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Whistler Feature Guide for Beta 1

Whistler is the Microsoft project name for the next version of Microsoft Windows beyond Windows 2000 and Windows Millennium. Whistler is an important next step in the evolution of the Windows operating system as it marks the convergence of the business and consumer operating systems. Performance, flexibility, scalability and reliability of the Windows NT platform continue to be improved in Whistler.

This feature guide is a high-level overview of the new features of Whistler Beta 1. It is intended to assist the selected customers, Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM), and Independent Software and Hardware Vendors (ISV/IHV) who receive this beta product for review. This document, in concert with the Whistler Beta 1 Release Notes, is intended to summarize many of the new features of the product and describe scenarios for the new feature’s use.

This feature guide is not intended to be final product documentation. Prior to the final product release, this information will be incorporated into various elements of Help files, printed documentation, resource kits, etc.

The Whistler Beta 1 Release does not reflect all features that are being considered for the final Whistler product. Features of the product, including those described in this document, might change prior to the final product release.

Feedback or comments regarding the Whistler Feature Guide for Beta 1 can be sent to featguid@microsoft.com.


NOTICES

The features and plans described in this document are the current direction for the next version of the Microsoft® Windows® operating system, a project currently called Whistler. This is not a specification for this product and features and plans are subject to change. There are no guarantees, implied or otherwise, that these features will be included in the final product release.

For some features, this document assumes that the reader is familiar with Windows 2000 client and server features and services. For background information about Windows 2000 features and services, see the Windows Web site at http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ or see the Windows 2000 Resource Kit that is available from Microsoft Press.

DISCLAIMER

THIS IS NOT A PRODUCT SPECIFICATION.
The information contained in this document represents the current view of Microsoft Corporation on the issues discussed as of the date of publication. Because Microsoft must respond to changing market conditions, it should not be interpreted to be a commitment on the part of Microsoft, and Microsoft cannot guarantee the accuracy of any information presented. This document is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS DOCUMENT.

Microsoft Corporation may have patents or pending patent applications, trademarks, copyrights, or other intellectual property rights covering subject matter in this document. The furnishing of this document does not give you any license to the patents, trademarks, copyrights, or other intellectual property rights except as expressly provided in any written license agreement from Microsoft Corporation.

Microsoft does not make any representation or warranty regarding specifications in this document or any product or item developed based on these specifications. Microsoft disclaims all express and implied warranties, including but not limited to the implied warranties or merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose and freedom from infringement. Without limiting the generality of the foregoing, Microsoft does not make any warranty of any kind that any item developed based on these specifications, or any portion of a specification, will not infringe any copyright, patent, trade secret or other intellectual property right of any person or entity in any country. It is your responsibility to seek licenses for such intellectual property rights where appropriate. Microsoft shall not be liable for any damages arising out of or in connection with the use of these specifications, including liability for lost profit, business interruption, or any other damages whatsoever. Some states do not allow the exclusion or limitation of liability or consequential or incidental damages; the above limitation may not apply to you.

Active Directory, ClearType, Direct3D, DirectDraw, DirectInput, DirectMusic, DirectShow, DirectSound, DirectX, DirectVA, Exchange, IntelliMirror, Internet Explorer, Microsoft, Microsoft Word, MS-DOS, NetMeeting, Office, Paint, SQL Server, Visual Basic, Win32, Win64, Windows, Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows Millennium Edition, Windows 2000 and Windows NT are trademarks or registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. Other product and company names mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.

© 2000 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

Table of Contents

Introduction 11

Improving the End User Experience 13

Automatic Updates 13

CD Burning 14

ClearType Support 14

Command Prompt: Accessibility Support 14

Control Panel: Account Management Enhancements 15

Control Panel: WebView 15

Credential Management 15

Device Driver Rollback 16

Device Drivers: Imaging Drivers Additions 16

Device Drivers: Last Known Good Files 17

Digital Media: Digital Video Enhancements 17

Digital Media: Movie Maker 18

Facsimile Sharing 18

Fast User Switching for Multiple Users of a Computer 19

Feedback Link for Comments from Beta Users 19

File Associations: User Interface Improvements 19

File Management Improvements 20

Hardware: AutoPlay 20

Hardware: Battery Life Improvements: Mobile Computer 21

Hardware: Enhanced Keyboard Buttons 22

Hardware: High Resolution Monitor Support 22

Hardware: Multifunction Device Installation Improvements 22

Hardware: Processor Power Control 23

Hardware UI Improvements 23

Hardware: Wake on Battery Support 24

Help and Support Services: Extensible Search Mechanism 24

Help and Support Services: Favorites 25

Help and Support Services: Feedback Submission 25

Help and Support Services: Full Text Search 26

Help and Support Services: Multiple Instances 26

Help and Support Services: Printing Node 26

Help and Support Services: Remote Assistance 27

Help and Support Services: Remotely Access Help 27

Help and Support Services: Sysinfo 27

Help and Support Services: Troubleshooting Diagnostic Tool 28

International: Locale Support Additions 28

International: Regional Options Enhancements 28

Internet: Auto-Configuration for Multiple Networks Connectivity 29

Internet: Connection Manager Favorites 29

Internet Connection Sharing 30

Internet: Home Networking Wizard 30

Internet: Personal Firewall 31

Internet: Residential Broadband Client Access Improvements 31

Media Folders (My Music, My Pictures) 32

Migration Wizard 32

My Pictures Folder Enhancements 33

My Pictures Screen Saver 34

Paint Accessory Enhancements 34

Printer and Fax Folder with WebView 34

Printer Enhancements for Multi-Function Peripherals 35

Printing: High-End Color Printer Support 35

Printing: Universal Printer Driver Enhancements 35

Publishing to the Web 36

Start Menu 36

Taskbar Notification Area Enhancements 36

Terminal Services: Remote Desktop 37

Terminal Services: Remote Desktop Connection 38

Visual Appearance Improvements 38

Welcome Screen 38

Windows Preview Applet 39

WebDAV Redirector 39

Improving Fundamentals and Technology 40

Applications Compatibility 40

Applications: Handling Non-Responsive Applications 40

Disk Defragmenter Enhancements 41

Encrypting the Offline Files Database 41

FAT32 on DVD-RAM 42

Hardware: DualView 42

Internet: Network Bridge 42

Internet: TCP/IP Name Resolution over RAS without WINS/DNS 43

Network Device Driver Enhancements 43

Printer Access With NetCrawler 44

TAPI: Audio Streaming Enhancements 44

TAPI: Streaming on IP Service Providers Improvements 45

TAPI: Video Streaming Enhancements 45

Terminal Services: Audio Redirection for RDP 46

Terminal Services: Remote Desktop Resource Redirection 46

Terminal Services: Resolution and Color Enhancements 47

TWAIN Compatibility for 64-bit Applications 47

Wake on LAN: Select Wake Event Improvements 48

Windows Error Reporting 48

Enhancements for IT Administration 49

Access Control List Editor Enhancements 49

Access Control List UI: Usability Display Changes 49

Active Directory Administration: Object Picker UI Improvements 50

Active Directory Administration: WMI Providers for Replication and Trust Monitoring 50

Active Directory: Application Naming Contexts 51

Active Directory: Behavior Versioning 51

Active Directory: Global Catalog Not Required for Logon 52

Active Directory: Group Membership Replication Improvements 52

Active Directory: Improved Inter-Site Replication Topology Generator 53

Active Directory: Install Replica from Media 53

Active Directory: LDAP Improvements 54

Active Directory: Synchronization Improvements 55

Active Directory Users and Computers Snap-in: Saved Queries 55

Active Directory Users and Computers Snap-in: Editing Multiple User Objects 56

Authorization APIs 56

Automated System Recovery 57

Backup and Restore with DHCP 57

CardBus Wake on LAN 57

Certificate Enrollment Enhancements 58

Certificate Revocation List Duplication Points 58

Certificate Revocation List Enhancements 58

Configure Your Server 59

Cross Certification Enhancements 59

DHCP: Classless Source Routing 60

DHCP: Database Backups 60

DHCP: Database NetShell Migrations 61

DHCP: UI for Backup and Restore 61

Diagnostics: Network and Connectivity Test 61

Distributed File Service Administration Improvements 62

DNS: Basic Compliance with DNS Security Extensions 62

DNS: DCPromo Supporting DrDNS Functionality 63

DNS: Manage DNS Client Using Group Policy 63

DNS: Stub Zones and Conditional Forwarding 64

DNS: Support for EDNS0 Protocol 64

Editable Certificate Templates 65

Encrypted Domain Passwords 65

FIPS Kernel-Mode Crypto Module 65

Group Policy: Administrative Templates Snap-In Enhancement 66

Group Policy: Folder Redirection of My Documents 66

Group Policy: Full Install of User Assigned Applications at Logon 66

Group Policy: Network and Dial-up Connections 67

Group Policy: New Policy Settings 67

Group Policy: Policy Features for Distributed Eventing 68

Group Policy: Resultant Set of Policy Wizard 68

Group Policy: Support URL for Software Deployment 68

Group Policy: Support for 64-bit Software Deployment 69

Group Policy: Terminal Server 69

Group Policy: WMI Filtering 70

Headless Server 70

Headless Server: Emergency Management Service Support 70

Headless Server: Remote Installation Services 71

Internet Information Services: Capacity Planning Tracing 71

Internet Authentication Service as a RADIUS Proxy 72

IPSec Monitoring Improvements 73

Kerberos Extended Errors 73

Key Archival and Recovery 73

Large Log Files 74

Logical Volume Management Enhancements 74

Migration of Third-Party Mass Storage Drivers 75

MSMQ: Distribution Lists 75

MSMQ: Internet Messaging 76

MSMQ: Queue Alias 76

MSMQ: Triggers 76

Native Mode IDE Switch 77

NetMeeting 3.1: Bridging Enhancements 77

Network Client: Unattended Install Enhancements 78

Network Location Awareness 78

Network Packet Scheduler 79

NTFS Read-Only Volumes 79

NTFS SetShortName for Backup 80

Performance Monitor: Current Processor Power Activity Report 80

Performance Monitor: Logging to SQL Server 80

Performance Monitor: Select Multiple Instance and Objects 81

Performance Monitor: Trending Analysis 81

Performance Tools Additions 81

Power Management Settings: Unattended Configuration 82

Print Driver Installation on Server Clusters 83

Printing: 32-bit and 64-bit Interoperability 83

Printing: Remove MacPrint from 64-bit Whistler Server Product 83

Printing: Scripts for Print Systems Management 84

Printing: Universal Printer Driver Pseudo Vector Support 84

RAS: Connection Manager Administration Kit Improvements 84

RAS: Integrated Services over Slow Link Layers 85

Removal of Legacy Networking Protocols 85

Roaming User Profiles: 64-bit Enhancements 86

Route Management Using Connection Manager 86

Secure Wireless LANs 87

Secure Wireless/LANs and IAS/RADIUS Server 87

Security Accounts Manager: Record Identification Limit 88

Security Improvements for Servers on Ethernet or Wireless LANs 88

Snapshots 89

Snapshots: Backup Integration 89

Snapshots: File System Support 90

System Monitor: Performance Logging Enhancements 90

System Restore 91

TCP/IP Support on IEEE 1394 Serial Bus 91

TCP/UDP Port Ownership 91

Terminal Server: Services Redirection 92

Terminal Server: Standby Power Support 92

Terminal Server: Terminal Services Manager Improvements 92

Terminal Services: Load Management 93

Terminal Services: Remote Access Permission Changes 93

User State Migration Tool 94

Windows Installer: Digital Signature Support 95

Windows Installer: Improved File Comparison Method 95

Enhancements for Developers 95

Accessibility: MSAA Document Services 95

Accessibility: SAPI 5 Speech Recognition and Text-To-Speech API 96

Active Directory: Admin Extensibility Enhancements 96

Cluster Server Extension 97

Cluster Server: Resource Scripting Host 97

COM and Shared DLL Isolation Support 97

COM+: Resource Manager Support 98

COM+ 1.x Enhancement: Applications As Windows NT Services 98

COM+ 1.x Enhancement: Application Partitions 99

COM+ 1.x Enhancement: Application Process Dump 99

COM+ 1.x Enhancement: Component Aliasing 100

COM+ 1.x Enhancement: Configurable Isolation Levels 100

COM+ 1.x Enhancement: Memory Gates 100

COM+ 1.x Enhancement: Process Recycling 101

COM+ 1.x Enhancement: Public/Private Components 101

Convert OpenHCI to new Port/Miniport USB Stack 101

Digest Access Authentication 102

Digital Media: DirectShow Performance Improvements 102

Digital Media: DirectX 8 Gaming Platform 103

Digital Media: Microsoft TV Technologies for Windows 103

Digital Media: Video Mixing Renderer 104

Driverless-Cameras That Use PTP 15740 Protocol 105

Driver Installation for 64-Bit 105

Driver Versioning 105

Encrypted File System Support for Applications 106

Event Tracing Enhancements 106

File Association Improvements 107

Internet Information Services: Application Recycling 107

Internet: Integration Modifications for IPv6 Add-ons 108

Internet: IPv6 Protocol Support for Software Development 108

Kernel-Mode Debugging via IEEE 1394 108

MMC: View Extensions 109

OLE Automation Update 109

Printing: Spooler Improvements 109

RAS: Dial-in with Third-Party Components 110

Roaming User Profiles: Application Support Enhancement 110

Scriptable API to Configure Internet Authentication Server 111

Secure Sockets Layer: Client Authentication Improvements 111

TAPI: H.323 Enhancements 111

TAPI: MMC Enhancements 112

Universal Plug and Play: Control Point 112

Universal Plug and Play: Control Point API 113

Windows Sockets: ConnectEx/TransmitPackets and TCP/IP 113

Windows Sockets: Direct Path for System Area Networks 113

WMI: Distributed Event Subscriptions 114

WMI: Event Correlation 114

WMI Filters 115

WMI: Guaranteed Delivery of Events 115

WMI: Set Date and Time Remotely 116

WMI Provider: CHKDSK Functionality 116

WMI Provider: Disk Quotas 117

WMI Provider: Distributed File System (DFS) Shares 117

WMI Provider: Formatted Performance Counters 117

WMI Provider: Internet Information Services 118

WMI Provider: Job Objects 118

WMI Provider: Network Share Connections and Sessions 119

WMI Provider: Ping 119

WMI Provider: Printing 120

WMI Provider: Static IP Route Information 120

WMI Provider: Terminal Server 120

WMI Software Tracing 121

Of Interest to Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) 122

Battery Life Monitoring 122

Cluster Services: 64-bit Support 122

Cluster Services: Installation Simplification 122

Customer Information Added to unattend.txt 123

Hot Plug PCI 123

IGMPv3 Support 124

INF Search Cache 124

Memory Mirroring 124

Modem Country or Region Select 125

One Parallel Driver 125

Pre-Install Process Improvements 125

Printer PostScript Data Processed by OEMs 126

Printers: Multi-Color Ink Printer Support Improvements 126

Setup Enhancements 127

Sysprep Modifications to Handle Factory Floor Pre-Installation 127

USB DirectInput Genre Descriptor Support 127

Unloading of ASL Tables Support 128

UDF 2.01 Read-Only 128

USB Phone Support 129

Introduction

This Feature Guide for Whistler Beta 1 describes many of the new features of this product release. The organization of this feature guide is described below.

Although many readers might be interested in all of the new features in this guide, for easier reading the features are grouped into the following categories:

  • Improving the End User Experience
  • Improving the Fundamentals and Technology
  • Enhancements for IT Administration
  • Enhancements for Developers
  • Of Interest to Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs)

Each feature in this guide is presented in a format that includes the following elements:

  • Feature Name – This is the short title of the feature.
  • Description – This briefly explains the feature.
  • Scenario – This provides some example uses of the feature. There may be instances where a scenario is not provided.
  • Product – This provides information on which product the feature is found. Products include: Personal, Professional, and Server. Note: Server includes the family of server products.
  • 64-bit Information – This identifies whether the feature applies to the 32-bit or 64-bit operating system.
  • How to Start – This includes how to start or find the feature (if applicable).

This document intentionally does not have page breaks so that worldwide audiences can easily view or print this document.

The definition of commonly used acronyms is included below rather than within this document.

ACRONYMS

ACRONYM TITLE ACRONYM TITLE
API Application Programming Interface LAN Local Area Network
CD Compact Disc MMC Microsoft Management Console
COM Component Object Model NIC Network Interface Card
CPU Central Processing Unit NTFS Windows NT File System
DHCP Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol OEM Original Equipment Manufacturer
DNS Domain Name System PC Personal Computer
DVD Digital Video Disc RAS Remote Access Service
IEEE Institute of Electrical & Electronics Engineers, Inc. TAPI Telephony Application Programming Interface
IHV Independent Hardware Vendor TCP/IP Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol
I/O Input/Output UI User Interface
IP Internet Protocol USB Universal Serial Bus
ISP Internet Service Provider WIA Windows Image Acquisition
ISV Independent Software Vendor WINS Windows Internet Name Service
IT Information Technology WMI Windows Management Instrumentation

Improving the End User Experience

Feature Name

Automatic Updates

Description

This feature will enable multiple users in separate sessions to automatically install Windows downloads on the same computer (previously, only one user per computer could take advantage of automatic updates). This feature is used for the delivery of critical operating system updates, such as security fixes, patches, and so on. Updates are downloaded to the user's computers in the background, although the user is notified prior to install and given the opportunity to postpone it as the install might require them to restart the computer.

This feature also includes:

  • Detection: Automatic Updates (AU) uses the Windows Update control to scan the system and decide which updates are applicable to a particular computer.
  • Downloads: AU uses its innovative bandwidth-throttling technology for downloads. Bandwidth throttling uses only idle bandwidth so that downloads will not interfere with or will not slow down other network activity, such as Internet browsing.
  • Install: AU uses the Windows Update control for installing downloaded updates.
  • Security: AU's service checks user security privileges on each method call. It will only process calls coming from administrator user sessions.
  • Resolving user collisions: The service will give access to its methods only to one user and automatic update client at a time.

The feature provides the following for clients:

  • User interface: All dialog boxes, notification balloons, icons, and so on.
  • Security: It will perform security checks, so that it only can run in an administrative user session.
Scenario If a user has administrative privileges and more than one account on a computer and the AutoUpdate feature has not been disabled in the Control Panel, AutoUpdate will launch automatically to check if there are any updates available for download or installation.
Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start AutoUpdate starts automatically when a user with administrative privileges logs on to the computer.

User: Start – Control Panel – Other Control Panel Options – Automatic Updates

Ref. No. WH0806-0807-0809-0810-1061M101800
Feature Name

CD Burning

Description This feature enables users to save information to a CD, also known as "burning," as easily as saving to a floppy disk or a hard disk. Photos and software can now be copied to CDs without need for third-party software. As CD-Read (CD-R) burners and CD-Read/Write (CD-RW) drives are now inexpensive options on computers, this will enhance the standard conveniences that Windows offers to users.
Scenario
  • Users can select a folder of images from a digital camera, drag them to the CD-R device icon, and then create a CD.
  • Users can make a copy of another CD.
  • Users can burn their own CD-R to transfer files instead of using a smaller capacity floppy disk.
  • OEMs can create branded applications that generate emergency boot CDs instead of emergency boot floppy disk.
  • ISVs can offer a “burn to CD” option on their Windows version.
Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Start – My Pictures
Ref. No. WH0731C-0242B101800
Feature Name

ClearType Support

Description This feature provides support for ClearType, a new text display technology. ClearType triples the horizontal resolution available for rendering text through software so that the result is clearer display of text on a Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) screen with digital interface.
Scenario A user with a mobile computer turns on ClearType and they will experience clearer display of text.
Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Start - Control Panel – Display – Appearance - Effects
Ref. No. WH0857C101800
Feature Name

Command Prompt: Accessibility Support

Description This feature enables people with disabilities much improved text accessibility. Without this, users with disabilities might not use certain applications. This provides improved text accessibility.
Scenario Users with disabilities can obtain information about a particular user interface and use its application from a command prompt.
Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Start – Programs – Accessories – Command Prompt
Ref. No. WH0680C101800
Feature Name

Control Panel: Account Management Enhancements

Description The account management feature of the Control Panel enables users to add, delete and modify user accounts and passwords for a computer.
Scenario
  • A user wants to allow a family member access to their computer. This new control panel is used to make this happen.
  • The new User Accounts Control Panel replaces the Users and Passwords Control Panel in the case of a workgroup scenario.
  • If a user is a part of a corporation’s domain, the Users and Passwords Control Panel is used (it includes domain functionality).
Product Personal, Professional
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Click Start, Control Panel, User Accounts
Ref. No. WH0694C101800
Feature Name

Control Panel: WebView

Description WebView technology is used in Whistler to help users more successfully manage files and the file namespace. WebView is the Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) view of file folders.
Scenario A user can use WebView to view files in folders.
Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Start – Control Panel – Folder Options - General
Ref. No. WH0722C101800
Feature Name

Credential Management

Description The Credential Management feature provides a secure store of user credentials, including passwords and X.509 certificates. This will provide a consistent single-sign on experience for users, including roaming users.
Scenario A user accesses a line-of-business application within their company’s network. The first attempt to access this application requires authentication and the user is prompted to supply a credential. After the user provides this credential, it will be associated with the requesting application. In future access to this application, the saved credential will be re-used without prompting the user.
Product Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Start – Control Panel – Other Control Panel Options – Credential Manager
Ref. No. WH0632-0631-0613S101800
Feature Name

Device Driver Rollback

Description This feature provides the capability of replacing a device driver with the previously installed version.
Scenario A user installs a new device driver that causes system instability. The user merely restores, that is rolls back, the previous device driver and continues using the system.
Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Start – Control Panel – Other Control Panel Options – System - Hardware
Ref. No. WH0142B101800
Feature Name

Device Drivers: Imaging Drivers Additions

Description

This feature adds drivers that use the Windows Image Acquisition (WIA) common system dialog boxes and provides four dialog boxes as follows.

  • Scanner common dialog: Among other tasks, this dialog allows the user to preview, crop, scan, and inputs scan properties such as brightness, contrast, and so on. This dialog box is extensible IHVs through the custom settings page. The page can host various property sheets.
  • Still camera common dialog: This dialog box allows the user to view thumb-nail images, preview full-sized pictures, view picture information, and delete pictures.
  • Video camera common dialog: This dialog box allows the user to view a live or recorded video stream, such as from a digital video camcorder, and capture one or more frames from the stream. After they are captured, the frames can be retrieved as standard WIA pictures.
  • Device selection dialog: This dialog box allows the user to select which WIA device to work with when multiple WIA devices are installed. It also allows the user to see and set the device property information.
Scenario
  • Aside from the extensibility model, IHVs can register their own UI for their WIA devices and present their own experience to an application. For example, a scanner manufacturer might choose to write a WIA scanner mini-driver that exposes Optical Character Recognition (OCR) functionality to applications.
  • This feature also includes a mini-driver, part of WIA that can be used by IHVs to expose extensions, private interfaces, custom settings and device-specific behavior.
Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Start – Control Panel – Other Control Panel Options – System - Hardware
Ref. No. WH0496C101800
Feature Name

Device Drivers: Last Known Good Files

Description When a user updates a driver, a copy of the original “good” files (the previous driver) will be saved in a special sub-directory. If the new driver does not work properly, the user can restore the driver to the previous driver as the last known good driver. The user has to boot into Safe Mode to use this feature.
Scenario A user installs an updated driver for their boot device, but the new driver doesn’t work correctly. The user boots into Safe Mode and uses the Last Known Good feature to restore the driver to its previous version, allowing the system to boot and enabling the user to continue using their system.
Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Start – Control Panel – Other Control Panel Options – System - Hardware
Ref. No. WH0130B101800
Feature Name

Digital Media: Digital Video Enhancements

Description This feature provides efficient transmission of large data buffers for variable-payload and variable-data isochronous streams, such as the data stream associated with the digital video format.
Scenario A user has a digital video camcorder and wants to do video editing on the computer. This feature provides improvements in transmitting the camcorder stream to the computer.
Product Personal, Professional
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Start – Control Panel – Sounds and Audio Devices
Ref. No. WH0103B101800
Feature Name

Digital Media: Movie Maker

Description

Windows Movie Maker version 1.1 provides base-level features for Windows Media capture and file creation, simple editing of video and audio, and the saving and publishing of Windows media files. The utility produces output only in the Windows Media format, but it will import all file formats and compression types supported by the DirectShow architecture.

