window.  Is this a bug?  The user thinks the click failed to open the window.  Also, what happened to ScanDisk?  Are we no longer able to do a check of our hard drive?  I know it is still buried somewhere, but why isn’t it a task in Performance and Maintenance?  The new Disk Defragmenter is a good improvement and the Analyze button saves a lot of defrags and time.

 

The additional drivers added to XP are wonderful time savers.   Please keep adding the recent ones to update downloads.

 

One random feature that is almost impressive is the “Internet-like” arrows on the Tool bars to let the user move back and forth.   The Close Box on the top right is hard to find and takes too long to find with the mouse.   Maybe the user should find the keyboard shortcut, but some don’t like to use them.

 

Thanks for the fine improvement to Windows.   I hope it’s as stable as predicted.  

 

 

Evaluator: Tom Deno is a long-time user of all Microsoft operating systems from Windows 2.0 to XP.   He is a senior volunteer at the Joslyn Senior Center in Claremont, CA and organized the Claremont Senior Computer Club almost ten years ago.   The club currently has over 200 members and attracts between 90 and 100 members to its weekly meetings.   The club also teaches Windows basic XP to area seniors.  

 

Note: This evaluation was completed on a Dell Inspiration 8100 laptop that had the following parameters: Intel Pentium III 1 GHz CPU, 256 MB RAM, and 20 GB Hard Drive.

 

Boot-up Time: 45 seconds to desktop, logged in, no activity status.  This computer has a minimal set of programs installed: (Office 2000; MGI Photosuite 4; Microsoft Digital Image Pro 9; Jasc Media Center; IE; Outlook Express.)  This time should be reduced to 15 seconds or less.  Last parameters used should be stored in some active RAM state for quick retrieval.

 

Windowsxp Pro

Microsoft Corporation

$299 Full version

$199 Upgrade version

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/default.asp