Build 2250, the Developer's Preview, is miles ahead of what we briefly saw in build 2223. Released in Personal and Professional editions, 2250 is really the first realistic fruit of Microsoft's one operating system for all vision. And it's very noticeable in this release. Dog-slow and resource hungry, this release is full of little surprises, neat new features, not-plugged-in-yet features, and other nifty stuff. It's a very cool release, and once they remove all the debug code that makes it dog-slow it will be quite a useable and "lickable" OS.

SETUP

Basically the exact same as Win2K, with a few bits thrown in from Windows Me. They didn't even bother changing the titles (i.e. "Windows 2000 Professional" is pervasive throughout the setup process, as opposed to "Whistler" or something). It even installs itself in the NTLDR boot menu as "Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional".

     
 The 2250 CD autoplay  Background from WinMe  

GENERAL OPERATIONS

One of the most pervasive new features in Whistler is what Microsoft calls "Visual Styles". Just as programs like WinAmp offer skinning options, Whistler 2250 does too. There are 2 choices currently: Windows Classic (what we all know and love from Windows 2000), and Professional. Professional gives Windows a very different look, from the Start button font all the way through to the minimize/maximize/close buttons on windows. As it is so different, and very much a new feature, most of my screenshots were done with this enabled.

     
 Logon, muchly cleaned up Bye bye Win2K logging in box... The desktop, with the new Visual Style

     
 The new hidden Start Panel, replacing the Start menu  And the Start Panel with the new Visual Style  Photoshop under the new Visual Style - note the menu, titlebar, open/close buttons, etc...

     
 Windows Classic style desktop  Classic start menu - Codename Whistler  Visual Style start menu

     
 About...  New Web View in My Computer  Whistler bug reporting

     
 Help and Support... still from WinMe  Personalized Notifications - organizes the system tray icons (see screenshots)  Remote Desktop Connection - Terminal Services makes it to the desktop clients

     
 The new Simple Control Panel  The new User Manager control panel  The hidden Start Panel control, unhidden :)

     
 A still from the Out of Box Experience Flash animation  The final OOBE Flash screen  The new lickable Shut Down dialog

 
 Another hidden feature in this build is the Start Page, which would be an optional replacement for the desktop. I can't really get it to work, but here's a screenshot of how it looks, thanks to Paul Thurrott.

Ain't it all pretty?

The official Beta 1 release is expected in September. It will be interesting to see how Microsoft improves on this - for one, it's slow as hell due to all the debug code in it (as is expected). There are visual oddities everywhere using the new Visual Styles option - dialog boxes get clipped, minimized windows open half off-screen, things like that.