If a user’s computer does not contain any video capture hardware, all other non-video capture-related features of the application are fully functional and they allow for the importing and editing of media assets that exist on the user’s computer.

Scenario
  • A user wants to archive their home video library collection onto the hard drive of a PC. The user can record, edit, organize and share the home video library from a PC. The user can also share the home video with family and friends via E-mail or on an Internet Web site.
  • A user wants to make a video slide show. With Windows Movie Maker, they are able to combine still images and publish into a Windows Media format.
Product Personal, Professional
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit
How to Start Start – Programs – Accessories – Windows Movie Maker
Ref. No. WH0385-1156D101800
Feature Name

Facsimile Sharing

Description Fax sharing enables users to send faxes using their network. The user can print to fax from any application, can send a cover fax page, and can track and monitor their fax. New Wizards enable simpler configuration and fax sending. Administrators can fully control the fax capabilities using the COM API. Developers can use the Object Model to send faxes programmatically.
Scenario
  • A user can send a fax from their workstation that has an attached fax/modem or fax board.
  • A user can send a fax from their workstation that is connected to their company’s LAN.
  • An IT administrator can set up the fax service within their infrastructure by using the MMC.
  • A developer can write applications, using the new fax APIs, to automatically send faxes from their applications.
Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Start – Programs – Microsoft Fax
Ref. No. WH1030-1032-1033-1034-1035-1053-1036P101800
Feature Name

Fast User Switching for Multiple Users of a Computer

Description Using the Fast User Switching feature, multiple users can share a computer without closing all of their applications. This enables multiple users to simultaneously use the same computer.
Scenario

A family shares a computer. The mother is using the computer to do some financial records and has to leave the computer for a short period of time. Her son wants to use the computer to play a game during this time. Using Fast User Switching, the mother can leave the financial application open in her computer account while her son plays a game from his separate computer account. All of this is done without logging off.

Note: this feature does not function in a configuration that includes a domain (for example, in a business environment).

Product Personal, Professional
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start

If in a workgroup: Start – Control Panel – User Accounts – Fast User Switching

Then Logoff – Select User

Ref. No. WH0695-0685C101800
Feature Name

Feedback Link for Comments from Beta Users

Description

This feature enables Beta 1 users to conveniently send a comment to Microsoft as to how a dialog box or warning message could be improved. Users have reported seeing boxes and messages with unintelligible wording or no instructions as to what the user should do to fix the problem.

When such a box or message is seen, the user need only click on a "Comments" link in the upper-right corner of the box or message. That link that will open a dialog box in which the user can make a suggestion. The user can then send it by simply clicking on "Submit."

Scenario
  • A user is confronted with a message box that is not understandable and wants to comment on the text in the message.
  • A dialog box is continually displayed that, although is perfectly understandable, is perceived as not necessary and annoying by the user.
  • An observant user notices a bug in a dialog box and would like to notify the developers that there is a problem.
Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Comments of the dialog box or warning message, Submit
Ref. No. WH0684C101800
Feature Name

File Associations: User Interface Improvements

Description This feature focuses on improving the UI regarding File Associations. It includes uninstall retention of file associations, control of file associations at install time, inclusion of certain basic file types (ZIP, PDF, CAB, CSS), control of reserved file classes (such as Audio CD), and helping a user with un-associated files.
Scenario A user wants to use an alternative program to open a file of type JPG. From the Open With dialog from the context menu, the Recommended Programs that are known to open a JPG file is listed.
Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Start – Control Panel – Other Control Panel Options – Folder Options – File Types
Ref. No. WH1040C101800
Feature Name

File Management Improvements

Description

Whistler’s file UI leverages WebView and ListView technologies to deliver a higher level of usability. It enables more people to successfully manage files in My Documents and other file folders. File Management improvements include:

  • Expose common folder and file tasks dynamically in WebView
  • New grouping behavior, visuals, and UI (including increasing thumbnail size)
  • New Tiles view (ListView)
  • Better sorting and order feedback
  • New folder thumbnails with four mini-previews
Scenario
  • A user opens My Documents, selects a file, and sees a list of things to do with that file without knowing about right-click context menus.
  • A user can operate on a folder while inside that folder.
  • A user sees a list of related Other Places and can easily get from point A to point B, or go “up” to a known place, quickly by clicking a link.
  • A user selects a file to send to someone via E-mail, give another person access to, or place on a Web server. All of these actions are simplified with these improvements.
Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Start – Control Panel
Ref. No. WH0737-0739-0740-0741-0742C101800
Feature Name

Hardware: AutoPlay

Description

The AutoPlay feature enables users to simply connect a new device or simply insert media, and they can start using it right away. When Windows senses a connection, such as flash cards, Zip disks, and CDs, it determines the content, such as pictures, music, or video, and automatically starts the appropriate application.

The supported media types include:

  • Flash cards, such as compact flash, smart media, and memory stick.
  • CDs and DVDs
  • Zip disks and removable disk drives
  • PC cards
  • External hot-plug fixed drives (IEEE 1394 standard)
  • The supported content types are:
  • Pictures (such as JPG, BMP)
  • Music Files (such as MP3, WMA)
  • Video (such as AVI, MPG)
  • Mixed content, where the user can configure the auto play action when it discovers any combination of pictures, music files, or video.
Scenario When a user inserts a media or a device with media, it just works. The appropriate application automatically starts to utilize it.
Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Start – Control Panel – Add New Hardware
Ref. No. WH0718C101800
Feature Name

Hardware: Battery Life Improvements: Mobile Computer

Description

This feature improves the battery life of mobile computer computers by the following means:

  • Lid Power: When the lid of a mobile computer is closed, the display is powered off.
  • Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) Dimming: When a mobile computer is running on battery power, the display is dimmed. Upon reconnection to Alternating Current (AC) power, the original brightness in the LCD resumes.
Scenario
  • A user is in a hurry and shuts the lid of the mobile computer without turning off the display. Whistler will automatically power off the display, thereby reducing power problems when the user resumes use of the computer.
  • A user will have longer use of a mobile computer when using only battery power.
Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Automatically done when the lid of a mobile computer is closed
Ref. No. WH0145-0146B100300
Feature Name

Hardware: Enhanced Keyboard Buttons

Description This feature enables new-technology keyboards to work with Windows, by supporting new Human Interface Device (HID) specifications for the PS/2 and USB interface keyboards. As the standard keyboard has been enhanced with additional features over the last few years, especially driven by new technologies such as multimedia, Web browsing, application launch, and power management, the standards groups have identified new specifications for keyboards.
Scenario
  • A user has a new computer with new multimedia software. The new keyboard has multimedia support as well. The system will work out-of-the-box with this new feature.
  • OEMs can use this feature to customize keys that launch customizable programs. This can be implemented by changing a few registry keys. The OEM or IHV also has the option of writing a UI to set the registry keys to improve the user experience and allow the user to run their favorite programs at the touch of a keyboard button.
Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Start – Control Panel – Printers and Other Hardware - Keyboard
Ref. No. WH0090B101800
Feature Name

Hardware: High Resolution Monitor Support

Description This feature enables Windows to utilize the new high-resolution monitors that are built to display up to 200 Dots Per Inch (DPI). Therefore, the Windows Control Panel DPI setting is increased accordingly, which makes text not only more legible, but of much higher quality than an equivalent 96 DPI monitor (because there are more dots to play with). Items that utilize this font feature are, for example, dialog boxes, buttons, title bars, and input by pen and speech.
Scenario Users can now set their Windows display settings to take full advantage of the new monitors coming on the market to display sharp and crisp text and graphics.
Product Personal, Professional
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Start – Control Panel – Appearance and Themes – Display – Settings – Advanced Monitor
Ref. No. WH0679C101800
Feature Name

Hardware: Multifunction Device Installation Improvements

Description Multifunction devices are hardware devices that combine two or more functions, such as a combination modem-NIC device or a multifunction printer that has both printing and scanning capabilities. This feature improves the installation of multifunction devices by removing the iterated pop-ups, but presenting the UI and prompting the user for the distribution media only once.
Scenario A user gets a new multifunction printer that has both printing and scanning capabilities. The multifunction device installation improvements require the user to go through the new hardware installation process only once.
Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Start – Control Panel – Printers and Other Hardware
Ref. No. WH0137B101800
Feature Name

Hardware: Processor Power Control

Description This feature enables support for microprocessor power management.
Scenario A user has a mobile computer with newer hardware. While the CPU runs at full speed on Alternating Current (AC) power, the mobile computer can be made to run with lower CPU speeds while on battery power. Mobile users, such as someone on business travel who do not have full access to AC power, will benefit with longer period of use for their mobile computer.
Product Personal, Professional
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Start – Control Panel – Performance and Maintenance – Power Options
Ref. No. WH0151B101800
Feature Name

Hardware UI Improvements

Description

Hardware User Interface (UI) improvements in Whistler include:

  • Redesign of the hardware wizards: Found New Hardware, Hardware Update Device, and Add New Hardware. The Add New Hardware wizard replaces the Add/Remove Hardware wizard in Windows 2000.
  • Integration of Windows Update into the search paths used for locating and installing drivers
  • Replace the “found new hardware” dialog box with a balloon in the tray when newly installed hardware is ready
  • Display the standard Login dialog when driver installation requires administrative rights and the currently logged-in user doesn’t have these rights
  • Adds an “Update driver” menu item in Device Manager
Scenario
  • A user installs a new device, but Windows cannot find an appropriate driver installed on the computer. Windows checks the downloaded catalog from Windows Update and guides the user to Windows Update. The driver is then downloaded and installed.
  • A user who is not logged in as an administrator plugs in a new device for which there is no driver present on the system. Whistler displays the Login UI so the user can log in as an administrator and finish installing the device.
  • A user needs to update the driver for a device. Device Manager provides a single click method for initiating this process in the Action menu, Context menu, and the Driver Tab of the device’s Property Page.
Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Start – Control Panel – Add New Hardware
Ref. No. WH0140B101800
Feature Name

Hardware: Wake on Battery Support

Description When a system is running on batteries and enters a low battery situation, a wake event will be triggered. This will allow the system to enter hibernation and preserve data.
Scenario A user steps away from their computer while it is in standby and running on batteries, and isn’t able to return before the batteries run down. The system will automatically enter into hibernation and the users application data will not be lost.
Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Start – Control Panel – Performance and Maintenance – Power Options
Ref. No. WH0154B101800
Feature Name

Help and Support Services: Extensible Search Mechanism

Description

This feature enables a user to search for content across multiple remote and on-line providers. For example, a user can locate information on “Virtual Private Networking,” which is resident on their computer, located remotely in the Microsoft Knowledge Base, or located remotely in a participating OEM’s Knowledge Base.

This feature standardizes the Help and Support Service’s interfaces on which a search query is performed and results returned. It provides a more unified user interface and experience for locating help content. This feature includes:

  • Enables multiple search engines to plug into the Help and Support Services using a set of standard interfaces.
  • Interfaces are generic enough so the Help and Support Services can accommodate and communicate easily with most search engines.
  • A result set that is returned from a search engine is rich enough so that it can accommodate a wide range of user interfaces.
Scenario A user has problems setting up their new cable modem. The user goes to Help and Support Services to try and understand how to rectify the problem. The user searches on the term “cable modem” and locates Help content that is resident on their computer, several articles from the Microsoft Knowledge Base and some documents from a participating OEM’s Web site.
Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Start - Help and Support, Search Help and Support Services
Ref. No. WH0815M101800
Feature Name

Help and Support Services: Favorites

Description This feature enables users to mark any topic or link in the Help and Support Services as a Favorite. Users can create a list of favorites and remove favorites from the list as well. This will aid users in quickly finding frequently visited Help items.
Scenario A user can access a frequently used Help topic, such as Microsoft DOS (MS-DOS) commands, by marking it as a Favorite.
Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Start - Help and Support, Favorites
Ref. No. WH0861M101800
Feature Name

Help and Support Services: Feedback Submission

Description

This feature will enable users to conveniently send feedback to Microsoft relating to Whistler Help and Support content and organization. When a user sends a comment, the feature will also send a session trace along with it that can help Microsoft staff understand the user’s self-service session, prior to feedback submission. This can include previous topics visited and search keywords used.

When users identify inaccuracies and gaps in content, their feedback will help make Whistler easier to use and increase the quality of Help content, categorization, and navigation.

Scenario A user who does not have very much experience using a computer wants to "download" a Word file from their hard drive to a floppy disk. Not realizing that the key word that will find their information in the Windows Help and Support Services is "copy" or "move," they are unable to find information that will assist. Wanting to be constructive while still in the Help and Support Services, the user clicks on the link that will display a dialog box in which he can type in a suggestion and immediately send it to Microsoft.
Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Start - Help and Support
Ref. No. WH0851M101800
Feature Name

Help and Support Services: Full Text Search

Description This feature enables users to search across the entire Windows user assistance compiled HTML Help files base, using Boolean operators, and returns an aggregate list of results.
Scenario An IT administrator, who is looking for help in deploying Active Directory using Group Policy, can use this feature to obtain a more complete search in Active Directory.
Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Start – Help and Support – Search Help and Support Services
Ref. No. WH1042M101800
Feature Name

Help and Support Services: Multiple Instances

Description This feature allows users to open two sessions of the Help and Support Services at the same time. This enables them to submit incident reports while at the same time looking at Help or system information.
Scenario A user who is unable to resolve a problem using Help information can refer to that information while at the same time submitting an incident report through another session of the Help and Support services.
Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Start – Help and Support
Ref. No. WH0862M101800
Feature Name

Help and Support Services: Printing Node

Description

This feature enables users to print an entire chapter of the Help and Support Services with one print command; that is, it can iteratively print all available topics in a specified node.

Some topics may not be available due to network connection issues, in which case it will print only the available content.

Scenario A user who wants to study a feature in depth prints the entire feature’s Help node, including all topics within it.
Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Start – Help and Support – Printing and Faxing
Ref. No. WH0863M101800
Feature Name

Help and Support Services: Remote Assistance

Description This feature enhances peer-to-peer help experience by allowing chat, file transfer, and view of the computer requiring remote assistance.
Scenario A user has experiences a problem with the operating system and, over the Internet, invites another person to help. The person who is helping can chat, do a file transfer and remotely view the computer with the problem. With the computer owner’s permission, the person who is helping can be given permission to share control of their computer.
Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Start – Help and Support – Interactive Support
Ref. No. WH0013M101800
Feature Name

Help and Support Services: Remotely Access Help

Description This feature provides a mechanism to easily view server Help content from a desktop computer.
Scenario From a desktop computer running Whistler Professional, an IT administrator can access Help content that is located on a server, via a Whistler CD or access to a network share containing the relevant content.
Product Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Click Start, Help and Support, Options
Ref. No. WH0822M100400
Feature Name

Help and Support Services: Sysinfo

Description This feature provides end users with an easy to comprehend, highly accessible view of personalized software and hardware information specific to their computer.
Scenario A user is on the telephone with a product support engineer and is asked to relate BIOS information about their computer. The user accesses the Sysinfo feature and can quickly relate relevant BIOS information to help resolve their issue.
Product Personal, Professional
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Start - Help and Support - Interactive Support - My Computer Information
Ref. No. WH1223M101800
Feature Name

Help and Support Services: Troubleshooting Diagnostic Tool

Description This feature provides a troubleshooting diagnostic tool that will simplify troubleshooting tasks that might normally be beyond their ability of end users. It can help troubleshoot problems with the operating system by automating the standard troubleshooting steps. Users can complete basic troubleshooting steps from one location. The tool does this by using a series of check boxes to apply step-by-step system changes and it enables more advanced troubleshooting and problem resolution.
Scenario When end users experience a problem with their computers, they can make this feature the first stop on their troubleshooting trail. It should reduce the need for users to seek outside help at such times.
Product Personal, Professional
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Start - Help and Support - Tools
Ref. No. WH0917-0990M101800
Feature Name

International: Locale Support Additions

Description Locales are a set of cultural and regional preferences that correspond to a user’s language and sub-language (examples: Canadian French, UK English). This feature adds support for the following locales: Galician, Gujarati, Kannada, Kyrgyz, Mongolian (Cyrillic), Punjabi, Divehi, Syriac and Telugu.
Scenario A user can customize their computer to use the cultural preferences of one of these locales. This includes sorting, calendars, keyboards, currency, number, date and time formatting.
Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Start - Control Panel – Date, Time, Language and Regional Options
Ref. No. WH0545-0547-0548C101800
Feature Name

International: Regional Options Enhancements

Description

This feature enhances the Regional and Language Options control panel to provide the following:

  • Location setting (used by services to provide local information such as news and weather)
  • Default User Account support
  • Support for Windows Text Services
  • Simplified Language installation
Scenario
  • A user can configure the location setting to get content relevant to their location from their favorite Web sites.
  • A user can modify the Default User Account to change the Regional and Language settings applied to any new user accounts they create on their computer.
Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Start - Control Panel – Date, Time, Language and Regional Options
Ref. No. WH0544C101800
Feature Name

Internet: Auto-Configuration for Multiple Networks Connectivity

Description This feature provides easy access to network devices and the Internet. It also provides the mobile computer user seamless operations on both office and home networks without having to manually reconfigure TCP/IP settings. This feature specifies that TCP/IP will use an alternate configuration if a DHCP server is not found. The alternate configuration is useful in situations where the computer is used on more than one network and one of those networks does not have a DHCP server and an automatic private IP addressing configuration is not desired.
Scenario A user has a mobile computer that is used at their office and at home. While at the office, the computer uses a DHCP-allocated TCP/IP configuration. While at home, where there is no DHCP server present, the computer automatically uses the alternative configuration.
Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Start – Control Panel – Network Connections
Ref. No. WH1020N101800
Feature Name

Internet: Connection Manager Favorites

Description The favorites feature for Connection Manager enables users to eliminate repetitive configuration of the Connection Manager properties when switching between common dialing locations. The favorites system provides a method for storing and easily accessing settings.
Scenario
  • A user who is on business travel uses Connection Manager and a global long distance telephone network to dial into their corporate network.
  • A user travels frequently between a company’s office and a business partner’s site. The user sets up Connection Manager Favorites, including the nearest access telephone number, area code and dialing rules for these two locations. The user then uses the Favorites to quickly set up network connections from each location.
Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Start – Programs – Accessories – Communications – Internet Connection Wizard
Ref. No. WH1065N101800
Feature Name

Internet Connection Sharing

Description Whistler provides the ability to share a single Internet connection with multiple computers on a home or small business network through the Internet Connection Sharing feature. This feature also provides addresses for network clients vai Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) and serves as a Domain Name System (DNS) proxy.
Scenario A user wants to share their Digital Subscriber Line (xDSL) or cable modem connection with the computers on their home network. The user enables Internet Connection Sharing on the computer and all the other computers on this home network can access the Internet through this connection.
Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Start – Programs – Accessories – Communications – Internet Connection Wizard
Ref. No. WH0363N101800
Feature Name

Internet: Home Networking Wizard

Description Whistler provides a simple way for home users and small business users to create a shared Internet connection and configure clients on a home or small business Local Area Network (LAN) with the Home Networking Wizard. No knowledge of networking technology is required.
Scenario A user buys a new computer with Whistler installed as the operating system. This new computer is connected to the Internet and the user can easily configure the new computer to share files with computers running Windows 95 and Windows Millennium in the user’s small business.
Product Personal, Professional
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit
How to Start

Start – Programs – Accessories – Communications – Home Networking Wizard

OR Start – Control Panel – Network Connections – Home Networking

Ref. No. WH1224C101800
Feature Name

Internet: Personal Firewall

Description Whistler provides Internet security in the form of a firewall. Designed for use in the home and small business, Personal Firewall provides protection on computers directly connected to the Internet or behind an Internet Connection Sharing (ICS) host computer that is running the Personal Firewall feature. This feature is available for Local Area Network (LAN) or dial-up connections. It also prevents scanning of ports and resources (file and printer shares) from external sources.
Scenario A user wants to protect a Remote Access Server(RAS) connection when dialing directly into an Internet Service Provider (ISP), protect a LAN connection that is connected to an Asynchronous Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL) or cable modem. They can also enable Personal Firewall on a public Internet Connection Sharing interface to provide protection to the ICS host computer.
Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start

Start – Programs – Accessories – Communications – Home Networking Wizard

OR Start – Control Panel – Network Connections – Home Networking

Ref. No. WH1253N101800
Feature Name

Internet: Residential Broadband Client Access Improvements

Description This feature enables connecting multiple computers through the same access device and use residential broadband services. This includes functionality similar to dial-up service using Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP). It also enhances network access with access control, billing, type of service can be done on a per-user basis, rather than a per-site basis. This feature also provides a cost effective methodology of using Point-to-Point Protocol Over Ethernet (PPPOE).
Scenario A user can use broadband connectivity from their home or other location using PPPOE.
Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Start – Control Panel – Network Connections – LAN or High-Speed Internet
Ref. No. WH0529N101800
Feature Name

Media Folders (My Music, My Pictures)

Description

Media Folders include:

  • My Pictures: This functionality enables users to quickly view, without the aid of third-party software, a list of photos in a folder and perform basic management tasks such as adding, sorting, and deleting picture files. Users can easily organize a large collection of pictures based on groups formed by gaps in the Time Taken property of digital photos. They can then easily share the pictures with others, either using e-mail, centralized sharing, or publishing to a Web site. Filmstrip and Slideshow are two new items in My Pictures folder.
  • My Music: This functionality enables similar capabilities of My Picture for a user’s music files. It helps users retrieve, add, sort, and delete music files.
Scenario Users can take a series of photos with a digital camera, transfer them to their computer with a flash card, and then sort and delete the photos before posting them on their personal Web sites or storing them in a folder.
Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start

Start – My Pictures

Start – My Music

Ref. No. WH0747C101800
Feature Name

Migration Wizard

Description

This feature enables the convenient transfer (migration) of files, documents, and settings (state) from one computer to another. It does this by providing a Migration Wizard that is designed to walk users through migrating these from, for example, their old computers to their new computers. This is usually done when the computers are side-by-side, or during a replacement, or for a "wipe and load."

