Sneak Peek at Whistler--Microsoft's Next-Generation Windows

Whistler Build 2250 Features

What's up with Whistler? Here is the short list of new features:

• Handwriting and voice recognition capabilities could spur tablet PC development.
  
  
• Personal remote-control client and server combine to make telecommuting easier.
  
  
• Start Panel and enhanced Web folder content simplify online navigation.
  
  
• Visual Styles and Themes support a simplified desktop customization process.
  
  

The future of Windows is .Net--Microsoft's initiative for simplifying interaction with computers and related devices, and keeping them connected via the Internet. With Windows 2000 and Windows Millennium out the door, Microsoft is well into development on the .Net successor to both, code-named Whistler.

Whistler won't ship for at least another year. But we snuck a peek over a developer's shoulder at Build 2250, a pre-beta version.

What we saw, although subject to change in the final product, suggests a Windows with a richer, more configurable user interface, remote access capabilities, and the ability to listen to your voice commands and read your handwriting. The new operating system will also incorporate some of the .Net technologies that Microsoft demonstrated earlier this year. These features, which will allow you to access information on multiple devices wherever you go, aren't apparent yet--in part because many of them require server support that hasn't materialized at this early stage. On the other hand, you can already interact with Whistler from a Pocket PC--to check e-mail, for example, or to download a file.

Whistler is likely to appear in a professional edition for business desktops, as well as in various server editions. And since it is slated to grab the consumer OS baton from Windows Me, there may be a home edition as well.

The first changes we noticed in Whistler were in the user interface--the Start menu, Taskbar, and Explorer. These changes are predominantly cosmetic but could help novice users while reducing the number of clicks veteran users expend on common tasks.

Start It Up

Microsoft's .Net press conference previewed a customizable, browserlike interface that unites e-mail, application launching, and various file browsing tasks. Whistler Build 2250 contains a hidden, still-buggy first stab at a concept called the Start Page--basically Active Desktop revisited. This could eventually become the primary way users interact with their computers and the Internet, but Microsoft will have to create a killer Start Page if it wants to render the Start menu, Taskbar, and Explorer obsolete.

More-substantive changes include another currently hidden feature--an alternate Start menu mode called Start Panel, which collects popular commands and links from disparate Start submenus into one multicolumn menu window. The Taskbar gets one or two tweaks as well. A "Clean up notification area" setting hides seldom-used icons in the system tray, and you can configure specific icons to remain hidden always (or never). Once you have arranged your Taskbar and its individual toolbars the way you want them, you can lock the configuration into place, thereby preventing Windows from automatically resizing the toolbars as current versions do.

Want a different look on your desktop? Various preset Visual Styles--collections of colors, frame sizes, and backgrounds--promise a change of scenery in a few clicks. Windows 9x and 2000 let you vary window frame sizes, colors, and fonts, and then save the settings as a Scheme. Whistler splits these Schemes into color settings, and window and font settings (called Visual Styles). This lets you apply a desktop look and a color scheme independently--a small but useful improvement. Build 2250 includes only one Visual Style--called Professional (see illustration)--but it gives Whistler a fresh look without degrading screen legibility.

Like earlier Windows OSs, Whistler supports Themes--collections of Schemes, custom icons, and desktop backgrounds. Many Windows 95 and 98 users will remember these from the Microsoft Plus add-on packs. It appears that the final release of Whistler will include Themes, though they're disabled in Build 2250.

Explorer Adjustments

The tweaking carries over into Explorer. The most obvious alteration is enhanced Web content, which appears in folders in Web View mode. Just as the Start Panel does, the beefed-up Web content puts common tasks and links closer at hand, including commands for creating or copying folders, and renaming or deleting files. All of the links are context-sensitive; for example, the My Pictures folder has zoom, rotate, and slide-show buttons.

The value of some of the other changes is debatable. Build 2250's Explorer lets you group folder contents, but this makes sense only under certain circumstances. In the My Computer folder, for example, grouping separates a PC's drives into removable and nonremovable sections. Elsewhere, grouping simply alphabetizes by file name, a space-consuming exercise that forces you to do more scrolling to view folder contents. A new view for folder contents, Tiles, resembles but replaces the older Windows OSs' seldom-used Small Icons view. In Tiles view, the item's name and file type appear on multiple lines to the right of the icon, displaying slightly more information about the folder items, but occupying more window space.