Getting Started with Beta 1

NT 5.0, the Final Frontier.

As you know, Microsoft is going to give away the first copies of NT 5.0 beta 1 on its developer conference in San Diego beginning September 22. I am VERY pleased to show you the ins and outs of this version in WORLD PREMIERE before it's even released!

Let's start with the conclusion of this story for a change: if you have the necessary hardware for it, skip the Windows 98 hype alltogether and wait for the release of this baby. It's more stable, a hell of a lot faster, and has plenty of more features.

The novelties of NT 5 already become apparent upon installation. At first, there still are the obligatory blue screens (NT character mode set-up), but after set-up has gone into GUI mode, you'll be pleasantly surprised. NT will detect your hardware and install all necessary drivers for it. Afterwards, you get a dialog box depicting which drivers have been installed. In my case, NT detected everything flawlessly.

After the final reboot, you are greeted by the familiar Active Desktop of Internet Explorer 4. This beta 1 build (1627) came with IE 4.0 build 4.71.1008.4, as the screenshot shows. This build is essentially the same as the downloadable IE4 preview 2.

Before I begin covering the visible improvements, let's discuss a few of the improvements "under the hood" first:

• Fast: NT 5.0 build 1627 outruns NT 4 SP3 and Windows 98 build 1577 easily (tested on my machine which has 128MB of RAM). This is partly due to the far better and more tight integration of Internet Explorer 4.0.
• DirectX 5.0: play any exisitng Windows 95-based game you like with ease.
• Plug & Play: all your hardware will be detected nice and easy, even your non PnP devices. NT uses it on installation to detect and configure your hardware devices. Works in conjunction with the new hardware wizard.
• Power management: finally, NT supports all features of power management. Especially notebook/laptop users will welcome this feature with open arms.
• Networking: NT 4 already made installing networks a snap, NT 5 will make the administation of them a snap with its integrated support for directory services, a one-fits-all administration program and beefed-up security features like accessing private networks.

OK, now that we have that behind us, let's take my guided tour of the new features, all right?