The Migration Wizard has two paths: state collection and state application.

  • The state collection portion of the wizard should be run on the old computer, which is also called the source. Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows NT 4.0, Windows Millennium Edition, Windows 2000, and Whistler are all supported sources.
  • The state application portion of the wizard is run on the new computer, which is also called the destination. The only supported destination is Whistler.
Scenario A home user buys a new computer to replace an old one that has less power and speed. By following the instructions in the Migration Wizard on the new computer, a non-technical user can easily migrate their files, documents, and settings from the old computer to the new computer via a floppy (or other removable media), home LAN, or a known Universal Naming Convention (UNC) path.
Product Personal, Professional
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Start - Program – Accessories - System Tools - Migration Wizard
Ref. No. WH0828M101800
Feature Name

My Pictures Folder Enhancements

Description

This feature enhances the user experience when using scanners, still digital cameras, and streaming cameras that produce stills, such as digital video camcorders and Web cameras. It includes:

  • Improved thumbnail generation
  • A link to start wizards for the Windows Image Acquisition (WIA) scanner and camera.
  • Slideshow applet
  • Filmstrip view
  • Ability to publish pictures to the Web
  • Ability to send pictures in E-mail - This includes a simple method for packaging images and folders. The biggest impact of this feature is that it reduces load on E-mail servers and networks. It also reduces the time for a package to be shared over a network because the size of the package is much smaller.
  • An enhanced preview window provides the capability to rotate pictures, view various file types including Portable Network Graphics (PNG), Tagged Image File Format (TIFF), Graphics Interchange Format (GIF), Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPEG), and Bitmap (BMP).
  • Print pictures from the preview window
Scenario
  • A user can use the slide show applet to create a slide show that switches pictures every few seconds.
  • A user selects a group of new images that they want imported from a new mega pixel digital camera. By selecting “E-mail these images” in the WebView task list, the sharing file improvements feature recognizes that the entire 6 MB of image data selected can be re-sampled into a smaller size package. When the package is received, the user is prompted to select the size and quality of the images and the images are unpackaged.
  • A user selects a folder of documents and selects “E-mail this folder” in the WebView task list. Rather than attaching a local shortcut to the folder, the sharing file improvements feature archives the folder into a .zip file and attaches it to the message.
Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Start – My Pictures
Ref. No. WH0472-0736C101800
Feature Name

My Pictures Screen Saver

Description This feature adds a screensaver option called My Pictures Slideshow. It enables a user to integrate personal pictures they save in the My Pictures folder into a screen saver slideshow that can support transitions, traverse folder hierarchies, turn on password protection, and more.
Scenario A user has saved pictures on their computer in several folders. This feature provides a static location to save these files.
Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Start – Control Panel – Appearance and Themes – Display - Screensaver
Ref. No. WH0482C101800
Feature Name

Paint Accessory Enhancements

Description

Microsoft Paint was modified to support Windows Image Acquisition (WIA). This feature allows users to retrieve pictures directly from WIA devices. Enhancements include:

  • Namespace extension for scanners and digital cameras as well as flatbed scanners
  • Common acquisition dialogs for scanners, still cameras and video cameras
  • Wizard for WIA scanners and digital cameras
  • Cropping for scanner and rotate for camera images
  • Integration with My Pictures folder
Scenario This feature helps users deal with scanners, digital still cameras, and streaming cameras that produce still pictures (such as digital video camcorders and Web cameras).
Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Start – Programs – Accessories - Paint
Ref. No. WH0474C101800
Feature Name

Printer and Fax Folder with WebView

Description This feature will increase the usability of printing and give the user the information they need to print successfully. It includes some new functions for the Printers Folder and the ability to rename this as the Printer and Fax Folder
Scenario A user in a business receives many facsimiles and uses the Printer and Fax Folder to manage this information.
Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Start – Control Panel – Printers and Other Hardware – Printers and Faxes
Ref. No. WH0558C101800
Feature Name

Printer Enhancements for Multi-Function Peripherals

Description This feature promotes connectivity with new models of Multi-Function Peripheral (MFP) that often perform printing, scanning, copying, and faxing in the same device. This implements standards for IEEE 1394 printing protocol for supporting IEEE 1394-based printers to enable legacy-free computer-hardware advances. It enhances Dot4 protocol to be fully IEEE 1284.4-compliant and adds a Dot4 layer to USB to support MFP architecture.
Scenario A user can purchase a new MFP and scan and print a picture to the same device.
Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Start – Control Panel – Printers and Other Hardware – Printers and Faxes
Ref. No. WH0572C101800
Feature Name

Printing: High-End Color Printer Support

Description This feature leverages Universal Print Driver (Unidrv) functionality to enable monochrome devices that support high-end color printers. In Windows 2000, Unidrv converted files to bitmaps, whereas this feature will utilize vector drawing, which is faster, output file sizes are smaller and results in higher throughput.
Scenario
  • A user can print a page with lots of graphics. This feature reduces the amount of time for printer processing and reduces this output file size.
  • Because of the large file size that a user wants printed, a printer might be running out of memory. Using this feature, a user will find that the file size is reduced and the print job continues.
Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Start – Control Panel – Printers and Other Hardware – Printers and Faxes
Ref. No. WH1170C101800
Feature Name

Printing: Universal Printer Driver Enhancements

Description This feature provides enhancements to the Universal Printer Driver, including mirroring.
Scenario A user wants to print a transparency. The mirroring functionality of this feature enables this.
Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Start – Control Panel – Printing and Other Hardware – Printers and Faxes
Ref. No. WH1140C101800
Feature Name

Publishing to the Web

Description This feature will enable users to publish to the Web as a seamless and consistent experience. Files can be shared with friends and family, users can roam between computers, and users can have a common storage location.
Scenario Users can easily publish their family pictures on the Web to share with friends and other family members in distant locations.
Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Start – My Documents or Media Folders – Publish this folder to the Web
Ref. No. WH0730C101800
Feature Name

Start Menu

Description The Start Menu has been redesigned to make access to important and frequently used tasks easier. In addition to prominent Internet and E-mail links, there is now a Frequently-Used Programs list that displays the most frequently used programs. Important user folders, such as My Documents, My Pictures, and My Music are also given prominent positions on the new menu.
Scenario A user can quickly and easily view a web page, read or send E-mail, launch applications, or find files.
Product Personal, Professional
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Start – Control Panel – Appearance and Themes – Taskbar and Start Menu – Start Menu
Ref. No. WH0850C101800
Feature Name

Taskbar Notification Area Enhancements

Description

User Notification improvements are intended to provide more meaningful user notifications and to reduce clutter on the taskbar. Icons that are not clicked on become hidden. The behavior of particular icons is configurable in the Taskbar and Control Panel.

Taskbar grouping consolidates all windows that are open in a particular application into a group. When space on the taskbar runs out, the taskbar buttons form a menu to provide more space and facilitate switching from one window to another.

Note: Developers and ISVs should deliver meaningful notifications to the user via the notification area. The notification area should not contain icons that are launch points or are the only access points for running utilities; launch points should be made accessible in the Start menu. The Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) is a good source for more guidelines on this topic.

Scenario A user has a lot of open windows. Instead of having a row of buttons that contain only icons, the taskbar has fewer buttons sorted by application. Each button is able to convey more information and it is therefore easier to switch between the open windows.
Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Start – Control Panel – Appearance and Themes – Taskbar and Start Menu - Taskbar
Ref. No. WH0728-0726C101800
Feature Name

Terminal Services: Remote Desktop

Description

Remote Desktop provides access to a desktop from any Terminal Services client. This allows access to the full set of installed applications, work in progress, and all connectivity usually found from a workstation or a server.

Remote Desktop is an extension of Windows 2000 Terminal Services functionality. It will still allow access to sessions on a computer running Server products that can be used for computer administration or server-based computing. In addition, Remote Desktop allows Remote Console access, allowing one to redirect the primary screen output to a Terminal Server client.

APIs are available that allow an application to determine if it is running on the local console or as a Remote Desktop. Additional Terminal Services APIs provide general session information.

Scenario
  • A user at home can use Remote Desktop to access their PC at work for telecommuting or to collaborate with co-workers.
  • An IT administrator can use this feature to access a server to see messages on the console, to administer the computer remotely, or for headless server control.
Product Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start

Privileges: Start – Control Panel – Other Control Panel Options – System - Remote

User: Start – Programs – Accessories – Communications - Remote Desktop Connection

Ref. No. WH0082M101800
Feature Name

Terminal Services: Remote Desktop Connection

Description The Remote Desktop Connection is the end-user tool for establishing connections to computers running Terminal Services. It is now included in all product platforms. Remote Desktop Connection replaces the Terminal Services Client.
Scenario Corporate employees, using a line-of-business application that is hosted on a Terminal Server, can use the client connection manager to do a RAS connection to this application while working from home.
Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Start – Programs – Accessories – Communications - Remote Desktop Connection
Ref. No. WH1051M101800
Feature Name

Visual Appearance Improvements

Description The visual redesign for Whistler will provide a new appearance that includes changes to the User Interface. Users can also switch between classic and professional visual styles in Whistler.
Scenario
  • A user will find improvements in using the new UI.
  • ISVs can use the new appearance in their applications.
Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Start - Control Panel – Appearance and Themes – Display - Audiences
Ref. No. WH0701C101800
Feature Name

Welcome Screen

Description The Welcome Screen enables the ability to have a single computer set up with multiple user accounts. These accounts are created during Setup or from the Control Panel. The separate accounts are profiles that separate each users data. By default, the accounts are not password protected, but the user’s can set a password on their specific account if desired.
Scenario A family has one computer that they all share. Each family member can be set up with a separate logon account. If desired, this helps ensure that other family members do not use files within each family member’s account.
Product Personal, Professional
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Start – Control Panel
Ref. No. WH0693C101800
Feature Name

Windows Preview Applet

Description

The Windows Preview Applet is an application that allows a user to view, print, and rotate multiple file types. Some of the file formats it handles include: multi-page TIFF, JPEG, BMP, GIF, and PNG. The user can annotate the image based on the file format standards (such as multi-page TIFF) or based on standard Windows Explorer-based file properties.

In Whistler, the Windows Preview Applet is the default image preview for My Pictures folder. It will also provide the slideshow feature for this folder.

Scenario
  • A user has received a fax. They want to annotate the document and re-send the fax to another party. With multi-page TIFF annotation file format standards, the user is able to accomplish this task.
  • A user wants to turn a BMP file of a map upside down to get a better perspective.
Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Start – My Pictures
Ref. No. WH1066C101800
Feature Name

WebDAV Redirector

Description The Web Digital Authoring & Versioning (WebDAV) redirector is a new mini-redirector that supports the WebDAV protocol for remote document sharing over HTTP. The WebDAV redirector supports the use of existing applications and allow file sharing across the Internet (through firewalls, routers, etc.) to HTTP servers.
Scenario
  • A user wants to share a file with a colleague, who is located in a second location. Via the Internet connectivity and WebDAV feature, they can collaborate on the same file.
  • An ISP wants to host storage for customers that can be accessed directly by any of the users applications, not just via Web publishing protocols.
  • A user can use WebDAV redirectors to publish Web data, or make use of Internet repositories for storing data, sharing information with family and friends, etc.
Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start

The redirector is started automatically.

User: Start – Control Panel – Tools – Map Network Drive

Ref. No. WH1057B101800

Improving Fundamentals and Technology

Feature Name

Applications Compatibility

Description

Ensuring that third-party applications work on Whistler is a key goal for this release. For Whistler, a set of technologies and support infrastructure that isolates Operating System (OS) differences and application bugs. This will help ensure that applications that worked on Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows Millennium Edition and Windows 2000 will continue to work on Whistler.

One of these technologies, called AppFixes, solves problems such as applications incorrectly detecting the OS version and specific application problems such as referencing memory after it has been freed. The infrastructure support enables AppFixes on what would otherwise be incompatible applications and these do not require user intervention. A database of applications, problems and fixes drives which AppFixes are enabled and this database is updated from the Web via Auto Update. In addition, the end user can enable an applications compatibility mode for custom-built applications. Selecting the option in the property page of the application does this.

Scenario A user has an application that worked under Windows 95. From Whistler, the application reports, “this application requires Windows 95 or greater”. The user can select “Run in Windows 95 compatibility mode” on the application property sheet, re-launch the application and start using it.
Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Integral to the operating system
Ref. No. WH0079W101800
Feature Name

Applications: Handling Non-Responsive Applications

Description This feature reduces the impact to a user when an application stops. If this occurs, the user is allowed to move, size, minimize and close the window that has gone into this state.
Scenario
  • A user has an application that is no longer responding but wants to continue working on another application. The user can move the stopped application while waiting for it to respond again.
  • A user has an application that is no longer responding but wants to get rid of the application window.
Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Integral to the operating system
Ref. No. WH0683C101800
Feature Name

Disk Defragmenter Enhancements

Description

Disk Defragmenter tool enhancements include:

  • Graphical User Interface (GUI) – Provides snapshot support/avoidance, command line, and exploits new APIs.
  • Command Line – Provides a simple command line to assist with scripting efforts. This includes such things as defragmenting one volume at a time; analysis of the driver is via the GUI. The command line and GUI operation are mutually exclusive.
  • File System API Set – This changes the behavior so that defragment APIs will no longer defragment data via the system cache.
Scenario
  • Power users can use the scheduled tasks feature to schedule disk defragmentation.
  • An IT administrator can use this feature to script disk defragmentation of computers using the command line tool.
Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Start – Programs – Accessories – System Tools – Disk Defragmenter
Ref. No. WH0221B101800
Feature Name

Encrypting the Offline Files Database

Description This feature provides an option to encrypt the Offline Files database. Offline files are also known as Client Side Cache (CSC). This is an improvement over Windows 2000 where either CSC or encryption was allowed, but not simultaneously.
Scenario
  • A user wants to use offline files but wants to keep sensitive data secure.
  • An IT administrator can use this feature to potentially safeguard all locally cached documents from theft.
Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Start – Control Panel – Other Control Panel Options – Folder Options – Offline Files
Ref. No. WH0216B-0626S101800
Feature Name

FAT32 on DVD-RAM

Description This feature enables recognition, mounting, and formatting of 32-bit File Allocation Table (FAT32) volumes on Digital Video Disk-Random Access Memory (DVD-RAM) disks in super-floppy format.
Scenario A user can use a DVD-RAM disk with FAT32 format.
Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Start – Control Panel – Other Control Panel Options - System
Ref. No. WH0239B101800
Feature Name

Hardware: DualView

Description DualView is an extension to the multi-monitor feature in Windows 2000. Some high-end display adapters, and many mobile computer computers, support two interfaces to the same display adapter. In mobile computers, this is the internal display, and the external connector for a monitor or other display. DualView enables the two interfaces to display different outputs at the same time.
Scenario
  • A user has a mobile computer in their office. They find they need to look at data from two applications at the same time. By connecting an external monitor to the mobile computer, the user can use both monitors simultaneously from the same computer.
  • An IT administrator finds there is limited expansion space in a computer center. DualView allows the administrator to connect two monitors to one system using just one display adapter that has two output connectors rather than requiring multiple adapters.
Product Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Start – Control Panel – Add New Hardware
Ref. No. WH0091B101800
Feature Name

Internet: Network Bridge

Description Whistler provides the ability to use multiple network media types to form a single network without configuration. Ethernet, HPNA, IEEE 1394, and wireless networks can be interconnected with no user configuration requirements. A Spanning Tree Algorithm is included in this feature to prevent bridging loops.
Scenario A home user can connect multiple dissimilar Local Area Networks (LANs) to create one network or IP sub-network. This allows all networks Internet access through Internet Connection Sharing and full network connectivity in the home without further configuration
Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Start – Programs – Accessories – Communications – Home Network Wizard

Or Start – Control Panel – Network and Internet Connections – Network Connections

Ref. No. WH1242N101800
Feature Name

Internet: TCP/IP Name Resolution over RAS without WINS/DNS

Description This feature provides the capability for a RAS client to resolve TCP/IP names on a LAN without the use of WINS or DNS. NetBEUI was a method on Windows 2000 to resolve TCP/IP names on a local LAN without WINS or DNS. Because NetBEUI is removed from Whistler, this solution was derived as an extension to the NetBT name resolution Proxy.
Scenario
  • A user has a small office LAN in their home. They do not have Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol, DNS or WINS on this LAN. This feature will enable all the computers on this LAN to register names and queries.
  • An IT administrator discovers that a remote branch office that connects to the corporation’s network via a Virtual Private Network (VPN) temporarily has no VPN services. WINS and DNS are provided from the corporation’s central site. The users within the LAN at this remote branch office are able to obtain name resolution with this new feature during this VPN outage.
Product Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Integral to the operating system
Ref. No. WH1160N101800
Feature Name

Network Device Driver Enhancements

Description

This feature adds network device drivers that are commonly used in home networking and removing legacy device drivers that are no longer relevant. It also includes improving the quality of networking drivers. Driver categories include:

  • LAN Network Drivers – including 10/100 NICs, IEEE 802.11, and HomePNA
  • Broadband – including cable modems, Asynchronous Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL), and Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN)
  • Modems – including driver-based and 56kbps V.90 modems
Scenario A home user upgrades their computer to Whistler and discovers that the network devices they currently use are already supported on this new operating system.
Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Start – Control Panel – Other Control Panel Options – System - Hardware
Ref. No. WH0353-0368-0369-0370N101800
Feature Name

Printer Access With NetCrawler

Description This feature enables NetCrawler to find and automatically connect to printers; printers at home or business network appear automatically. The NetCrawler enables users who are unfamiliar with networking to have easy, automatically configured access to computers and devices in their workgroup. It does this by searching out and providing links to network resources.
Scenario A user at a corporation wants to print documents after setting up a new computer. NetCrawler finds the available printers and displays this to the user.
Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start

NetCrawler runs in the following situations:

  • Just after startup and after the system becomes available
  • When opening My Network Places
  • In My Network Places, by pressing the F5 key
Ref. No. WH0573C100900
Feature Name

TAPI: Audio Streaming Enhancements

Description

This feature provides improved streaming quality for IP-based audio conferencing. This includes:

  • Support for additional new codecs to improve quality and interoperability
  • Support for DirectSound to reduce latency and improved mixing
  • Support for Acoustic Echo Cancellation (AEC), Acoustic Gain Control (AGC) and ambient noise
  • Improve jitter buffer control and silence suppression algorithms to reduce latency and improve quality
Scenario Audio conferencing experience will improve for users with these audio-streaming enhancements.
Product Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Start – Control Panel – Sounds and Audio Devices
Ref. No. WH0580N-0422D101800
Feature Name

TAPI: Streaming on IP Service Providers Improvements

Description

This feature improves streaming and management aspects of TAPI version 3 multicast and H.323 service providers. It includes:

  • Interfaces to control audio/video format and settings
  • Support for dynamic stream topology and format changing
  • Controls to enable applications to restrict bandwidth and CPU utilization
  • Wizard for audio/video device configuration
  • Audio/Video diagnostic tool
Scenario

A user of a TAPI-based application can use this feature to:

  • Control characteristics of streaming (for example, G.711 instead of G.723 for audio, different window size for video)
  • Leave an on-line conference call without disrupting the video of the conference
  • Improve the video and audio experience on lower bandwidth networks and computers with slower processors
  • More easily set up new audio and video devices with the new Wizard
  • More easily diagnose problems with the new video diagnostic tool
Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Start – Control Panel – Network and Internet Connections – Phone and Modem Options - Advances
Ref. No. WH0586N101800
Feature Name

TAPI: Video Streaming Enhancements

Description This feature provides improved streaming quality for IP-based video conferencing. It includes new codecs to improve quality and interoperability, support for some new cameras, support for DirectDraw to improve video performance, support for lip-synchronization to improve synchronization of video and voice, and support for larger video sizes.
Scenario To avoid travel costs, a business team located in five cities uses video conferencing for a weekly meeting. This feature will improve the overall video quality of the meeting and enable them to use more types of video hardware.
Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Start – Control Panel – Sounds and Audio Devices
Ref. No. WH0587N101800
Feature Name

Terminal Services: Audio Redirection for RDP

Description

This feature enables sound reproduction on a client computer with any application that attempts to play a wave sound inside a Terminal Server session. This includes the following:

  • Enabling on-the-fly mixing. If two or more applications are playing sound, the resulting stream is an audio mix of all different streams.
  • Minimizing the performance impact of the audio stream I/O on the remote desktop protocol session. If the network bandwidth between the client and server changes, it must renegotiate the sound stream capabilities during transmission, and use the best sound quality for the existing bandwidth.
  • No user interaction required for choosing the sound-stream quality. The feature can determine the existing network bandwidth and choose the best one.
  • The I/O impact is minimized by using User-Datagram Protocols (UDP) whenever possible.
Scenario
  • A user gets an audio notification, such as when a credit card transaction is approved or declined.
  • An IT administrator uses terminal services remotely. This feature provides the ability to do basic audio, such as with attached .wav files in E-mail, documents, or simple streaming media.
Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Start – Programs – Accessories – Communications – Remote Desktop Connection
Ref. No. WH1006M101800
Feature Name

Terminal Services: Remote Desktop Resource Redirection

Description

When using Terminal Services Remote Desktop from a Whistler-based client or other RDP 5.1-enabled client, many of the client resources are available within the Remote Desktop connection. This feature includes:

  • File System – the client file system is accessible through the Remote Desktop, as if they were network shared drives. However, no network connectivity except the Remote Desktop is required.
  • Audio – Audio streams such as .wav and .mp3 files can be played through the client sound system.
  • Port – Applications have access to the serial and parallel ports on the client that allows them to access and manipulate devices like bar code readers or scanners.
  • Printer – The default local or network printer on the client becomes the default-printing device for the Remote Desktop.
  • Clipboard – The Remote Desktop and client computer share a clipboard that allows data to be interchanged.

Terminal Services Virtual Channel APIs make it simple to extend client resource redirection for custom applications.

Scenario
  • The redirection facilities allow a user to integrate local and remote services. Opening and saving files can go to the same file system or output to the same printer regardless of whether the application is running locally or remotely.
  • A developer can write applications to control client-side devices regardless of where they run.
Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start

Redirection must be enabled on both the server and client. Default settings vary and can be examined or changed through the Terminal Services Configuration tool on the Client Setting tab.

User: Start – Programs – Accessories – Communications – Remote Desktop Connection

Ref. No. WH1228M101800
Feature Name

Terminal Services: Resolution and Color Enhancements

Description Terminal Services now supports greater color depth and screen resolution. Using the Remote Desktop client, color depth can be selected from 16 colors to True Color and resolution can be set from 640x480 to the highest level supported by the client video.
Scenario
  • A developer can set screen resolution to any value using the methods on the Terminal Server Advanced Client COM object.
  • An IT administrator can use Terminal Server to support store kiosk displaying merchandise. They are set to provide true color images for the best product image.
Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start

Resolution and color limits must be enabled on both the server and the client. Default settings vary and may be examined or changed through the Terminal Services Configuration tool on the Client Settings tab.

User: Start – Programs – Accessories – Communications – Remote Desktop Connection

Ref. No. WH1236M101800
Feature Name

TWAIN Compatibility for 64-bit Applications

Description This feature enables scanner imaging functionality for 64-bit native applications, 64-bit native user mode drivers that fully support 32-bit Windows Image Acquisition (WIA) applications, and provides minimally acceptable support for 32-bit legacy TWAIN applications. Support for 32-bit WIA drivers is not included.
Scenario An IT administrator can use this feature to support imaging functionality on 64-bit applications.
Product Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit
How to Start Integral to the operating system
Ref. No. WH0505C101800
Feature Name

Wake on LAN: Select Wake Event Improvements

Description

Wake on LAN (WOL), introduced in Windows 2000, is a hardware capability of WOL-enabled NIC whereby the NIC can cause bus power management wake-up events upon the receipt of certain patterns in network packets. Improvements to this functionality are included in Whistler including:

  • WOL fully enabled with all packet patterns causing wake-up events
  • WOL enabled with only Magic Packets causing wake-up events
  • WOL fully disabled
Scenario
  • A user desires to have their computer go into a low power standby mode to save power. However the user also wants the computer to come out of standby (wake up) if another computer on the network wants to use services on that computer or perform management functions on the computer.
  • An IT administrator wants to control WOL on computers and sets the feature to WOL fully enabled.
Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Start – Control Panel – Add New Hardware
Ref. No. WH0366N101800
Feature Name

Windows Error Reporting

Description

If a user encounters a Stop error, also known as a blue screen crash event or General Protection (GP) faults, a user can optionally have the error automatically reported to Microsoft for analysis.

By analyzing the submitted information, the Windows Online Crash Analysis team can categorize each event report by its signature and, in most cases, identify the source of the blue screen crash event. The customer receives automatic notification of the analysis status and any changes made. As a result, the Online Crash Analysis team is able to provide resolutions, workarounds, and general troubleshooting information for users.

Scenario If a blue screen crash event occurs, the user can submit the resulting event report to Microsoft for analysis when the system is restarted.
Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit
How to Start Start – Control Panel – Other Control Panel Options – System – Advanced – Error Reporting
Ref. No. WH1218W-1138M101800

Enhancements for IT Administration

Feature Name

Access Control List Editor Enhancements

Description

This feature provides enhancements to the standard Access Control List editor User Interface (ACLUI), including:

  • Reset permissions to a default
  • Show effective permissions for a selected security principal
  • Indicate the parent from which a permission was inherited
  • Visual Basic Script output from the Delegation wizard
  • Checkbox to indicate the existence of additional permissions
Scenario An IT administrator can use this tool to improve their management of ACLs.
Product Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Active Directory Users and Computers snap-in, Security
Ref. No. WH0667-0592-0601-0593-0594S101800
Feature Name

Access Control List UI: Usability Display Changes

Description

This feature improves usability in Access Control Lists (ACL) UI (security properties page) with the following improvements:

  • Identifies the name of the parent object from which a permissions entry was inherited
  • Makes messages easier to understand throughout, especially for inheritance-related features
  • Adjusts button tags and placement
  • Adjusts display elements to improve showing which settings apply to the whole object and which apply only to one user or group in the list
  • Includes the principal name in the "Permissions for" message to reduce ambiguity for the permissions list display box
Scenario An IT administrator can use this feature to more easily manage ACL inheritance.
Product Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Active Directory Users and Computers snap-in
Ref. No. WH1049S101800
Feature Name

Active Directory Administration: Object Picker UI Improvements

Description

The object picker is a component UI that other administrative UIs can launch to allow an administrator to select one or more users, computers, groups, or contacts from the Active Directory.

The object picker is used by numerous UIs and is available for use by third-party developers. To that end, it provides public and private interfaces that the launcher can use to customize the behavior to their needs. For example, it can be launched in single-select mode or in multi-select mode or it can be launched to allow only one specific type of object (such as Users) to be selected.

For Whistler, the Object Picker has been redesigned and enhanced, with the following results:

  • Optimized administrator workflow allows for very quick finding of directory objects
  • Better and more efficient support for finding objects in a large directory
  • Directory Service impact on a network is reduced
  • Ability to scope a search down to a specific Organizational Unit (OU) within the directory

More flexible querying capabilities for finding objects in the directory based upon their attributes

Scenario An IT administrator can use this feature to add members to groups, re-target snap-ins to work with remote computers, add security principals to Access Control Lists (ACLs), work with snap-ins that require the selection of objects from the directory service.
Product Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Active Directory Users and Computer snap-in
Ref. No. WH0662S101800
Feature Name

=== Active Directory Administration: WMI Providers for Replication and
Trust Monitoring ===

Description This feature provides Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) classes to monitor whether Domain Controllers are successfully replicating Active Directory information among themselves. Because many Windows 2000 components, such as Active Directory replication, rely on inter-domain trust, this feature also provides a method to monitor that trusts are functioning correctly.
Scenario An IT administrator or independent software developer can use this feature to write scripts or applications that monitor the health of Active Directory replication and inter-domain trust.
Product Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Integral to the operating system
Ref. No. WH0668-0637-0644S101800
Feature Name

Active Directory: Application Naming Contexts

Description

This feature provides the capability of hosting dynamic data in Active Directory without significantly impacting network performance by providing the ability to control the scope of replication and placement of replicas.

Active Directory services will allow the creation of a new type of Naming Context (NC), or partition, referred to as Application Partition. This NC can contain a hierarchy of any type of objects except security principals (users, groups and computers), and can be configured to replicate to any set of Domain Controllers in the forest, not necessarily all in the same domain.

Scenario An IT administrator will benefit from this feature. Dynamic data from network services such as RAS, RADIUS, DHCP and COPS can reside in a director so that applications can access them uniformly with one access methodology.
Product Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Integral to the operating system
Ref. No. WH0439-635S101800
Feature Name

Active Directory: Behavior Versioning

Description Similar to Native Mode in Windows 2000, this feature will provides a versioning mechanism that can be used by Active Directory core components to determine what features are available on each Domain Controller in a domain and in a forest. It is also used to prevent pre-Whistler Domain Controllers from joining a forest that has Whistler-only Active Directory feature activated.
Scenario Two new features in Active Directory cannot be activated until all the Domain Controllers in a forest are upgraded to Whistler. This includes: Active Directory: Group Membership Replication Improvements and Active Directory: Improved Inter-Site Replication Topology Generator (both features are described in this Feature Guide). After all of the Domain Controllers in a forest have been upgraded, an IT administrator can advance the forest behavior version to Whistler Forest Native Mode, which automatically activates these new features.
Product Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Accessed from the NTDSUTIL utility
Ref. No. WH0445S100600
Feature Name

Active Directory: Global Catalog Not Required for Logon

Description

In Windows 2000, when processing a logon for a user in a native mode domain, a Domain Controller had to contact a Global Catalog server in order to expand a user’s Universal Group membership. This requirement compelled some organizations to deploy Global Catalog servers into remote offices in order to avoid logon failures if the network link that connected the remote site to the rest of the organization was disconnected.

In Whistler, Domain Controllers in a site that does not contain a Global Catalog server can be configured to cache Universal Group membership lookups when processing user logons. This allows a Domain Controller to process logons without contacting a Global Catalog and when a Global Catalog server is unavailable. Group memberships for users that log on to the Domain Controller in the site will be cached. The cache will be refreshed on a periodic basis as determined by the replication schedule.

Scenario An IT administrator can use this feature to avoid placing Global Catalog servers in remote offices. This also results in reducing the amount of bandwidth used for replication.
Product Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Configure a site to use Global Catalog-less logon in the Active Directory Sites and Services snap-in
Ref. No. WH0440S101200
Feature Name

Active Directory: Group Membership Replication Improvements

Description

In Windows 2000 Active Directory, the membership of a group is stored and replicated as a single unit. As a result, a change to a group with large membership caused the entire membership to replicate, consuming a less-than-optimal amount of network bandwidth and processor load. In addition, if the membership of a group was updated simultaneously on two or more domain controllers, then some of the membership updates could potentially be lost during replication conflict resolution.

When a forest is advanced to Whistler Forest Native Mode (see description of the feature Active Directory: Behavior Versioning), group membership is changed to store and replicate values for individual members instead of treating the entire membership as a single unit. This results in lower network bandwidth and processor usage during replication and virtually eliminates the possibility of lost updates during simultaneous updates as described above.

Scenario When an IT administrator makes updates to security groups or mail distribution lists to a Domain Controller running in Whistler Forest Native Mode, integrity of the updates are maintained.
Product Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Integral to the operating system
Ref. No. WH0432S100600
Feature Name

Active Directory: Improved Inter-Site Replication Topology Generator

Description

In Windows 2000, the process that automatically created replication connections between Domain Controllers in different sites could not be used when a forest contained a large number of sites. Instead, administrators had to create an maintain manual inter-site replication topologies.

In Whistler, the Inter-Site Topology Generator (ISTG) has been updated to use improved algorithms and will scale to support forests with a greater number of sites than in Windows 2000. Because all Domain Controllers in the forest running the ISTG role must agree on the inter-site replication topology, the new algorithms are not activated until the forest has advanced to Whistler Forest Native Mode (described in the feature Active Directory: Behavior Versioning).

Scenario An IT administrator can advance the forest to Whistler Forest Native Mode and have Active Directory automatically create the inter-site replication topology.
Product Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Integral to the operating system
Ref. No. WH1235S100600
Feature Name

Active Directory: Install Replica from Media

Description This feature enables faster creation of replica Domain Controllers (DCs) for a pre-existing domain. Instead of replicating a complete copy of the Active Directory database over the network, this feature allows an administrator to source initial replication from files created when backing up an existing Domain Controller or Global Catalog server. The backup files, generated by any Active Directory-aware backup utility, can be transported to the candidate Domain Controller using media such as tape, CD, DVD, or file copy over a network.
Scenario
  • A company might want to place a replica DC in a remote site that has low bandwidth network connectivity. Replicating the entire directory over this link can be time consuming. This feature lets the IT administrator use a tape backup to create this replica.
  • A company is experiencing a rapid increase in business. It finds that it needs to rapidly expand its system capacity without degrading the available network bandwidth and resources of the DC from which it is replicating. Installing replica DCs from other media aids this deployment.
Product Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Run the Active Directory Installation Wizard in Advanced Mode (dcpromo.exe/adv)
Ref. No. WH0451S101800
Feature Name

Active Directory: LDAP Improvements

Description

Whistler includes several enhancements to the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) client and server implementation:

  • Support for Dynamic Entries: In Whistler, Active Directory can store dynamic entries according to the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) standard protocol RFC 2589. Entries in the directory can be assigned Time-To-Live (TTL) values that determine when the entries will be automatically deleted.
  • Transport Layer Security (TLS) support: Connections to Active Directory over LDAP can now be protected using the IETF standard TLS security protocol, as specified in RFC 2830.
  • Virtual List Views (VLV): When an LDAP query has a large result set, it is inefficient for a client application to pull down the entire set from the server. VLV allow a client application to “window” through a large result set without having to transfer the entire set from the server. The VLV protocol was defined by the LDAP extensions Working Group of IETF.
  • Support for Dynamic Auxiliary classes: Active Directory now supports dynamically associating an auxiliary class (which adds the attributes that are defined by the auxiliary class) with individual object instances. In Windows 2000, an auxiliary class could only be statically associated with a structural class definition in the schema, which meant that all instances of that structural class got the attributes from the auxiliary class added to them.
Scenario A developer can use these features for flexible and secure access to data stored in Active Directory.
Product Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Integral to the operating system
Ref. No. WH0436S101800
Feature Name

Active Directory: Synchronization Improvements

Description

With Windows 2000, the Global Catalog (GC) Partial Attribute Set (PAS) requires that upon propagation of extended PAS (addition of an attribute to the PAS), the GC initiates a full synchronization cycle of its Read-Only (RO) Naming Context (NC). This is done to become up-to-date with the attribute-extended replica image on other Domain Controllers (DC).

This feature provides a mechanism to preserve the GC synchronization state (rather than re-setting it) and minimizes the work generated when an extended PAS is propagated across the enterprise.

Scenario An IT administrator can use this feature to scale their enterprise more effectively. When the PAS is extended, such as for a line-of-business application deployment or any administrative action, this new feature will minimize the impact to the administrator’s network infrastructure, especially important for administrators with large directories and those with global networks that include slower speed links.
Product Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Active Directory Users and Computer snap-in
Ref. No. WH0437-0433S101800
Feature Name

Active Directory Users and Computers Snap-in: Saved Queries

Description A query is a search against a data set (the directory) for items that match particular criteria (such as directory object attribute values). This feature will allow queries to be saved, reopened, refreshed and E-mailed. Query objects and results can be viewed and manipulated in the User Interface.
Scenario
  • An IT administrator can use this feature to export the results of an attribute query for reporting or analysis. They can refresh the query on a periodic basis and thus save time in completing management reports.
  • An IT administrator can use this feature to select a set of users based on their attribute properties and then add them en masse to a group.
  • An IT administrator can query the directory to find a particular set of user objects, then edit the properties on all of them at once (as described in the feature “Active Directory: Editing of Multiple User Objects”).
  • Examples of queries an IT administrator can conduct: identify all of the accounts that are disabled, identify all of the accounts that expire on a specific date, identify all user accounts with non-expiring passwords, identify all system accounts with RAS-enabled, find user accounts with passwords older than a specific number of days, find accounts with RAS callback enabled, and find all accounts without managers.
  • An IT administrator can query the directory to find a particular set of user objects, then edit the properties on all of them at once, as described in the new feature “Active Directory Users and Computers Snap-in: Simultaneous Editing of Multiple User Objects.”
Product Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Active Directory Users and Computer snap-in
Ref. No. WH0659S101800
Feature Name

Active Directory Users and Computers Snap-in: Editing Multiple User Objects

Description This feature will provide the capability to select multiple user objects, and then bring up a set of property sheets that will allow the clearing or setting of object attributes across all the selected objects. Only specific property sheet and attributes will be available for this multi-object editing.
Scenario An IT administrator can use this feature to simultaneously change attributes for a large number of objects. The administrator takes only a few steps to make these changes en masse.
Product Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Active Directory Users and Computer snap-in
Ref. No. WH0660S101800
Feature Name

Authorization APIs

Description

This feature simplifies the administration of authorization policy with an authorization framework. It is the foundation on which roles are implemented and other features designed to hide the complexity of underlying Access Control List (ACL) and other policy data.

The authorization framework includes a set of APIs for use by system components and applications to perform customizable access checks using standard Windows NT 4.0 ACLs with significantly higher performance than supported by previous APIs.

Scenario
  • This feature enables an IT administrator to set managerial approval limits for expense reports that vary by a manager's status.
  • An IT administrator can use this feature to access multiple objects with the same ACL.
Product Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start
Ref. No. WH0824S100300
Feature Name

Automated System Recovery

Description Automated System Recovery (ASR) feature provides the ability to save and restore applications. This feature also provides the Plug and Play mechanism required by ASR to back up Plug and Play portions of the registry and restore that information to the registry.
Scenario An IT administrator finds a server has had a hard disk failure and it has lost all configuration parameters and information. ASR is applied and the backup of the server’s data is restored.
Product Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start
Ref. No. WH0235-0132B100400
Feature Name

Backup and Restore with DHCP

Description

This feature will ease the process of doing backups and restores by providing a User Interface (UI), enabled by a DHCP snap-in, that will expose two new menu items at the server: Backup and Restore.

When the user chooses either of these menu items, a browser window appears to offer the selection of a location, or new folders can be created as well.

This will be present only if the DHCP server is a Whistler-based server.

Scenario An IT administrator can use this feature to do Whistler-based server backups and restores.
Product Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start DHCP snap-in
Ref. No. WH0775N101800
Feature Name

CardBus Wake on LAN

Description This feature allows a computer to be resumed from standby by a CardBus LAN card.
Scenario An IT administrator can use this feature to aid in managing a group of servers.
Product Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start
Ref. No. WH0159B101800
Feature Name

Certificate Enrollment Enhancements

Description This feature will enable applications to expect the existence of certificates and they do not need to develop alternative enrollment processes. This is intended to make it easier for users to deal with certificates. This feature includes user auto-enrollment, user auto-renewal, delegated enrollment, and manual certificate requests.
Scenario
  • An IT administrator can create a Certificate template that specifies additional signature requirements on the request of specific policies. For instance, a user that has been securely issued a smart card and must provide the card during auto-enrollment. This enables auto enrollment to have stronger authentication.
  • An IT administrator can optionally set up auto-enrollment to require approval by a set of administrators.
  • Auto-renewal automatically generates a request so a user’s certificate can be renewed.
Product Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start
Ref. No. WH0619S100300
Feature Name

Certificate Revocation List Duplication Points

Description This feature provides the ability to specify Certificate Revocation List (CRL) Distribution Points (CDP). In this case, it is possible to change the location of the file of where the CRL is published.
Scenario An IT administrator has to move the published point of the CDP from a file server to a Web server in a project to improve services for his company’s users. This feature will enable this change.
Product Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start
Ref. No. WH0605S101400
Feature Name

Certificate Revocation List Enhancements

Description This feature enhances Certificate Revocation List (CRL). A Delta CRL model is created that provides the ability for a client to efficiently retrieve the delta CRL on a frequent basis. In addition, if the retrieved Delta CRL is based off of a base that the client does not have, then the client can retrieve a new updated base.
Scenario A user’s CRL has expired. With these enhancements, the user can now retrieve a new certificate more easily.
Product Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start
Ref. No. WH0620S100300
Feature Name

Configure Your Server

Description

This feature makes it easier for an administrator or end user to set up a server by helping users finish installing optional components that they choose during the Windows setup.

They can use it to perform the following:

  • Set up the first server on a network by automatically configuring DHCP, DNS, and Active Directory using basic default settings.
  • Help users configure member servers on a network, pointing to the features they need to set up a file server, print server, Web and media server, application server, RAS and routing, or IP address management server.
Scenario
  • An IT administrator can use this feature for disaster recovery, replicating a server configuration to multiple computers, finishing setup, configuring server roles, or setting up the configuration of first or primary server on a network.
  • An IT administrator can use this feature to get started using Cluster service.
Product Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Occurs during Windows Server setup
Ref. No. WH0906S102000
Feature Name

Cross Certification Enhancements

Description This feature enhanced the Windows 2000 client cross certification feature by enabling the capability for department level and global level cross certifications.
Scenario
  • A user is part of a company’s Active Directory domain. In Whistler, WinLogon will additionally be able to query for cross certificates and download these into the “enterprise trust/enterprise store.” As a chain is built, all cross certificates will be downloaded.
  • A plug-in module for retrieving the parent of a certificate during chain building is used to provide certificate in the case of a user having a third-party Certificate Authority with an unknown repository.
Product Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start
Ref. No. WH0618-0607-0618S100300
Feature Name

DHCP: Classless Source Routing

Description This feature allows Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) to configure a client with multiple classless routes with the use of a sub-network mask.
Scenario An IT administrator can use this feature to allow clients to split tunnel through a Virtual Private Network (VPN) and the Internet. This makes it possible for traffic destined for the Internet to not have to go through the VPN at the same time allowing the user to access their corporation’s private network resources.
Product Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start DHCP snap-in
Ref. No. WH1253N101800
Feature Name

DHCP: Database Backups

Description

This feature enables backups of a Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) database while the service is running. A DHCP server that will support private APIs makes this possible. The API will take a directory location on local disk (remote paths are not allowed) and the service will back up the current state of the database onto the specified location, creating the directory if it did not exist.

The corresponding API for restoring the database will take the same disk location where a backup was performed before, and restore the database to the current working location. This will effectively bring the database state back to where it was when the backup was performed.

Whatever is not stored in the database will not get backed up or restored by the operations above. For instance, any configuration stored in the registry will not get reverted when a restore is performed. Examples of configurations not affected by restore include audit-log settings and database locations.

Scenario An IT administrator can use this feature to backup a DHCP server without impacting DHCP services.
Product Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start DHCP snap-in – Backup or Restore
Ref. No. WH0523N101800
Feature Name

DHCP: Database NetShell Migrations

Description This feature enables an easier migration of a DHCP database from one server to another if it is imported into NetShell (NETSH). This eliminates most manual configurations, such as manually editing the registry or recreating scopes. The command-line tool, NETSH, is used to locally configure remote access servers and routers, and can also use script files to automate configuration tasks.
Scenario
  • An IT administrator notices disk error messages on the DHCP server and has decided to move the DHCP service before the disk fails completely. This feature provides a tool to accomplish this change.
  • Due to performance issues on the network segment on which the DHCP server resides, an IT administrator needs to divide its DHCP server. The IT administrator is able to use this feature to move portions of the DHCP database to another computer or computers.
Product Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Start – Programs - Accessories – Command Prompt - type NETSH
Ref. No. WH1062N101800
Feature Name

DHCP: UI for Backup and Restore

Description This DHCP snap-in to MMC provides new menu items for Backup and Restore of DHCP databases. These items will be present only if the DHCP server is a Whistler-based server.
Scenario This feature simplifies an IT administrator’s work on this MMC snap-in.
Product Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start DHCP snap-in - Backup or Restore; a browser window enables the selection of a location (and new folders will also be created).
Ref. No. WH0775N101800
Feature Name

Diagnostics: Network and Connectivity Test

Description This feature allows common network and connectivity testing. Network information and test results can be viewed with a browser interface from Control Panel or from a command line interface.
Scenario An IT help desk professional can use this feature to validate a user’s network configuration and the connectivity to the network.
Product Personal, Professional, Server, Advanced Server, Datacenter, Embedded
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Start – Control Panel – Performance and Maintenance – Administrative Tools – Computer Management
Ref. No. WH0379N101800
Feature Name

Distributed File Service Administration Improvements

Description

This feature exposes more functionality of the File Replication Service (FRS) through a new Distributed File System (DFS) MMC snap-in. This includes:

  • Removal of replication filtering
  • Ability to display all types of FRS configurations
  • Ability to change non-SYSVOL types of FRS configurations
  • Definition of FRS replica set
  • Creation of topologies such as full mesh, star and hub
  • Ability to specify schedule on individual connections
  • Ability to extend other MMC snap-ins
Scenario
  • An IT administrator can use this feature to manage system volumes.
  • An IT administrator can use this feature to create and manage custom replica sets including replication of DFS alternates.
Product Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start DFS snap-in
Ref. No. WH0666S101800
Feature Name

DNS: Basic Compliance with DNS Security Extensions

Description The Whistler DNS server provides basic compliance with the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) standard DNS Security Extensions protocol as defined in RFC 2535. The server can store the record types (KEY, SIG, and NXT) defined in the IETF standard and return those records to an RFC 2535-aware client. The server does not provide full compliance and does not perform the cryptographic operations specified in RFC 2535 (KEY/SIG record generation, or message signing). However, the server can accept standard KEY and SIG records generated by third-party software.
Scenario An IT administrator can use a Whistler-based DNS server and safely interoperate with other DNS server implementations that support the DNS Security Extensions protocol (RFC 2535).
Product Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start DNS snap-in
Ref. No. WH0441S101800
Feature Name

DNS: DCPromo Supporting DrDNS Functionality

Description

DrDNS (pronounced “Doctor DNS”) is a new tool intended to simplify debugging of the Domain Name System (DNS). It includes:

  • Provides diagnostics of the DNS configuration and explanation regarding modifications required prior to promoting a new Domain Controller (DC) or joining a computer to an Active Directory domain.
  • Finds what caused the failure to discover the existing DC during an attempt to join or promote a new DC in a new or existing forest.
  • Finds what caused a failure of the DC Locator DNS resource records registration.
Scenario
  • An IT administrator is having difficulties adding a new DC to a forest. DrDNS tools help the IT administrator discover the cause of the problem. They can then add the new DC.
  • This feature will help reduce IT administrator time in debugging DNS configurations. It should also help to decrease support costs and resources.
Product Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start DNS snap-in
Ref. No. WH1139S101800
Feature Name

DNS: Manage DNS Client Using Group Policy

Description

This feature allows administrators to configure the DNS client settings on Whistler-based computers using Group Policy. This simplifies the steps required to configure domain members when adjusting DNS client settings such as enabling and disabling dynamic registration of the DNS records by the clients, using devolution of the primary DNS suffix during name resolution and populating DNS lists.

In addition to the simplification of the administration, Group Policy support for the last parameter (DNS suffix search list) is considered a strategic feature, which will be required in a transition to the NetBIOS-less environment.

Scenario An IT administrator can use this Group Policy feature to configure DNS clients.
Product Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Active Directory snap-in - Group Policy (on the properties of any domain, organizational unit or site object)
Ref. No. WH0444S101800
Feature Name

DNS: Stub Zones and Conditional Forwarding

Description

Stub zones and conditional forwarding are two DNS server features that provide the ability to control the routing of DNS traffic on a network. A stub zone allows a DNS server to be aware of the names and addresses of servers that are authoritative for the full copy of a zone, without that server having to hold a complete copy of that zone, or having to send queries to the DNS root servers.

A Windows 2000 DNS server can only be configured to forward DNS queries to one set of DNS servers. The conditional forwarding feature in Whistler provides improved granularity supporting name-dependent forwarding. For example, a DNS server may be configured to simultaneously:

  • Forward queries for names ending in example.com to a first set of DNS servers, and
  • Forward queries for names ending in example.net to a second set of DNS servers, and
  • Forward all other queries to a third set of DNS server.
Scenario An IT administrator can uses this feature to control the routing of DNS traffic on their network.
Product Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start DNS snap-in
Ref. No. WH0443S101800
Feature Name

DNS: Support for EDNS0 Protocol

Description This Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) standard protocol defined in RFC 2671 allows DNS servers to accept and transmit User Datagram Protocol (UDP) DNS messages with a payload size greater than 512 octets. This feature provides support for this functionality.
Scenario This feature is useful for an IT administrator when DNS responses, such as Service Location record (SRV) queries used to local Active Directory Domain Controllers are larger than 512 octets. Prior to Whistler, these responses required extra round trips to setup and teardown a Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) session. In Whistler, using the EDNS0 protocol, many of these responses can be returned in a single UDP round trip without requiring TCP session setup and teardown.
Product Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Integral to the operating system
Ref. No. WH0442S101200
Feature Name

Editable Certificate Templates

Description This feature provides the capability to edit a Certificate template. It also includes changes to meet the X.509 standard to include deployment specific information in the certificates and certificate templates.
Scenario An IT administrator has created a certificate template three months ago. Business requirements dictate a modification to that template. This feature enables those changes to be made.
Product Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Security snap-in
Ref. No. WH0609S101800
Feature Name

Encrypted Domain Passwords

Description This feature provides enhancements to computer security by encrypting the Administrator and the Join Domain passwords that are stored in the setup answer file.
Scenario
  • A user or IT administrator will have improved security of passwords.
  • Corporations who outsource the installation and configuration of their computers to OEMs will benefit from this feature. For instance, the outsource OEM could fully customize a system without gaining access to the corporation’s domain.
Product Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start
Ref. No. WH0182-0186B101200
Feature Name

FIPS Kernel-Mode Crypto Module

Description This feature is a cryptographic module that runs as a driver in kernel-mode and implements the Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS)-approved cryptographic algorithms. The algorithms include: SHA-1, DES, 3DES, and an approved random number generator. The kernel driver will go through testing so it can be on the list of FIPS 140-1 Level 1 certified cryptographic modules.
Scenario

This feature will enable government sectors to deploy FIPS 140-1-compliant Internet Protocol Security (IPSec) implementations using:

  • L2TP/IPSec Virtual Private Network (VPN) client and server
  • L2TP/IPSec tunnels for gateway-to-gateway VPN connections
  • IPSec tunnels for gateway-to-gateway VPN connections
  • General IPSec encrypted end-to-end network traffic between client and server and server-to-server
Product Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Integral to the operating system
Ref. No. WH0628-0654S101800
Feature Name

Group Policy: Administrative Templates Snap-In Enhancement

Description This feature enhances the Group Policy Administrative Template extension snap-in so that it is more clearly understood in the User Interface where each policy is supported. This information will be displayed on the property sheet for each policy and in the WebView pane.
Scenario An IT administrator can use this feature to quickly view more policy information.
Product Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Group Policy – Administrative Templates snap-in
Ref. No. WH1222M101800
Feature Name

Group Policy: Folder Redirection of My Documents

Description Through Group Policy, this feature provides the capability to redirect a user’s My Documents folder to their home directory.
Scenario An IT administrator can use this feature to transition users from a legacy deployment of home directories to the My Documents model while maintaining compatibility with the existing home directory environment.
Product Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Group Policy snap-in - User Configuration - Windows Settings - Folder Redirection - My Documents
Ref. No. WH1247M101800
Feature Name

Group Policy: Full Install of User Assigned Applications at Logon

Description The Application Deployment Editor will contain a new option that allows a user assigned application to be installed completely at logon, instead of on demand.
Scenario An IT administrator is planning to deploy an application to a group of mobile computer users and wants to ensure that all possible features are present on the users computers. The users logon while connected at the home office, and the app is immediately installed in full at logon. Later, while using the application offline, all features are fully installed and the user is not prompted for any install on demand features.
Product Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Group Policy snap-in - Software Installation - Deployment Properties
Ref. No. WH1244M101800
Feature Name

Group Policy: Network and Dial-up Connections

Description This feature provides the ability to apply Group Policy to specify via a UI which components of Whistler networking functionality for specific users.
Scenario
  • An IT administrator can make a user a member of the Network Configuration Operators Group, who have access to the TCP/IP properties for a LAN connection and can set their own IP address.
  • For some reason, a user was added to the Administrators group on a computer, which allows the user to configure Internet Connection Sharing (ICS), Network Bridge, or LAN properties. Reconfiguration of these by the user, who might not be aware of the implications, might be very damaging to the network. With this feature, an IT administrator can enable policies that would block the user from configuring these features.
Product Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Group Policy snap-in
Ref. No. WH1131N101300
Feature Name

Group Policy: New Policy Settings

Description Whistler includes over 100 new policy settings. These policies provide the capability to customize and control the behavior of the Operating System for groups of users. These new policy settings affect functionality such as Control Panel, error reporting, Terminal Server, networking and dial-up connections, Domain Name System, network logon, Group Policy and roaming profiles.
Scenario An IT administrator can specify which Control Panel applets appear on computers for a group of users.
Product Professional, Server, Advanced Server, Datacenter
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Group Policy snap-in
Ref. No. WH0675M101800
Feature Name

Group Policy: Policy Features for Distributed Eventing

Description This feature expands the Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) eventing infrastructure to operate in a distributed environment. It consists of components that will enable configuring subscription, filtering, correlation, aggregation and transport of WMI events.
Scenario An ISV can enable health monitoring, event logging, notification, auto recovery and billing with the addition of a UI and definition of a policy type.
Product Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Accessed through WBEMTest
Ref. No. WH0029M100400
Feature Name

Group Policy: Resultant Set of Policy Wizard

Description The Resultant Set of Policy (RsoP) wizard guides an administrator through the steps necessary to create an appropriate target, generate RSoP data, and start the RSoP tool to use that data. This basic tool can determine the state of an existing target and run scenarios by manipulating the way in which Group Policy might be applied. It allows access and inspection of RSoP for a given target, allows generation and inspection of RSoP for a given target in an artificial environment, and allows easy inspection of differences under new criteria.
Scenario This new snap-in tool allows an IT administrator to examine typical groups of users by sampling target computers, such as those in the Accounts department, and then target them for suitable upgrades and new deployments. The logging mode allows an IT administrator to examine what actually was processed on a given computer. The planning mode allows an IT administrator to perform “what if” analysis for a specified location in the directory, security group membership and WMI filtering properties.
Product Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Group Policy snap-in
Ref. No. WH0062-0065-0066M101800
Feature Name

Group Policy: Support URL for Software Deployment

Description This feature provides a capability to edit and add a support URL for the package. When the application appears in the Add/Remove Programs on target computers, the user can then select the Support Information URL and will be directed to a support Web page. This feature can assist in reducing calls to a helpdesk or support team.
Scenario
  • An IT administrator is deploying a new application. After piloting the new application, the top 10 frequently asked questions for the application are identified and are posted on a Web page. This Web page is specified as the Support URL for this application.
  • A user can use the Add/Remove Program to select the application and click on the Support Information URL. This will link the user directly to the Support Web page.
Product Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start

From the Group Policy snap-in - Software Settings to set the URL and Add/Remove Programs – Support URL

View the URL: Add/Remove Programs - select the application - Support URL

Ref. No. WH1245M101800
Feature Name

Group Policy: Support for 64-bit Software Deployment

Description This feature provides support for 64-bit software deployment with Group Policy. New options in the Application Deployment Editor (ADE) will aid in determining if 32-bit applications should be deployed to 64-bit clients. The ADE will also allow existing Windows 2000 deployments to be managed with the same level of functionality provided by Whistler.
Scenario An IT administrator is planning to deploy a Windows Installer package to a group of users. The Windows Installer package is for 32-bit operating systems and application but some of the users have 64-bit computers and operating systems. The IT administrator knows the 32-bit package works correctly on 64-bit computers and operating system and uses the new “Make 32-bit x86 Windows Installer Application Available to IA64 machines” option in ADE, and the package is deployed to all users.
Product Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Group Policy Editor – User or Computer Configuration – Software Setting – New Package – Deployment - Advanced
Ref. No. WH1246M101800
Feature Name

Group Policy: Terminal Server

Description Terminal Services now provide Group Policy settings for most configurations.
Scenario An IT administrator can use Group Policy to manage how a Terminal Server can be used, such as enforcing redirection capabilities, password access and wallpaper settings.
Product Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Group Policy snap-in
Ref. No. WH1239M101800
Feature Name

Group Policy: WMI Filtering

Description

The Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) Filtering is an addition to the Group Policy infrastructure to enable the ability to specify a WMI-based query to filter the affect of a Group Policy Object (GPO). This will be an addition to the GPO Properties page as a new tab where a filter can be specified, created and edited. Additionally, support is included to allow Resultant Set of Policies (RsoP) to display existing WMI filters as well as specify alternate WMI filters.

This is similar in concept to the Security Group filtering implemented in Windows 2000.

Scenario An IT administrator can use this feature to create, delete, update, import and export filter objects.
Product Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Group Policy snap-in
Ref. No. WH0070M101800
Feature Name

Headless Server

Description Headless server provides the ability to install and manage a computer without a VGA display, keyboard, or mouse. Support for management controllers and management ports allow servers to be managed even during system start or when the system has crashed.
Scenario
  • OEMs can provide customers with servers that have no monitor and video card.
  • A headless server in a wiring closet crashes or is running too slow. An IT administrator can terminate processes or re-start the computer remotely.
Product Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start
Ref. No. WH0092B100600
Feature Name

Headless Server: Emergency Management Service Support

Description A headless server is one that can be completely administered remotely and therefore does not require a local keyboard, mouse, video card or monitor. Emergency Management Service (EMS) is the first headless implementation in Whistler. A dependency on local console hardware and the ability to run Attended in Text Mode Setup with Unattended Graphical User Interface (GUI) Mode Setup is removed. All communications with the remote headless server is via text mode.
Scenario A corporation has a remote site in which there are IT servers but no IT staff locally is available to handle any issues with the servers. EMS provides increased functionality for more operational situations and thus reduces IT staff travel time and reduces time to remotely restore services that might have failed.
Product Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start
Ref. No. WH1133B101300
Feature Name

Headless Server: Remote Installation Services

Description

Headless Remote Installation Services (RIS) is a feature that provides:

  • RIS support for server installs
  • More control over the answer file processing for a RIS install
  • RIS support for recovery console allows access to network files from the recovery consoles.
Scenario
  • An IT administrator wants to simply wipe a server clean and re-install software. Using RIS to install the server software version makes this simple on a headless computer.
  • An IT administrator wants to have slightly different answer files for installation on different computers while still installing the same software version.
  • An IT administrator wants to transfer files between servers on a network from the recovery console. Network access removes the former restriction to have physical access to a computer to replace files. It also makes the recovery console more useful with headless servers.
Product Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start
Ref. No. WH0100B101300
Feature Name

Internet Information Services: Capacity Planning Tracing

Description This feature enables the ability to make an assessment of the demand on various parts of the system, which can then be used in planning the reallocation of resources or adding new ones, such as hardware. This method is widely used in e-commerce solutions to track application workload against Application Service Provider (ASP) script-resource usage.
Scenario An IT administrator has two different Web applications on a server. At certain times during the day, the server freezes because the CPU is at 100 percent usage. After enabling the tracing on the server and starting up the site, the IT administrator can check the log file produced by the tracing and determine which application is causing the problem.
Product Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start
Ref. No. WH1134P100400
Feature Name

Internet Authentication Service as a RADIUS Proxy

Description

This feature allows the functionality of the Internet Authentication Service (IAS) for forward RADIUS authentication and accounting requests to another RADIUS server. This functionality includes:

  • Flexible rule-based forwarding
  • Load balance and fail over between multiple IAS/RADIUS server and load balancing RADIUS-EAP requests
  • Ability to force the client into a compulsory tunnel with or without user authentication
  • Selective forwarding of authentication and accounting requests to different RADIUS servers
Scenario
  • An IT administrator can create a RADIUS proxy from a computer running IAS, located in one domain, to authenticate and authorize users in either another domain that does not have a trust relationship, has only a one-way trust relationship or the domain is in another forest.
  • An Internet Service Provider (ISP) offering outsourced dial-up, VPN or Wireless services to a corporation can forward user authentication and accounting requests to a corporate IAS/RADIUS server.
  • In some DMZ configurations, an IT administrator can install an IAS/RADIUS proxy in the DMZ. Requests can be forwarded from the IAS/RADIUS proxy at an ISP to an IAS/RADIUS server in the corporation’s network.
  • ISPs working with partner ISPs or network infrastructure providers can use IAS/RADIUS proxy in a roaming consortium.
  • An IT administrator can use IAS/RADIUS for corporate networks that connect with partner networks to forward authentication of users from other companies to their user account database.
Product Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start
Ref. No. WH0524N100800
Feature Name

IPSec Monitoring Improvements

Description

This feature improves Internet Protocol Security (IPSec) monitoring capabilities. It does this through a use of a Microsoft Management Console (MMC) snap-in that provides detailed IPSec policy configuration and active security state. This feature replaces the ipsecmon.exe monitor program found in Windows 2000.

An IPSec policy consists of a set of main mode policies, a set of quick mode policies, a set of main mode filters that are associated with the set of main mode policies, and a set of quick mode filters (both transport and tunnel mode) that are associated with the set of quick mode policies.

The IPSec policy applied to the computer can come from the directory storage if the computer is part of a domain, or it can come from the local storage if the computer is not part of any domain.

Scenario An IT administrator can use this feature for improved IPSec monitoring.
Product Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start
Ref. No. WH0371N101200
Feature Name

Kerberos Extended Errors

Description Kerberos extended errors facility makes more information available for diagnostic and troubleshooting of authentication errors in a domain-based environment.
Scenario This feature enhances the ability for an IT administrator to resolve authentication errors.
Product Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Integral to the operating system
Ref. No. WH0630S101800
Feature Name

Key Archival and Recovery

Description

Key archival and recovery enables data recovery in the event of end-entity losses. It includes:

  • Key archival and recovery requires only one recovery agent to recover a private key
  • Exposes C-language APIs and one COM object interface for external developers to use
  • Key archiving is supported for both enterprise and stand-alone Certificate Authority (CA)
  • Key archival is the same for users, computers, and applications. The process of performing a certificate enrollment will be performed without interaction from a user or administrator.
  • Key recovery involves interaction with a designated recovery agent in a similar manner to how an Encrypted File System (EFS) requires a recovery agent to recover a file encryption key.
Scenario An IT administrator can use this feature to more easily archive and recovery keys.
Product Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Integral to the operating system
Ref. No. WH0608S100800
Feature Name

Large Log Files

Description Large Log Files feature provides full read and write support for log files greater than 1GB in size. A new log file format will be supported that allows performance data to be appended to an existing log file format. The source of the data to be stored in the header records and no restriction on file size when reading or writing collected data. For compatibility reasons, the old format will be supported. The new format will become the default binary log file format type.
Scenario An IT administrator can now select and process log files greater than 1GB in size.
Product Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Integral to the operating system
Ref. No. WH0115B101800
Feature Name

Logical Volume Management Enhancements

Description

Logical Volume Management (LVM) is a function that provides a mapping layer between the disk driver and the file system. This feature is a collection of enhancements that improves performance or availability of storage and file systems, including:

  • Support for WMI performance counters
  • Eliminates the number of I/O stack locations and ensures a common set of counters between dynamic disks and basic disks
  • Hide volumes ineligible for install at setup
  • Dropping the maintenance for basic disk sets
  • New Input/Output Controls (IOCTL)
Scenario
  • An IT administrator can use software RAID to improve performance or availability. The LVM volume manager is the default manager for all fixed storage added to a computer after OEM installation.
  • This facilitates the ability for OEMs to simply configure a server to use software RAID.
Product Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Integral to the operating system
Ref. No. WH0234B101800
Feature Name

Migration of Third-Party Mass Storage Drivers

Description This feature adds support for new mass storage devices that are released by hardware vendors. This will aid upgrade migrations from Windows 2000 servers.
Scenario
  • An IT administrator upgrades from Windows 2000 to Whistler on a server that includes mass storage drivers that are not supported in Whistler. The upgrade will proceed without interruption in text mode for mass storage drivers.
  • An IT administrator uses an upgrade MSI/SMS package to upgrade desktops and servers in their corporation. The MSI/SMS package targets computers automatically over the network without any user interaction during the upgrade process. The mass storage drivers will proceed with the upgrade without any interruption.
Product Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start
Ref. No. WH0191B100300
Feature Name

MSMQ: Distribution Lists

Description In Whistler, Message Queueing (MSMQ) adds support for sending messages to Distribution Lists that are hosted in the Active Directory.
Scenario
  • An IT administrator can use this feature to construct and manage groups of queues that are logically related.
  • A developer can use this feature to send the same message to multiple queues in a single call instead of having to explicit send the same message to each recipient separately.
Product Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Integral to the operating system
Ref. No. WH1147P101800
Feature Name

MSMQ: Internet Messaging

Description In Whistler, the Message Queueing (MSMQ) provides a new feature called Internet Messaging. This feature supports sending messages to queues on the Internet or within an Intranet by introducing a URL-style format name DIRECT=HTTP://sitename\msmq\queuename. For MSMQ to support Internet/Intranet messaging using URL-named queues, proper configuration of the Internet Information Server (IIS) is required.
Scenario
  • An IT administrator can use this feature to leverage existing HTTP management and administration mechanisms for MSMQ message traffic.
  • A developer can use this feature to send XML-formatted messages over HTTP to entities not within the same enterprise without having to open and manage specific MSMQ ports.
Product Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Integral to the operating system
Ref. No. WH1146P101800
Feature Name

MSMQ: Queue Alias

Description The feature introduces a new Active Directory object: Queue Alias. This object can act as a reference to any Message Queueing (MSMQ) queue. This is useful to allow private queues to be elements of MSMQ Distribution List objects.
Scenario
  • An IT administrator can use this feature to modify in a single place a member of multiple distribution lists.
  • A developer can use this feature to reference a private queue in a distribution list.
Product Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Integral to the operating system
Ref. No. WH1254P101800
Feature Name

MSMQ: Triggers

Description

In Message Queueing (MSMQ) 1.0 and MSMQ 2.0, the Triggers feature was delivered by the platform Software Development Kit (SDK) as an add-on module. With Whistler, the MSMQ Triggers module has been incorporated into the core product.

The goal of MSMQ Triggers is to provide a simple facility to automatically connect messages with functionality in a COM component or standalone EXE. It thus provides a way to invoke business rules in response to MSMQ messages without writing any infrastructure code. Likewise, it is a simple and scalable mechanism to expose business logic in COM+ packages via MSMQ.

Scenario A developer can use this feature to automatically monitor messages arriving at a queue for certain property values and, based on those values, dispatch the appropriate component to process matching messages.
Product Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Integral to the operating system
Ref. No. WH1255P101800
Feature Name

Native Mode IDE Switch

Description Windows 95,Windows 98 and Windows Millennium Second Edition support compatible mode Integrated Device Electronics (IDE) controllers while Whistler supports Native Mode IDE controllers. The Native Mode IDE Switch is a feature that will dynamically switch IDE controllers from Compatible Mode to Native Mode.
Scenario An IT administrator will find that Plug and Play reliability is improved with this feature.
Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Integral to the operating system
Ref. No. WH0859B101800
Feature Name

NetMeeting 3.1: Bridging Enhancements

Description

This feature enables a user of Microsoft NetMeeting version 3.1 to communicate with another person using Microsoft Exchange 2000 multicast conferencing. These programs let people communicate and collaborate over the Internet and corporate intranets, holding real-time meetings where they can see, hear, and exchange information with each other.

NetMeeting 3.1 is included on the Whistler. However, any operating system that currently has it installed will get an automatic upgrade to NetMeeting 3.1.

NetMeeting also offers a platform for real-time communication, enabling third-party vendors to easily integrate Internet conferencing into their applications and services.

Scenario NetMeeting 3.1 allows users to be in different locations and conduct meetings as if everyone were in the same room, even if some of them use Microsoft Exchange multicast conferencing.
Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Start – Programs – Accessories – Communications - NetMeeting
Ref. No. WH0581N101800
Feature Name

Network Client: Unattended Install Enhancements

Description This feature modifies the unattended setup to allow for more flexibility in the configuration of networks. The Whistler implementation allows information in the answer file to be merged with or appended to existing system data.
Scenario
  • The IT administrator can use this feature to ensure the network configuration is correct when a user is moving several computers to a new domain and is also upgrading their operating system
  • An IT administration team needs to deploy a large number of new desktops. The desktop hardware has choices of three NICs and will use DHCP for the final IP configuration. Use of this new feature will enable an unattended setup of these new computers.
  • An OEM has a standardized software package for their computers and their customers can order different types of network components (Network Interface Cards, modems, Integrated Services Digital Network cards, Asynchronous Transfer Mode cards, etc.). These are installed in the computers just before shipping. The OEM can pre-load these network device configurations computers in an unattended mode with this feature.
  • An ISV wants to pre-package the Whistler operating system into a Web appliance. The network configuration of the appliance will change when the device is delivered to the customer. The ISV can use this feature to configure unattended setup to allow the user to make these changes.
Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start
Ref. No. WH0350N100900
Feature Name

Network Location Awareness

Description

This feature enables client computers to determine their location in a network, which then allows them to perform the following with that location information:

  • It enables applications and operating systems to configure themselves for the current location of items such as proxies, time zone, default printer, or Virtual Private Networks (VPN).
  • It can address reliability concerns related to the location of network connections, such as ensuring network connections do not pass through the same physical location.
  • It can use the location information about remote clients to collect users' geographic interest.
  • It can use the location information about remote clients to restrict content distribution.
  • Because the physical location is based on longitude and latitude, it allows a number of uses to be displayed on maps.
Scenario End users in a corporate environment can more easily configure their new computers to interface with the corporate computer network.
Product Personal, Professional
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Start – Control Panel – Network and Internet Connections – Network Connections
Ref. No. WH0345N101800
Feature Name

Network Packet Scheduler

Description Packet scheduling is the means by which packet data transmission governing a key function of Quality of Service (QoS) is achieved. The packet scheduler is the traffic control module that regulates how much data an application or flow is allowed. This essentially enforces QOS parameters that are set for a particular flow.
Scenario An IT administrator can use the Packet Scheduler (Psched) for multimedia applications such as NetMeeting and TAPI conferencing. This can be used to schedule transmission of data packets on time and prioritizing them over other traffic both in the end system and in the network (via packet marking).
Product Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start
Ref. No. WH0371N101700
Feature Name

NTFS Read-Only Volumes

Description This feature provides the ability to indicate an NTFS volume as read-only.
Scenario An IT administrator occasionally requires the need to indicate an NTFS volume as read-only during backup operations. This enables the backup utility to mount the NTFS volume snapshot as read-only.
Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start
Ref. No. WH0215B100400
Feature Name

NTFS SetShortName for Backup

Description NTFS allows both short and long filenames. The short filenames are implicitly created by NTFS when an application creates the file, subject to the tunnel cache state. Currently, when files are copied, backed up or restored, the short filenames are not preserved. There are also applications that use these short filenames to refer to files and they are not correctly backed up or restored. This feature enables the use of short file names to be preserved and correctly copied, backed up, restored.
Scenario A user backs up a file server that includes registry entries that refer to short filenames and later needs to restore the files. All file names are correctly preserved and restored.
Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start
Ref. No. WH0224B100300
Feature Name

Performance Monitor: Current Processor Power Activity Report

Description This feature will present processor (CPU) power activity information in the performance monitor.
Scenario End users and IT administrators will be able to manage, monitor and troubleshoot processor-power issues for individual computers or within an IT infrastructure.
Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Start – Control Panel – Performance and Maintenance – Administrative Tools – Performance – Performance Logs and Alerts
Ref. No. WH0158B101800
Feature Name

Performance Monitor: Logging to SQL Server

Description This feature allows performance data collected by Performance Monitor (PerfMon) to be written and read directly to SQL databases via Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) data connections allowing performance data collection on an enterprise rather than per- server basis.
Scenario An IT administrator can use this feature to produce enterprise-wide performance reports for Whistler-based servers running their applications.
Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Start – Control Panel – Performance and Maintenance – Administrative Tools – Performance – Performance Logs and Alerts
Ref. No. WH0825B101800
Feature Name

Performance Monitor: Select Multiple Instance and Objects

Description

The select multiple objects in Performance Monitor (PerfMon) feature is an enhancement to the visualization/analysis of performance data using the Performance logs and alerts service. This feature will make it easier to select multiple objects, counters and instances for logging to a file.

This feature will not be available in SysMon for real-time monitoring where selecting multiple object counters and instances displays too much data.

Scenario An IT administrator wants to collect performance counter data for a group of servers. Using this feature, the IT administrator can select all performance objects, counters and instances.
Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Start – Control Panel – Performance and Maintenance – Administrative Tools – Performance – System Monitor
Ref. No. WH0118B101800
Feature Name

Performance Monitor: Trending Analysis

Description Trending Analysis is a feature enhancement to the visualization/analysis performance and event tracing data of Performance Monitor (PerfMon). It will include the ability to view data from multiple log file data sources.
Scenario An IT administrator wants to analyze the CPU, memory and disk utilization of a group of servers that are running a specific business application. With this enhanced feature, the IT administrator can select more than one file to process, can designate a specific timeframe, and view the reports.
Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Start – Control Panel – Performance and Maintenance – Administrative Tools – Performance – Performance Logs and Alerts
Ref. No. WH0124B101800
Feature Name

Performance Tools Additions

Description

New performance tools include:

  • Disk I/O
  • Memory management (for example, working set management, page fault)
  • Image load/unload
  • Process/thread activities (for example, process/thread create, context switching)
  • Registry
  • Driver delays
  • Pool allocations
  • Heap allocations
  • CPU sample profiling for user and kernel mode and across all processes
Scenario An IT administrator, developer, OEM, and other system support teams in diagnosing and resolving problems reported by users.
Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Start - Control Panel – Performance and Maintenance – Administrative Tools - Performance
Ref. No. WH0126B101800
Feature Name

Power Management Settings: Unattended Configuration

Description On Windows 2000, Power Management is built in and set manually on a per user basis. This new feature provides power management settings that can be pre-configured on a per system basis. This feature will also enable an override these default settings so that individual users can make any necessary adjustments.
Scenario
  • A user buys a mobile computer from an OEM, Value Added Reseller (VAR), Solution Providers (SP) or from their business IT staff. Even though the installation was completed with administrator logged on, by having settings configured on a per computer basis, the end user is able to log on with their credentials and immediately begin using the mobile computer. The end user does not need to configure the optimal power management settings because this was already done. This can be used to ensure consistency in configurations of all similar systems within a business.
  • A corporation wants to deploy servers remotely worldwide but needs to ensure that the Power Management settings are optimized consistently for all servers. This can facilitate an IT administrator’s management of their auxiliary Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS).
Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Start – Control Panel – Performance and Maintenance – Power Options - UPS
Ref. No. WH0199B101800
Feature Name

Print Driver Installation on Server Clusters

Description In Windows 2000, each printer had to be installed “manually” on every node of the cluster. This feature provides a method to create a printer on one node of a cluster and fail over to another node and still maintain the created printer.
Scenario
  • An IT administrator can install a printer on Node A and configure it so it will fail over to Node B.
  • An IT administrator can update or remove a driver and then have all Print Cluster nodes pick up the changes.
  • An IT administrator can add drivers for other platforms for point-and-print functionality.
Product Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Start – Control Panel – Printers and Other Hardware
Ref. No. WH1043C101800
Feature Name

Printing: 32-bit and 64-bit Interoperability

Description This feature provides the ability for 32-bit applications to be able to print via a 64-bit print server.
Scenario
  • An IT administrator running a 32-bit management application on a computer with 32-bit Operating System (OS) can add, delete and configure ports of a 64-bit print server.
  • A user changes from a 32-bit application on a 32-bit OS to a 64-bit OS. This ability to display driver pages, query device capabilities and print is still available.
  • A user with a 32-bit application on a 64-bit OS can add or delete printer connections.
Product Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Integral to the operating system
Ref. No. WH1041C101800
Feature Name

Printing: Remove MacPrint from 64-bit Whistler Server Product

Description The Services for Macintosh component includes a print server that allows Macintosh clients to print to Windows NT or Windows 2000 print shares via the AppleTalk protocol. In additions to the print server, there is a 300 DPI Postscript RIP engine that allows Macintosh generated Postscript print jobs to be sent to non-Postscript printers (for example, inkjet printers). This feature removes this functionality from 64-bit Whistler Server.
Scenario Not applicable
Product Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Not applicable
Ref. No. WH1141N100400
Feature Name

Printing: Scripts for Print Systems Management

Description This feature provides a command-line utility that allows management of printers and print queues. Using a Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) provider, scripts or batch files can be developed to manage printers in an unattended or automated manner.
Scenario An IT administrator needs to change the current properties for some printers. Using this tool, the IT administrator can get the current settings and then reset the parameters without using a Graphical User Interface (GUI).
Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start WMI
Ref. No. WH1056C101800
Feature Name

Printing: Universal Printer Driver Pseudo Vector Support

Description

This feature enhances Unidrv as a new universal printer driver. Its sub-features include the following:

  • Adds vector support for Hewlett Packard printer models GL2 and PCL-XL
  • Enables OEM modules to do page-level analysis and implement a default algorithm
  • Supports multi-surface rendering
  • Adds support for inkjet duplex printing
Scenario Users can avoid installing drivers for more printers due to this feature.
Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Start – Control Panel – Printers and Other Hardware – Printers and Faxes
Ref. No. WH0564C101800
Feature Name

RAS: Connection Manager Administration Kit Improvements

Description

This feature enables a network administrator, using the upgraded Connection Manager Administration Kit (CMAK), to create custom dial-up profiles for RAS connections with a dial-up or virtual private networking. This feature relieves administrators of the former manual tasks of creating a profile, locating associated files, manually configuring the files to enable these features, and constructing a new profile from the edited files. The profiles contain a self-installing package which typically includes the following:

  • Connection manager client
  • Various configuration files
  • Optional executables
  • Dynamic Link Library (DLL) associated with connect actions
  • An initial copy of the phonebook
Scenario
  • A user who needs access to company network files while traveling can very conveniently set up a RAS connection on their mobile computer with less assistance from help desk personnel.
  • An IT administrator can create a profile for end-user computers that enables them to establish a RAS connection to the network by clicking a single icon.
Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Connection Manager Administration Kit
Ref. No. WH0521N101800
Feature Name

RAS: Integrated Services over Slow Link Layers

Description Some applications generate additional traffic across a network that can cause end-to-end latency issues. In real-time multimedia applications, for example, this type of latency can interfere with the use of the application. Lower speed networks are especially susceptible to latency issues under these circumstances. The Integrated Services over Slow Link Layer (ISSLOW) over Remote Access Service (RAS) networks feature addresses this problem.
Scenario An IT administrator can use this feature to improve the user experience of applications, especially real-time multimedia applications, on slower speed networks.
Product Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start
Ref. No. WH1262N101700
Feature Name

Removal of Legacy Networking Protocols

Description

The following legacy networking protocols are removed from Whistler Beta 1:

  • Data Link Control (DLC)
  • NetBIOS Extended User Interface (NetBEUI)

The following legacy networking protocols are removed only from 64-bit Whistler:

  • Internet Packet eXchange/Sequenced Packet eXchange (IPX/SPX) and IPX dependent services
  • Infrared Data Association (IrDA)
  • Open Shortest Path First (OSPF)
Scenario Not applicable
Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information See description
How to Start Not applicable
Ref. No. WH1054N101800
Feature Name

Roaming User Profiles: 64-bit Enhancements

Description

This feature provides 64-bit support for Roaming User Profiles in Whistler including:

  • Enables roaming from a Whistler-based 64-bit computer with 64-bit applications installed to a Whistler-based 32-bit computer
  • Enables roaming from a Whistler-based 64-bit computer with 64-bit applications installed to a Windows-based 2000 computer

Note: Roaming from a Whistler-based 64-bit computer with 64-bit applications installed to a Windows NT 4.0-based computer is the same as roaming to a Windows 2000-based computer, with the usual restrictions on Windows NT 4.0 roaming.

Scenario From a Whistler-based 32-bit Windows 2000 computer, a roaming user logs onto a Whistler-based 64-bit computer and has a 64-bit application and it works properly.
Product Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Integral to the operating system
Ref. No. WH1220M101800
Feature Name

Route Management Using Connection Manager

Description

This feature provides the following:

  • Maintains simultaneous access to corporation resources and the Internet for RAS clients.
  • Predefines routes to the corporate network as part of the Connection Manager (CM) profile.
  • Includes an option to maintain a routing table at a Uniform Resource Locator (URL).
  • Includes compatibility with Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000, Windows 98, and Windows Millennium Edition.
  • Allows for a special case in which a network administrator desires both predefined files in the CM profile and additional routes at the same URL.
Scenario An IT administrator can use this feature to add more control for RAS users into a corporation’s private network.
Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Connection Manager
Ref. No. WH0537N101800
Feature Name

Secure Wireless LANs

Description This feature provides security and performance improvements for wireless LANs, such as automatic key management, user authentication and authorization prior to LAN access. It will also provide access control for Ethernet networks when wired Ethernet is used in public locations.
Scenario
  • A mobile user is in an airport and can use this feature to gain secure Internet access via wireless or Ethernet connectivity.
  • An IT administrator uses this feature for use in configuring secure access to a wireless LAN. They also might require public certificates deployed via auto-enrollment and certificates and authentication information derived from the IAS/RADIUS policies. IAS/RADIUS server is used for user authentication, authorization and accounting, and key management of wireless LANs. The IT administrator is able to set this up on a per computer or user account basis.
  • Without media encryption, an IT engineer can use this feature to set up secure access to Ethernet LANs.
Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Start - Control Panel – Network and Internet Connections – Internet Options - Security
Ref. No. WH0365-1018N101800
Feature Name

Secure Wireless/LANs and IAS/RADIUS Server

Description The Internet Authentication Server (IAS) is a RADIUS server that enables management of user authentication, authorization, and of users connecting to a dial-up, Virtual Private Network (VPN), firewalls and other connectivity technologies. In Whistler, it has been enhanced to allow authentication and authorization of users and computers connecting to Wireless and Ethernet LANs (IEEE 802.1X).
Scenario A user has a mobile computer that is used at both work and home. From home, the user can use this computer on their ADSL connection to access the office network via the company’s IAS/RADIUS Proxy.
Product Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start
Ref. No. WH1050N101200
Feature Name

Security Accounts Manager: Record Identification Limit

Description This feature allows a greater number of users to be assigned security identifiers by the Security Accounts Manager (SAM). The limit in Windows 2000 was approximately one billion users.
Scenario An IT administrator can add more users to the SAM due to this feature.
Product Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start SAM snap-in
Ref. No. WH0450S101800
Feature Name

Security Improvements for Servers on Ethernet or Wireless LANs

Description

This feature is an enhancement to the feature “Secure Wireless LANs”. It allows servers to be deployed on Ethernet or Wireless LANs. With Secure Wireless/Ethernet LAN, a computer typically will not get access to the network until the user logon happens. However, if a computer has computer authentication enabled, then the computer can get access to the LAN after the computer is authenticated and authorized by IAS/RADIUS server. It is supported by the use of public certificates deployed by auto-enrollment or smart cards.

This feature implements security for both wired and wireless Local Area Network (LAN) that is based on the 802.11 specifications. It is supported by the use of public certificates deployed by auto-enrollment or smart cards. This, in turn, enables access control for Ethernet networks where wired Ethernet is used in public places such as malls or airports. It supports authentication of computers within the Extensible Authentication Protocol (EAP) operating environment.

Scenario Users in airports with mobile computers can log onto the Internet using either a wireless or wired Ethernet LAN and be ensured of secure access.
Product Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start User: Start – Control Panel – Network and Internet Connections – Internet Options - Security
Ref. No. WH1142N101800
Feature Name

Snapshots

Description

A snapshot of a storage volume is a point-in-time copy of the original entity. The snapshot is typically used by a backup application so that it can backup files that are made to appear static, even though they are really changing.

With Whistler, the following snapshot components are being implemented:

  • API that uses the COM infrastructure for much of its registration and configuration needs
  • COM-based “coordinator” service that driver messages between parties involved in the snapshot process and also performs discovery of applications and snapshot providers
  • Storage filter driver that implements volume-based snapshots using a copy-on-write design
  • Interfaces to support ISV/IHV plug-ins of other snapshots
  • Interfaces for applications and stores to ensure these snapshots are of consistent state
Scenario
  • An IT administrator can back up the snapshot while continuing to read and write the volume.
  • An IT administrator can use snapshots for system recovery.
Product Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start
Ref. No. WH0236-0241B100400
Feature Name

Snapshots: Backup Integration

Description

This feature adds improvements to the backup/restore accuracy, repeatability and reliability. Improvements include:

  • Built-in snapshot driver allows backup of open files creating a “snapshot” of the volume
  • New APIs provide a standard way for applications to register and coordinate with the backup application if they wish to. Even if they do not, all applications still benefit from snapshot.
  • Online backup: snapshots resolve the problem of the “backup window”. The backup is performed on the snapshot view of the data. Applications can run, while the backup is made from the snapshot. When the backup completes, the snapshot will be automatically garbage-collected.
  • There is notification of snapshot-aware services at restore time to facilitate recovery steps following a restore of data.
Scenario An IT administrator has applications that cannot be backed up since the files are open. They must either shut down the application for the duration of the backup (the “backup window”) or purchase special backup agents that can backup these special files online. With snapshots, these files can be backed up, with minimal downtime for the applications and data.
Product Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start
Ref. No. WH0237B101300
Feature Name

Snapshots: File System Support

Description This feature supports snapshots for NTFS and File Allocation Table (FAT) file systems by ensuring a common point in time for all snapshot volumes on the system and the file systems are in a clean flushed state.
Scenario An IT administrator can use this feature for NTFS and FAT snapshots.
Product Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start
Ref. No. WH0238B101300
Feature Name

System Monitor: Performance Logging Enhancements

Description

This feature provides enhancements to performance data collected by the System Monitor (Sysmon). This includes the ability to display counter data from a log file, select those counters of interest and then write them to a new supported log file format.

Saving of data displayed in real time to a log file is not supported.

Scenario An IT administrator can use Sysmon to collect log file performance counters during a specific time interval and then save the data to a log file. The IT administrator can then analyze the data from the log file.
Product Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Start – Control Panel – Performance and Maintenance – Administrative Tools – Performance – System Monitor
Ref. No. WH1229B101800
Feature Name

System Restore

Description System Restore is an automatic, change-based monitoring feature which keeps a recent “safety net” of changes to the computer to allow rolling back harmful system or application changes. System Restore automatically creates meaningful restore points so users never have to remember to take a backup. The intuitive wizard-like restore UI enables users to undo harmful changes by just remembering a day and a point in a day when their computer was performing optimially. System Restore will undo harmful changes without impacting a user’s personal data files, such as E-mail and browsing history or favorites.
Scenario A user downloads an application from the Internet and then discovers the performance of the system and other applications do not work properly. The user uses Add/Remove programs to uninstall the application but this does noe fix the problem. Using System Restore, and remembering when the computer worked well prior to downloading this application from the Internet, the user elects to restore the system to the previous timeframe. After the restore is completed, the computer works properly.
Product Personal, Professional
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Start – Programs – Accessories – System Tools - Backup
Ref. No. WH0852M11100
Feature Name

TCP/IP Support on IEEE 1394 Serial Bus

Description This feature enables the use of the IEEE 1394 serial bus as a network media for the TCP/IP protocol suite. This feature is a compatible implementation of Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) RFC 2734.
Scenario At IT administrator can use this feature to connect computers together using IEEE 1394 and the computers automatically establish TCP/IP networking. File sharing, Internet Connection Sharing, Printer Sharing and all the other networking features are available using IEEE 1394 as the network.
Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Integral to the operating system
Ref. No. WH0380N101800
Feature Name

TCP/UDP Port Ownership

Description This feature provides a new NETSTAT option to display the process that owns the Transmission Control Protocol/User-Datagram Protocol (TCP/UDP) port.
Scenario An IT administrator can use this feature for configuring secure servers, security audits and performance improvements.
Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start
Ref. No. WH1021N101800
Feature Name

Terminal Server: Services Redirection

Description Terminal Services Redirection extends the Plug and Play capability so that it works for remote printing devices that are physically attached to a Terminal Server client computer.
Scenario An IT administrator can use this feature to enumerate client-side printers and obtain their associated Plug and Play IDs using Plug and Play APIs.
Product Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start
Ref. No. WH0076M100300
Feature Name

Terminal Server: Standby Power Support

Description This feature enables systems running Terminal Server to go into standby power states.
Scenario A user is running Terminal Server from a system that is on battery. The power is running low after the user has stepped away from their desk. The system will go into standby power or hibernation.
Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Start – Control Panel – Performance and Maintenance – Administrative Tools - Services
Ref. No. WH0156B101800
Feature Name

Terminal Server: Terminal Services Manager Improvements

Description To improve usability, the Terminal Services Manager tool no longer enumerates the Terminal Servers on the current domain by default. The improvements in Whistler enable an administrator to specify a particular server or to enumerate a specific domain. This tool also supports Favorite Servers that enables the ability to establish a list of frequently used servers to select.
Scenario An IT administrator opens Terminal Services Manager across a lower bandwidth network and does not have to wait for the servers to enumerate. The IT administrator can select the target server from the small list of servers typically administered.
Product Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Start – Control Panel – Performance and Maintenance - Administrative Tools, Services
Ref. No. WH1238M101800
Feature Name

Terminal Services: Load Management

Description

Session-based and server-based load management is available for Terminal Server. Server load management uses WMI to provide metrics to network or hardware load balancing services. These metrics provide information on server availability and load, including server up, server down, and number of additional sessions the server can support. The load balancer or router can then use this data to better control server use.

Session load management provides a Session Directory facility to re-route disconnected users back to their session in progress. The Session Directory is a replaceable COM object.

Scenario
  • An IT administrator and Application Service Provider who deploy a group of Terminal Servers with a single published virtual IP or name to support heavy volume users will find these metrics beneficial in managing the servers.
  • ISVs or developers can replace or augment this service to provide additional routing logic, authentication, or alternate database support.
Product Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start

Terminal Server metrics are available through Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI).

The Session Directory must be started as a service on one computer, often one of the Terminal Servers in a group of servers, though it may be on a separate computer. The service is started through the Computer Management MMC snap-in. Each Terminal Server in the cluster must enable the Session Directory access and specify the name of the server hosting the Session Directory and the name of the cluster that Terminal Server is joining. This can be done through the Terminal Services Configuration tool, under Server Settings, or by using WMI.

Ref. No. WH1227M100800
Feature Name

Terminal Services: Remote Access Permission Changes

Description

Terminal Services introduces the Remote Desktop Users group to grant remote access permissions. Remote Desktop Users is a built-in group that can be administered via policy. Placing a user or group into Remote Desktop Users gives that user the ability to remotely connect to a computer without requiring local login privileges.

The Permissions tab in Terminal Services Configuration can still be used to add specific users and to set particular permissions for users. However, users must then be granted the Remote Interactive Logon using the Security policy editor.

Scenario
  • An IT administrator can give a group of users access to a group of Terminal Servers. Using Group Policy, this group of users is added to the Remote Desktop Users Built-In group for those computers.
  • A Terminal Server has a NIC for user access and one for administrator access. An IT administrator uses Group Policy to remove Remote Desktop Users from all configurations, but all users or user groups who can have access to the computer into Remote Desktop Users, and put the particular users or groups who can have access via a particular NIC into that permission set.
Product Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Start – Control Panel – Performance and Maintenance – Administrative Tools – Services
Ref. No. WH1237M101800
Feature Name

User State Migration Tool

Description

The User State Migration Tool (USMT) aids deployments of Whistler as it provides a means for an IT administrator to capture and restore user’s settings, files and documents (that is, the “state”). This helps reduce time for the user after the new operating system is deployed since the users do not have to reconfigure desktop settings for such things as E-mail server, proxy server, desktop color scheme desktop wallpaper.

USMT is useful for a “wipe and load” and computer replacement deployment strategies.

The command line tool is driven by INF files that can be customized. The default INF files migrate the majority of the shell settings, Internet and E-mail connectivity settings and common Office file types.

Sources for the migration include Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows Millennium Edition, Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000 and Whistler. Whistler is the only destination for the migration.

Scenario An IT administrator, doing a large-scale deployment of Whistler, needs to quickly migrate many user’s states from their old desktops to their new desktop computers. USMT is used to save time with the initial setups and reduce support calls after the deployment.
Product Personal, Professional
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start
Ref. No. WH0828M101800
Feature Name

Windows Installer: Digital Signature Support

Description This feature enables the capability for Windows Installer packages and external cabinets to be digitally signed. This will increase security.
Scenario An IT administrator can provide a more secure Windows Installer package if that package has to be used across the Internet.
Product Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start
Ref. No. WH1079M100400
Feature Name

Windows Installer: Improved File Comparison Method

Description The Windows Installer version 1.5 has improved the performance of the file copy process relating to un-versioned files. This is done via the use of file hashes. This can reduce the time required to install large applications and reduce network bandwidth use if installing the application over a network.
Scenario If a file is being updated, but has no version, the Windows Installer can now compare files via their hash to determine if they are different and need to be copied. In this instance, IT administrators will likely result in fewer issues from users and users will find a new application installation to be completed faster.
Product Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start
Ref. No. WH0071M100400

Enhancements for Developers

Feature Name

Accessibility: MSAA Document Services

Description

Microsoft Active Accessibility (MSAA) version 2.0 is a core component of Windows 2000. It defines a standard mechanism for applications to exchange information with Active Accessibility clients about their user interface elements. This COM –based technology provides a mechanism for MSAA clients to interact with a server in a consistent manner regardless of the type of content or controls it contains.

Enhancements in Whistler include:

  • Text and Document enhancements – These include extract text, simple text insertion, rich text and table support, query by attribute, and dynamic annotation.
  • Dynamic annotation – This allows applications to easily customize the accessibility information exposed for their UI elements.
Scenario
  • An ISV builds accessibility aids that are voice input utilities or other client applications such as automated testing tools that use Active Accessibility. This feature will provide the method to extract information from applications, which are not available through standard Windows messages.
  • A user has an ISV developed application that includes Active Accessibility technology. This feature enables dynamic annotation to be added to this application.
Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start
Ref. No. WH0867-0957W100400
Feature Name

Accessibility: SAPI 5 Speech Recognition and Text-To-Speech API

Description This feature enables Narrator and other Text-to-Speech applications to be written using the new Speech API (SAPI 5).
Scenario
  • An application developer needs to change the state of a voice (rate, pitch, volume, etc.) and different priorities for voices for an application. This is accomplished using the SAPI 5.
  • An application developer can use SAPI 5 to interface with a SAPI-compliant Text-to-Speech engine.
Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit
How to Start
Ref. No. WH0870W101200
Feature Name

Active Directory: Admin Extensibility Enhancements

Description Active Directory allows any class of object to be a member of a group.
Scenario
  • An ISV can add an object to a group.
  • An IT administrator who has an ISV/OEM device that utilizes Active Directory has enhanced management capabilities.
Product Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start
Ref. No. WH0661S100300
Feature Name

Cluster Server Extension

Description This feature provides an extension of the DeviceIOControl call that allows an application to determine whether a given disk is a cluster disk. The intended usage of the call is by applications and services that intend to write to the disk in question.
Scenario This feature provides developers and IT administrators with improved methods to manage and use cluster servers.
Product Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start
Ref. No. WH0167S100600
Feature Name

Cluster Server: Resource Scripting Host

Description

The Cluster Resource Scripting Host feature simplifies the process of clustering applications. By providing a run-time environment that takes care of all complex issues, it allows for easy creation of new resource types. This is the new scripting host software "generic script" resource type. This feature includes:

  • Resource health monitoring and instrumentation for applications and services
  • Simpler process of implementing a new resource type
  • Scriptable application instrumentation simplifies the process of making the application cluster-aware
  • Run-time hosting environment
  • Existing COM automation servers can be reused
Scenario A developer can use this feature to create line-of-business applications. Faster prototyping will enable the application to be completed faster.
Product Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start
Ref. No. WH0162S101300
Feature Name

COM and Shared DLL Isolation Support

Description

Whistler has a new folder under Windows called “WinSxS” (Windows Side-by-Side). This area is used to store versions of Whistler components that are built to reduce configuration problems with Dynamic Link Libraries (DLL). Multiple versions of components are stored in this folder.

Whistler allows Win32 components and applications to use the exact version of Microsoft components with which they are tested and not be impacted by other application or operating system updates.

Scenario This feature provides developers and IT administrators with improved methods to manage and use servers.
Product Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start
Ref. No. WH1225B101800
Feature Name

COM+: Resource Manager Support

Description

This feature enables COM+ transactions to be supported by one-phase transactions in the Microsoft Distributed Transaction Coordinator (DTC), instead of having to implement two-phase transaction support, as required previously. This feature enables quick and efficient development of modifications of existing resource managers to support COM+ transactions.

The Microsoft DTC security configuration feature allows administrators to enable and disable certain features of Microsoft DTC to minimize the risk of security attacks on the system. Administrators can disable features such as network access to minimize the risk of denial-of-service attacks and the potential of unauthorized users hijacking the system.

The "Last Resource Manager Support" in Microsoft DTC provides hooks to allow a resource manager that can only do one-phase transactions to participate in transactions coordinated by Microsoft DTC. There can only be one such participant in the transaction.

Scenario The security functionality is useful if Microsoft DTC is running on domain controllers or perimeter networks.
Product Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start
Ref. No. WH1013-1014P101300
Feature Name

COM+ 1.x Enhancement: Applications As Windows NT Services

Description This enhancement of COM+ 1.x enables the ability to configure a COM+ server application as a Windows NT service and implement the Windows NT service as a COM+ server application. This provides more control over when the COM+ application starts. Marking the application to run as a Windows NT service means that the component’s Dynamic Link Library (DLL) is loaded into memory when the system boots. This results in making a COM+ application highly available as it can also be installed on a clustered server.
Scenario An Application Service Provider (ASP) wants to increase security levels of applications. Applying privileged operations under the Local System account in the Windows NT service enables this.
Product Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start
Ref. No. WH1015-1016P100600
Feature Name

COM+ 1.x Enhancement: Application Partitions

Description COM+ 1.x Application Partitions provides support for application partitions, which allow multiple versions of COM+ applications to be installed and configured on the same computer. This results in more cost-effective methods to manage server applications.
Scenario A developer can use application partitions for an application hosted at an Application Service Provider (ASP). Rather than creating multiple versions of the application on separate servers, multiple partitions can be created on the same server to host these versions. Each partition then acts as a virtual server. User Identity determines the set of partitions available to that user as well as a default partition where activations occur when no partition is explicitly specified.
Product Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start
Ref. No. WH1015-1016P101800
Feature Name

COM+ 1.x Enhancement: Application Process Dump

Description COM+ 1.x Pause/Disable Applications provides a new process dump, which enables a dump of the entire state of a process without terminating that process.
Scenario A developer at an Application Service Provider (ASP) cannot resolve an application problem. With the process dump, the ASP can take a non-intrusive snapshot of the running processes. The details are saved in a log file and are used by the developer to isolate and resolve the problem.
Product Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start
Ref. No. WH1015-1016P101800
Feature Name

COM+ 1.x Enhancement: Component Aliasing

Description COM+ 1.0 provided the ability to configure a particular implementation of a component once on any one computer. COM+ 1.x provides component aliasing. This allows the ability to configure one physical implementation of a component multiple times.
Scenario A developer is creating a component that only takes calls to stored procedures in a database. This component is going to be used by several applications that use different databases. Rather than copy this component code into each of the applications, component aliasing can be used to configure the same physical implementation of the component for each of these different applications. This results in less code to develop and maintain as well as faster development time.
Product Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start
Ref. No. WH1015-1016P100600
Feature Name

COM+ 1.x Enhancement: Configurable Isolation Levels

Description Configurable Isolation Levels – COM+ 1.0 only allowed the highest isolation level, which can be serialized. COM+ 1.x provides the ability to configure the desired isolation level.
Scenario A developer can use this feature increase concurrency, performance and scalability of applications by using configurable isolation levels.
Product Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start
Ref. No. WH1015-1016P100800
Feature Name

COM+ 1.x Enhancement: Memory Gates

Description COM+ 1.x prevents situations in which error paths might be run on a server. Rather than wait for memory allocations to fail in a section of code, COM+ checks memory before it creates a COM+ server or object. If the percentage of virtual memory available to the application falls below a fixed threshold, the activation fails before the object is created.
Scenario A developer needs to increase system reliability. Using memory gates, which fail activations that would normally run, previous reliability issues are avoided.
Product Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start
Ref. No. WH1015-1016P100600
Feature Name

COM+ 1.x Enhancement: Process Recycling

Description Process recycling – This COM+ 1.x enhancement provides the ability to configure process recycling administratively through the COM+ UI, or programmatically through the COM+ administrative Software Development Kit (SDK). Processes can be shut down or recycled based on several criteria, including elapsed time, memory usage, number of calls, and the number of activations.
Scenario A developer can use process recycling to increase stability of applications.
Product Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start
Ref. No. WH1015-1016P101800
Feature Name

COM+ 1.x Enhancement: Public/Private Components

Description COM+ 1.x Public/Private Components provides the ability to mark components as private, which can only be seen and activated by other components in the same application. Private components can also be marked so there is no access from outside the application (but still taking advantage of COM+ services). This provides more control over functionality of an application.
Scenario A developer can use this feature to mark certain components as private so these components cannot be used by other applications.
Product Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start
Ref. No. WH1015P100400
Feature Name

Convert OpenHCI to new Port/Miniport USB Stack

Description

This new port mini-port model was created to reduce the complexity of creating a new USB host controller driver. The OpenHCI driver was re-written in Whistler as a mini-port.

This will therefore reduce the time it will take to add a new host controller as well as the time required to back-port a new host controller to an older operating system. This will also facilitate third-party users that want to create random USB host controllers, such as 16-bit, remote or Ethernet.

This feature will change the default driver for OpenHCI cards from the former monolithic port driver to the mini-port driver. This new architecture will make it easier to add a new host controller, such as Extended Host Controller Interface (EHCI) or USB 2.0.

Scenario This will make the addition of USB 2.0 hardware support easier.
Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Integral to the operating system
Ref. No. WH0247B101800
Feature Name

Digest Access Authentication

Description

The Digest Access Authentication feature provides a Light Weight Access Protocol (LDAP) for wireless and remote wireless devices. This feature includes a package with four primary functions of the Security Support Provider Interface (SSPI):

  • Package management – enables an application to list the security packages available and select the one to support its needs
  • Credential management – enables applications to gain access to the credentials of a principal or to free such access
  • Context management – enables a security context to be defined so the client and server can use a secure communication channel
  • Message support
Scenario An OEM has a new wireless device and can use this feature to enhance its security.
Product Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start
Ref. No. WH0645S100400
Feature Name

Digital Media: DirectShow Performance Improvements

Description

DirectShow provides APIs for client-side capture, transformation, and playback of a wide variety of data formats. These APIs will support performance enhancements for media manipulation. Functionality of this feature includes:

  • A foundation for audio/video capture and editing applications
  • Windows Media Format (WMF) via new reader and writer filters
  • DirectShow Editing Services (DES), a complete new API implementing the core of non-linear editing services and creation of composite media from source audio/video streams
  • Expanded DVD support
  • Implements DirectX Media Objects, data streaming components with significantly simpler APIs than DirectShow filters
Scenario An ISV that develops media capture/editing applications. The developer can use this feature to improve support for Digital Video cameras and the addition of MPEG 2 streaming, provide better audio/video synchronization, provide precise run-time control over rapidly changing media parameters, and leverage new filters.
Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start
Ref. No. WH0425D101300
Feature Name

Digital Media: DirectX 8 Gaming Platform

Description

This feature allows Whistler to be a compelling consumer gaming platform by incorporating DirectX 8 APIs. These APIs will support enhancements to performance and increase compatibility with popular multimedia games.

This feature includes:

  • Audio: Provides features for advanced interactive audio delivery and application development simplification.
  • Graphics: Integrates DirectDraw and Direct3D with a fundamentally new architecture to simplify application development and add photo-realistic quality to real-time performance.
  • Input: Provides a standard API for mapping input devices to different genres of games without requiring explicit game support for each device.
  • Network Game Play: Improves robustness and performance with voice conferencing support.
  • Application Install and Management: Reduces user interaction required to install and play games.
Scenario

An ISV that develops games can now make them function efficiently on the Whistler gaming platform.

Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start
Ref. No. WH0455-456-457D101300
Feature Name

Digital Media: Microsoft TV Technologies for Windows

Description

This feature provides the core platform components for developing digital television and DVD solutions. This feature requires that the television receiver device drivers support the new Broadcast Driver Architecture. It includes the following functionality:

  • Broadcast Driver Architecture – This defines a framework that supports various component topologies for receiving digital and analog television. It indexes software components for network configuration and control, de-multiplexing, table parsing and IP data delivery. It supports the main digital television standards, including Digital Video Broadcast (DVB) and Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC).
  • Tuning Model – This is a set of objects that simplifies the complexities of tuning. It enables applications to tune across various network types in a simple and uniform manner.
  • Video Control – This is an ActiveX control that provides a scripting API for TV and DVD applications. This simplifies the integration of TV and DVD features into applications.
  • Guide Store – This provides an object model for storing and retrieving information about programs, schedules and tuning. It supports multiple guide data providers and is flexible and extensible.
Scenario
  • This feature provides developers with a set of APIs for developing TV and DVD applications.
  • This feature enables OEMs to develop and deliver high quality, full-featured TV and DVD devices.
Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit
How to Start
Ref. No. WH0386-0385D100400
Feature Name

Digital Media: Video Mixing Renderer

Description

The new Video Mixing Renderer replaces the Overlay Mixer and provides enhanced quality and support for video playback. It includes the following:

  • Graceful degradation to biting if overlay surface is not available
  • Window-less rendering
  • Plug-in missing that enables hardware accelerated alpha blending and 3-Dimensional (3-D) rendering
  • Media playback support (including source color keying, Windows management, overlay surface management, macrovision, frame-stepping and multi-monitor support)
Scenario This new Video Mixing Renderer improves playback performance and provides enhanced video features to application developers of television and DVD applications. It also enables new presentation capabilities by enabling video to utilize the 3-D capabilities in graphics hardware.
Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit
How to Start
Ref. No. WH0411-0405-086D101300
Feature Name

Driverless-Cameras That Use PTP 15740 Protocol

Description

This feature enables an IHV to install a Windows Image Acquisition (WIA) device driver through the device manager, creating a device object. This newly install device object allows the application to communicate with the hardware, one of which is the driverless-camera driver.

This feature also enables a user to plug in a digital still camera to their computer and download images, even though the camera manufacturer has not included a driver for the host computer. This driver is targeted at digital still cameras that meet the WIA generic PTP 15740 protocol. WIA recognizes all PTP 15740 digital still cameras.

Scenario A user can connect a digital still camera to their computer and download images, if it meets the PTP 15740 protocol, even though the camera manufacturer does not include a driver.
Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start
Ref. No. WH0495C100400
Feature Name

Driver Installation for 64-Bit

Description In order to allow for the installation of device drivers on both 32-bit and 64-bit computers, the INF file definition supports the new .NTIA64 platform extension, which is used to designate a driver for installation only on 64-bit computers.
Scenario A developer can create an INF file that installs a 64-bit driver only on 64-bit computers.
Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start
Ref. No. WH0131B100800
Feature Name

Driver Versioning

Description This feature improves the ability to provide two device drivers and have the system differentiate the correct driver without intervention from the user.
Scenario An OEM/IHV is providing a device driver for both Windows 2000 and Whistler. The Whistler driver has different binaries due to some changes in the Operating System (OS). Because the Whistler INF file format provides a method to differentiate between the two Operating Systems, the IHV can provide a single INF file that will install the appropriate binary on each OS. After it finds the media, Windows Plug and Play will install the correct driver without user intervention.
Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start
Ref. No. WH0143B100500
Feature Name

Encrypted File System Support for Applications

Description This feature enables an application, such as Microsoft Office and other applications that work similarly, to copy encryption metadata from old files to new files.
Scenario This feature enables multi-user EFS of certain applications.
Product Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start
Ref. No. WH0626S100300
Feature Name

Event Tracing Enhancements

Description

Event Tracing enhancements for performance data collection and analysis include:

  • Event tracing API functions to list registered trace Globally Unique Identifiers (GUID), flush trace buffers, and enable/disable trace events without the need to stop and restart tracing
  • Instrument event tracing for SRV and Distributed File Service (DFS)
Scenario
  • Developers can use this feature’s Event Trace API to allow the user to programmatically determine which GUIDs are available or need to be enabled.
  • An IT administrator can use data contained in the trace buffer, write it to disk before the buffer is full, and analyze the data.
  • An IT administrator can view SRV and DFS services using the Event Tracing tool to expose more detailed performance data. This data will be useful in identifying such things as I/O-related performance issues.
Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start
Ref. No. WH0123-120-125B100400
Feature Name

File Association Improvements

Description

This feature includes a number of improvements integrates applications better with Windows. These include the following:

  • A set of clear guidelines for ISVs regarding how to take over and uninstall file types
  • An API is provided to register for file and query associations with a declarative form of calling the API
  • Automatic rollback of file types
  • Basic support for ZIP, Potable Document Format File (PDF), CAB, and Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) file type extensions
  • Better user control when file types are taken over. This offers a prompt when the user first opens a file type that has been taken over
  • A COM-based execution model
  • Database-to-store association information
Scenario
  • After a user uninstalls an application, other features and applications continue working with full functionality.
  • During an installation of an application, a user has control over file associations.
Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start
Ref. No. WH0720C100400
Feature Name

Internet Information Services: Application Recycling

Description

This feature supports the reliability and health of a server. It does this by enabling administrators to refresh their applications so as to prevent possible resource leaks that could lead to server lockups. More specifically, it enables administrators to isolate their application Internet Server API (ISAPI) extensions from the server by using COM+ Object-Oriented Programming (OOP). These applications often see their performance degrade over time due to poor algorithms, memory leaks, and so on.

This feature enables process rotation that addresses these issues by periodically refreshing the application to release resources. It will work on both pooled and isolated out-of-process applications.

Scenario An IT administrator can use this feature to ensure their OOP applications do not drain their system of resources.
Product Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start
Ref. No. WH1135P100800
Feature Name

Internet: Integration Modifications for IPv6 Add-ons

Description

This feature integrates modifications for add-ons of GetAddrInfo and GetNameInfo from TCP/IP of IPv6.

This feature is based on the IEEE 2553 specification “Basic Socket Interface Extensions for IPv6.” The socket interface makes the size of the IP address visible to an application and with IPv6 increasing the address size to 128-bits (versus 32 bits for IPv4 addresses). This feature provides the modifications for this.

Scenario A developer can use this feature with applications that need a longer IPv6 address size.
Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Integral to the operating system
Ref. No. WH0343N101800
Feature Name

Internet: IPv6 Protocol Support for Software Development

Description Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6) is the next generation of the TCP/IP protocol widely used today. For applications developers, Whistler provides Developer Edition of the IPv6 protocol driver and utilities, API set and IPv6-enabled key system components such as Internet Explorer, Telnet, FTP, RPC and others.
Scenario A developer can use this feature to develop applications for the next-generation Internet.
Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start
Ref. No. WH1234N100500
Feature Name

Kernel-Mode Debugging via IEEE 1394

Description This feature provides support for kernel-mode debugging using IEEE 1394 standards. This is in addition to the current Windows support for debugging using legacy COM ports.
Scenario A developer or an OEM can use this feature to develop kernel-mode debuggers on computers that do not have COM ports. This feature allows using one host for debugging multiple targets without special equipment and debugging processing where high speed and throughput are necessary.
Product Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit
How to Start Integral to the operating system
Ref. No. WH0110B101800
Feature Name

MMC: View Extensions

Description This feature provides a new MMC snap-in extension mechanism called View Extensions. This snap-in can add user interface elements to an existing snap-in view, or add completely new views to an existing snap-in. The User Interface provided by View Extensions is HTML-based so it can include scripting to take advantage of object model objects and events.
Scenario A developer can use this feature to enhance their MMC snap-in.
Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start
Ref. No. WH0014M100400
Feature Name

OLE Automation Update

Description This feature updates Object Linking & Embedding (OLE) automation on 64-bit operating systems.
Scenario A developer can use the OLE files on a 64-bit operating system.
Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start
Ref. No. WH0923- 0924-0925-0926P100400
Feature Name

Printing: Spooler Improvements

Description A printer driver’s UI module can optionally export DrvDocumentEvent functions to perform pre-processing and post-processing of GDI calls associated with rendering a document. This feature implements use of the DrvDocumentEvent’s event filter support that results in improved overall performance due.
Scenario With the DrvDocumentEvent’s event filter support, a developer can create drivers to inform the spooler which events they are interested in, and then at job rendering time the spooler will only call the driver’s DrvDocumentEvent function for those events. The overhead of function calls for uninterested events are therefore eliminated.
Product Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start
Ref. No. WH0563C100400
Feature Name

RAS: Dial-in with Third-Party Components

Description

This feature enables OEMs or ISVs to create their own dialing UI for RAS. This feature allows developers to create a custom-scripting Dynamic Link Library (DLL) that can communicate with the server during the process of establishing a dial-up connection before Windows starts Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP). This has two benefits:

  • It provides a UI for users to dial in with RAS using third-party software, which allows them more feature options and simplicity.
  • Enables ISVs to port their applications, which are compatible with Windows 98 and Windows Millennium Edition, over to the Windows NT, Windows 2000, and Whistler operating systems.

This feature is also useful for OEMs implementing solutions that connect to older RAS servers or to X.25 PADs over analog modems or X.25.

Scenario
  • When RAS users dial into their corporate network, they can now do so using a UI from a third-party software vendor, allowing them more compatibility, options, and simplicity.
  • ISVs can now develop applications and UIs for the Windows NT, Windows 2000, and Whistler operating systems.
Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start
Ref. No. WH0538N100400
Feature Name

Roaming User Profiles: Application Support Enhancement

Description This feature is an enhancement for Roaming User Profiles relative to applications support. In Windows 2000 there are cases whereby some applications and services have open keys in the registry and these result in leaking registry keys (the open keys in the registry prevent userenv from unloading the hive). This feature makes sure that userenv behaves correctly when the application or service owner fixes these processes.
Scenario This feature is useful for developers writing line-of-business applications.
Product Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start
Ref. No. WH1221M101800
Feature Name

Scriptable API to Configure Internet Authentication Server

Description This feature makes available in the Internet Authentication Server (IAS) Platform Software Developers Kit (SDK), a scriptable API that allows configuration of the service.
Scenario
  • An ISV can use this feature to provide value-added services on top of an IAS infrastructure.
  • An IT administrator can use this feature to integrate their IAS with their own service management infrastructure.
Product Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start
Ref. No. WH1064N101800
Feature Name

Secure Sockets Layer: Client Authentication Improvements

Description In Whistler, the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) session cache is shareable across multiple processes. This will reduce the number of times a user has to re-authenticate with applications and reduces CPU cycles on the application server.
Scenario From Internet Explorer, a user launches an application that is secured with SSL. The user does not have to re-authenticate with an SSL certificate with the application.
Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Integral to the operating system
Ref. No. WH0639S101800
Feature Name

TAPI: H.323 Enhancements

Description This feature provides H.323 version 2 enhancements to enable third-party gatekeepers or gateways to communicate with Windows-based unified messaging servers.
Scenario
  • An ISV can use this feature to provide H.323 version 2 enhancements in a gatekeeper and gateway they might be building that uses TAPI.
  • A user makes a call to a business partner who has a unified messaging server. The gatekeeper recognizes the business partner has not answered the call and automatically transfers the call to the unified messaging server.
Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Start – Control Panel – Network and Internet Connections – Phone and Modem Options - Advanced
Ref. No. WH0582N101800
Feature Name

TAPI: MMC Enhancements

Description This feature improves the Microsoft Management Console (MMC) for TAPI Server to improve the display of all active ports on a TAPI-based application.
Scenario An IT administrator can use this feature to more easily and quickly get a list on a TAPI-controlled Private Branch eXchange (PBX).
Product Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start TAPI snap-in
Ref. No. WH0578N101800
Feature Name

Universal Plug and Play: Control Point

Description

Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) control point includes:

  • Ability to enable discovery of UPnP devices
  • UI integration such that all UPnP devices are enumerated in the My Network Places folder in the Start menu
  • Control of UPnP devices by double-clicking on the device icon in the My Network Places folder in the Start menu
Scenario
  • A home user can automatically turn on an UPnP-enabled coffee pot when the UPnP alarm clock rings.
  • Without manual effort after an electrical power outage, a home user can automatically synchronize all the clocks on UPnP devices, such as their Video Cassette Recorder (VCR), television, microwave, and DVD player.
  • A home user can turn on a master switch that would automatically turn on UPnP devices, such as lights, telephone answering machine, set the heater thermostat temperature, and start playing music from a radio.
  • A home user can plug an UPnP device into a network and control that device from their PC.
Product Personal, Professional
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Start - Control Panel - Add/Remove Programs - Add/Remove Windows Components - Networking Services - Universal Plug and Play
Ref. No. WH1241N101800
Feature Name

Universal Plug and Play: Control Point API

Description Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) includes a control point API for discovery of UPnP devices, description, control and receiving events from a UPnP device.
Scenario A developer can write an application to discover and control a certain type of device, or multiple devices in some scenarios, that would work with those devices regardless of the manufacturer of the device. For example, a UPnP Video Cassette Recorder (VCR) device from several manufacturers can work with the same UPnP application.
Product Personal, Professional
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Start - Control Panel - Add/Remove Programs - Add/Remove Windows Components - Networking Services - Universal Plug and Play
Ref. No. WH1240N101800
Feature Name

Windows Sockets: ConnectEx/TransmitPackets and TCP/IP

Description

This feature is a Microsoft-specific extension to the Windows Sockets 2 specification. It includes two functions:

  • The Windows Sockets ConnectEx function establishes a connection to another socket application and optionally sends the block of data after the connection is established.
  • The Windows Sockets TransmitPackets function transmits in memory and/or file data over a connected socket (either datagram or virtual circuit). The Operating System’s cache manager is used to retrieve file data and locks memory for the minimum necessary time required to transmit it. This provides high performance and efficiency for file and memory data transfer over sockets.
Scenario
Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Integral to the operating system
Ref. No. WH0358N101800
Feature Name

Windows Sockets: Direct Path for System Area Networks

Description This feature enables Windows Sockets applications that use TCP/IP to obtain the performance benefits of System Area Networks (SAN) with out making application modifications. The fundamental component of this technology is a Windows Sockets layered service provider that emulates TCP/IP semantics over native SAN service providers.
Scenario A developer within a corporation has a line-of-business application that will be used across a SAN. The developer can use this feature to handle the TCP/IP requirements.
Product Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Integral to the operating system
Ref. No. WH0360N101800
Feature Name

WMI: Distributed Event Subscriptions

Description This feature allows a user of WMI to create a distributed event subscription. This event subscription defines a scope of management (the set of computers that fit specified criteria based upon a WMI filter) for the subscription to be active upon, the event of interest, and where and how the event should be delivered. WMI will distribute and register the event subscription to the correct computers, and deliver the event to the specified computer when the event occurs. This can be used in conjunction with the WMI Correlator and Guaranteed Delivery features to create powerful eventing solutions.
Scenario An IT administrator can use this feature to identify servers that are experiencing CPU utilization above their designated threshold (for a designated time interval) and forward “CPU utilization exceeded” events to a specific computer.
Product Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Start – Control Panel – Performance and Maintenance – Administrative Tools – Computer Management
Ref. No. WH0027M101800
Feature Name

WMI: Event Correlation

Description

This feature provides a correlation component for WMI eventing. This component can detect a pattern of activities based upon the composition of certain events and data conditions within specified intervals of time. This enables the following specific benefits:

  • Efficiency of event processing: By aggregating events into smaller chunks, the event system can ensure scalability across extremely high volume event scenarios by collecting and storing all event details.
  • Rollup of events: In many event scenarios, higher-level aggregations can be stored for long-term trend analysis.
  • Monitoring and problem detection: Health monitoring consists of non-interrupted analysis of event streams and data conditions.
Scenario An IT administrator can use this feature to distill a stream of events into a less dense event stream by aggregating groups of similar events within an interval. The IT administrator can use this feature for statistical analysis of key server indicators such as an Internet portal, identify when a disk stays below certain thresholds for a period of time, error reporting for higher level error events across the enterprise and start an event, such as when three different events received within five minutes of each other.
Product Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Start – Control Panel – Performance and Maintenance – Administrative Tools – Computer Management
Ref. No. WH0028M101800
Feature Name

WMI Filters

Description

Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) filters will be used by Group Policy Objects (GPO) to target policies based on inventory and other information pertaining to the target. Unlike filtering using security filters, these WMI filters will not require manual operations of determining the properties of a target and then including/excluding it from security groups.

Examples include targeting filters on software inventory, operating system, hardware inventory, resources, computers, asset tags, hardware configuration, configuration, file attributes, time zone, hot fix, and ping.

Scenario
  • A company purchases a site license for third-party software. A developer can create a WMI filter to only assign the new software package to specific computers.
  • A company has received a software fix for custom-developed software they run within their infrastructure. A WMI filter can be created by an IT administrator to install the hot-fix only on computers that require this hot-fix.
  • An IT administrator wants to deploy an enterprise monitoring policy but limit the target set to specific computers, computers running specific operating systems, etc. A WMI filter can be created to do this.
Product Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Start – Control Panel – Performance and Maintenance – Administrative Tools – Computer Management
Ref. No. WH0019M101800
Feature Name

WMI: Guaranteed Delivery of Events

Description This feature allows the user of WMI Distributed Eventing Service to specify the level of delivery when events are moved between computers. By integrating WMI with MSMQ, it is now possible to specify that events should be guaranteed when sent between computers, resending the event if it wasn’t received, and storing events when offline.
Scenario
  • When sending events from computer A to computer B, the IT administrator is ensured that the delivery is guaranteed and resends the event if it wasn’t received on computer B.
  • An IT administrator can store events on the local computer for sending to another computer when the computer is next attached to the network.
Product Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Start – Control Panel – Performance and Maintenance – Administrative Tools – Computer Management
Ref. No. WH0030M101800
Feature Name

WMI: Set Date and Time Remotely

Description This feature enables administrators of server appliances, such as headless computers, to remotely set the date and time on them using the Web user interface Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI).
Scenario An IT administrator does not have to physically visit each server site to set its date and time.
Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Start – Control Panel – Performance and Maintenance – Administrative Tools – Computer Management
Ref. No. WH0793M101800
Feature Name

WMI Provider: CHKDSK Functionality

Description This Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) feature allows CHKDSK to be invoked for any disk on a computer system as well as schedule/exclude a CHKDSK at the next boot. CHKDSK checks file systems for errors.
Scenario A developer can create a WMI application or script to invoke a CHKDSK operation on any disk, detect if the file system considers a disk “dirty”, schedule drive(s) for CHKDSK at next boot, and exclude drives from CHKDSK at next boot.
Product Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Start – Control Panel – Performance and Maintenance – Administrative Tools – Computer Management
Ref. No. WH0054M101800
Feature Name

WMI Provider: Disk Quotas

Description This feature allows user disk quotas to be monitored and configured through Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI). This includes setting default disk quotas for drives and setting user-specific quotas for each disk
Scenario A developer can use WMI to enable/disable quotas, configure user disk quotas remotely, determine which users are exceeding their quota and receive events when a user reaches their warning or quota limit. This can be done programmatically or through writing a script.
Product Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Start – Control Panel – Performance and Maintenance – Administrative Tools – Computer Management
Ref. No. WH0052M101800
Feature Name

WMI Provider: Distributed File System (DFS) Shares

Description This feature allows the creation, configuration and deletion of Distributed File System (DFS) shares through Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI).
Scenario A developer can use this feature to enable applications and scripts to create, modify and monitor DFS links, add new DFS folders to a DFS link, remove DFS folders from a DFS link and manage DFS replicas.
Product Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Start – Control Panel – Performance and Maintenance – Administrative Tools – Computer Management
Ref. No. WH0051M101800
Feature Name

WMI Provider: Formatted Performance Counters

Description This feature provides access Windows performance counters as they appear in the System Monitor tool through Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI).
Scenario
  • A developer can use this feature to create applications and scripts that will see all performance counters currently available on the system as WMI classes. The provider automatically discovers new performance counters and makes them available.
  • A developer can use this feature in applications and scripts to receive the computed values of any performance counter on the system. All counters are computed by the provider automatically in a way consistent with the values shown in the System Monitor tool.
  • A developer can use this feature in applications and scripts to configure the counter polling interval.
Product Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Start – Control Panel – Performance and Maintenance – Administrative Tools – Computer Management
Ref. No. WH0060M101800
Feature Name

WMI Provider: Internet Information Services

Description

This feature facilitates cross-application administration of servers that are running Internet Information Services (IIS). WMI enables scripting to manage all aspects of a Web application including system configuration, application files, and databases.

The IIS WMI provider enables access through COM object interfaces to IIS meta-base data and methods, on objects instantiated from the meta-base. Windows 2000 management tools and scripts use WMI to manage systems composed of numerous devices, resources, and applications. The IIS WMI provider is intended to provide similar functionality to the IIS Active Directory Service Interfaces (ADSI) provider for the meta-base, which it will replace over time as the preferred interface for IIS administration.

Scenario An IT administrator of an ISP can use this feature to automate management of a group of servers.
Product Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Start – Control Panel – Performance and Maintenance – Administrative Tools – Computer Management
Ref. No. WH1025P101800
Feature Name

WMI Provider: Job Objects

Description This feature allows the configuration and monitoring of job objects through Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI).
Scenario A developer can use the Job Objects WMI Provider to create applications and scripts to monitor and configure Job Objects, relate Job Objects to the processes they contain, monitor Job Object performance and statistical information, configure Job Object resource limits, configure Job Object security limits, and receive events about Job Objects (such as new job process, and job memory limit reached).
Product Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Start – Control Panel – Performance and Maintenance – Administrative Tools – Computer Management
Ref. No. WH0057M101800
Feature Name

WMI Provider: Network Share Connections and Sessions

Description This feature allows network share connections and sessions to be monitored through Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI).
Scenario
  • A developer can create a WMI application or script can use this feature to determine which computer and user originated a connection, how many users are using a connection, what share is being used by a user, type of network transport used by the user, how many files a user has open on the share, when a connection/session was established and how long a session has been idle
  • .
  • An IT administrator can use this feature to monitor disk and printer share connections.
Product Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Start – Control Panel – Performance and Maintenance – Administrative Tools – Computer Management
Ref. No. WH0053M101800
Feature Name

WMI Provider: Ping

Description This feature allows the invocation of a ping command, using the ICMP network protocol, from a remote computer. The results are received as Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) data.
Scenario An IT administrator can use this feature to identify a network connectivity problem between a user’s computer and another network resource, ping multiple devices at once and receive results for all, and perform simple pings or specify any ping options including information such as the number of hops taken and how long each hop took.
Product Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Start – Control Panel – Performance and Maintenance – Administrative Tools – Computer Management
Ref. No. WH0058M101800
Feature Name

WMI Provider: Printing

Description The purpose of this feature is to add more functionality onto the existing Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) provider for printing components. This includes an in-box scriptable interface for management of the major functions in printing.
Scenario

An IT administrator has a network of computers with WMI installed. An IT administrator can use this feature to:

  • Add ports, drivers and printers to print servers
  • Update printer drivers
  • Use an active print trouble shooter to do operations such as take printers offline, put printers online, and purge print queues
  • Be notified of events such as spooler server stopped, and print configuration changes
  • Use a third-party management tool to manage print system components along with other operating system components
  • Share a printer as a network resource
Product Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Start – Control Panel – Performance and Maintenance – Administrative Tools – Computer Management
Ref. No. WH0557C101800
Feature Name

WMI Provider: Static IP Route Information

Description This feature allows static IP route information to be created, modified and deleted on a system using Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI).
Scenario A developer can use this feature to create an application or script to list all routes defined on a system. The developer can also add, modify and delete static routes and receive events when routes are added, modified, or deleted.
Product Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Start – Control Panel – Performance and Maintenance – Administrative Tools – Computer Management
Ref. No. WH0053M101800
Feature Name

WMI Provider: Terminal Server

Description

The Terminal Server Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) provider allows configuration and control of Terminal Server properties. Properties that are exposed through the Terminal Server Configuration tool can now also be controlled through WMI.

Properties that are Group Policy-based or can be over-ridden by a server, can also be configured via this WMI provider.

Scenario An IT administrator can use this tool to make changes to a Terminal Server configuration.
Product Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start The WMI provider is enabled with Terminal Services.
Ref. No. WH0074M100800
Feature Name

WMI Software Tracing

Description

Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) software tracing provides a means to minimize the need for checked builds in the field. It includes the following:

  • Participating components, such as a driver, kernel component, service, or application, can define their own trace events and Globally Unique IDentifiers (GUIDs).
  • Components can have multiple event classes defined.
  • Each component can then be enabled and disabled independently.
  • Determining whether required components can be grouped at a higher level.
  • Information associated with the event is left in binary form.
  • A trail of the trace activity can be post-processed and examined, or activity can be viewed as it happens.
  • If the system fails the in-memory trace, it can be dumped by a debugger extension or pulled from a dump by appropriate tools.

There is a kernel debugger extension that has the ability to display the trace elements that remain in memory at the time of a break point, system crash, or from a crash dump.

Scenario An IT administrator wants to automate tracing. This feature enables the administrator to use a set of macros and a PERL pre-processor that will scan code, generate message numbers, and prepare the definition file.
Product Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Start – Control Panel – Performance and Maintenance – Administrative Tools – Computer Management
Ref. No. WH0163S101800

Of Interest to Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs)

Feature Name

Battery Life Monitoring

Description Battery life monitoring includes a current battery activity report: Information such as the rate of drain, battery remaining will be reported in the performance monitor.
Scenario An OEM developer can use this feature to track battery performance statistics to determine how much power they are using.
Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Start – Control Panel – Other Control Panel Options - System
Ref. No. WH0148-0149B101800
Feature Name

Cluster Services: 64-bit Support

Description This feature provides 64-bit support of clustering services on Whistler.
Scenario
  • A developer at an ISV can create applications using the 64-bit Operating System (OS) and hardware.
  • An IT administrator can use 64-bit OS and hardware in a data center.
Product Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Integral to the operating system
Ref. No. WH0164S101800
Feature Name

Cluster Services: Installation Simplification

Description This feature provides a new Cluster Configuration wizard that simplifies the process of installing and configuring the cluster.
Scenario
  • An OEM is offering a service that builds and configures cluster servers per customer specifications. The OEM can build a master copy of the generic cluster server and can clone the nodes. This automates the process of configuring the cluster servers so they can be sent to customers.
  • An IT administrator can order pre-configured Windows cluster servers from an OEM. The administrator can use the remote console to configure all the nodes that form a cluster.
Product Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Cluster Configuration Wizard
Ref. No. WH1063S101800
Feature Name

Customer Information Added to unattend.txt

Description Unattend.txt is used for unattended installations of Windows 2000 and Whistler. It also enables a majority of the options to be customized in the operating system. This feature provides more customizations an OEM or IT administrator might need, including a subset of the unattend.txt options, IEAK customizations, and customer-specific personal information.
Scenario An OEM wants to produce custom computers based on a specific customer order. Customization based on the customer’s personal information can be added during the build of the customer’s computer. When the user receives the computer, their specified personal information is already pre-loaded into the computer and they thus have less time to get started on their new computer.
Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start unattend.txt
Ref. No. WH0195B101800
Feature Name

Hot Plug PCI

Description This feature will support OEMs who implement Hot Plug via Advanced Configuration & Power Interface (ACPI) 1.0b mechanisms.
Scenario
  • An IT administrator will be able to utilize Hot Plug PCI to replace, add, and remove devices without scheduling downtime.
  • An OEM or computer support center will be able to reduce engineering and support costs because fewer issues would be raised due to changing out hardware or restorals from down time.
Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start User: Start – Control Panel – Add New Hardware
Ref. No. WH0135B101800
Feature Name

IGMPv3 Support

Description The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) standard for Internet Group Management Protocol version 3 (IGMPv3) adds the ability to join and leave specific source/group pairs that enable an application to joining and leaving specific source/group pairs instead of group addresses or individual sockets. IGMPv3 also allows joining a group of arbitrary sources and then excluding one or more sources for that group. This latter functionality is useful for such things as multi-cast backbone network devices (such as routers). This feature adds this IGMPv3 functionality to Whistler.
Scenario An OEM wants to include IGMPv3 into a new network router.
Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Integral to the operating system
Ref. No. WH1022-0539N101800
Feature Name

INF Search Cache

Description INF Search Cache feature optimizes the method by which Plug and Play Manager searches through the INF files.
Scenario
  • A user adds a new printer to their computer. Plug and Play will use the new INF Search Cache feature to more quickly add the device.
  • An IT administrator has new NIC cards to add to their data center systems. The INF Search Cache feature will reduce the amount of time it will take for Plug and Play to register the new devices.
  • An OEM will experience reduced setup time for factory floor setup and installation of new devices on systems.
Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Integral to the operating system
Ref. No. WH0136B101800
Feature Name

Memory Mirroring

Description Memory mirroring provides the ability to take snapshots of independent memory sub-systems so they can have the same replicated memory.
Scenario An OEM wants to implement high availability or fault tolerant systems with replicated memory sub-systems. Memory mirroring will enable this. OEMs will use this type of technology for corporations who have services that can tolerate no down time on their servers (for example, call centers, order entry systems, financial transaction tracking systems, telecommunications servers, process control servers such as in chemical plants or traffic control systems).
Product Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Integral to the operating system
Ref. No. WH0107B101800
Feature Name

Modem Country or Region Select

Description This feature provides a dialog box to retrieve a list of countries or regions in which the modem is currently functioning. Countries are identified in the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) defined country and regions format.
Scenario An OEM can include this feature to provide a standard method to allow users to select the country or region in which they are using a modem.
Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Start – Control Panel – Network and Internet Connections – Phone and Modem Options
Ref. No. WH0373N101800
Feature Name

One Parallel Driver

Description One parallel driver provides the ability for a single driver to become both a port arbiter and a bus driver.
Scenario
  • An OEM/IHV wants to provide parallel devices with computers.
  • A user wants to connect a parallel scanner to a computer. This feature enables this configuration.
Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Start – Control Panel – Printers and Other Hardware
Ref. No. WH0088B101800
Feature Name

Pre-Install Process Improvements

Description This feature includes a new pre-install process, which makes installation easier, especially for end users and small corporations that have minimal technical resources.
Scenario
  • A user goes to an OEM’s Web site or retail store and buys a computer. When the computer is turned on for the first time, they see a screen that walks them through a tutorial on how to use a mouse, check that their hardware configuration is properly set up, and sign up for Internet access. Within only a few minutes, the computer is fully ready to be used.
  • Using the new Out-of-Box-Experience (OOBE) features, an OEM pre-install engineer can use the OEM Pre-Install Kit (OPK) to customize the OOBE by adding OEM-specific branding information, ISP offers, user tutorials, and other information to help configure the computer properly. The engineer can then integrate the changes in to the OEM’s pre-install CD image.
Product Personal, Professional
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start
Ref. No. WH0170B100900
Feature Name

Printer PostScript Data Processed by OEMs

Description This feature provides the ability to create plug-ins for printer post-process output data; that is, for bi-directional communication with PostScript devices. It also enables an IHV to replace the standard Windows printer driver UI with a template to maintain consistency.
Scenario IHVs for computers can enhance their printer drivers with plug-ins to differentiate and increase the value of their products.
Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start
Ref. No. WH0566C100400
Feature Name

Printers: Multi-Color Ink Printer Support Improvements

Description This feature provides support for color inks with more than 2 levels (usually 4-8 levels) on some newer printers. This means the printer is able to print different shades of the printer inks for each dot.
Scenario
  • An OEM can use this feature to easily adapt their multi-color ink printers to function on Whistler.
  • A user will be able to use all features of a new printer that supports multi-ink printers.
Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Start – Control Panel – Printers and Other Hardware – Printers and Faxes
Ref. No. WH0568C101800
Feature Name

Setup Enhancements

Description Setup enhancements enable users to more quickly and easily start home-computing activities with little or no intervention on their part. This feature includes user assistance, an improved mouse tutorial, and an overall status indicator.
Scenario
  • OEMs will be able to integrate the Out-Of-Box-Experience (OOBE) setup into their OEM Pre-Install Kit (OPK), pre-populate the OOBE information, and provide OEM branding opportunities.
  • While ordering a computer from an OEM, the OEM representative can ask users for information such as their ISP username, home network information, and required language packs. The OEM can then use that information to pre-install the users’ computers using the OPK as well as set up the username, time zone, area code and Whistler product key.
  • End users will be able to get their Windows desktop up and running in a very short period of time after opening the box of a new computer. Whistler will provide the Microsoft Agent character to welcomes the user to Whistler and introduces its capabilities. It will also offer a mouse tutorial of Whistler if a novice user is identified.
Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start
Ref. No. WH0194B100900
Feature Name

Sysprep Modifications to Handle Factory Floor Pre-Installation

Description Sysprep allows computer OEM to quickly install an Operating System (OS) in the factory that will start up the first time without prompts. It reduces the startup and imaging time and reduces restarts. This feature makes modifications to Sysprep to enable OEMs to more quickly and efficiently install the OS to get to a full Windows environment.
Scenario OEMs can take advantage of this feature by taking a base image with a regular install, run the Sysprep program on it, and then quickly copy the image to every computer they sell.
Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Sysprep
Ref. No. WH0196B101800
Feature Name

USB DirectInput Genre Descriptor Support

Description Microsoft DirectInput, a subset of the DirectX family, provides this new feature that reduces the effort needed to make an association between game actions and controls on a game pad. This feature enables this descriptor support.
Scenario
  • An OEM and IHV can use this feature to enhance their product lines.
  • A user can enable new games to directly choose the best controls on a game. They will no longer have to configure their game pad on a per-game basis.
Product Personal, Professional
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Integral to the operating system
Ref. No. WH0085B101800
Feature Name

Unloading of ASL Tables Support

Description This feature allows the system to dynamically change the ACPI Source Language (ASL) tables to account for changes in the computer configuration.
Scenario This feature addresses the scenario where some devices are removed, such as with hot-plug, and more of the components of the operating system will now handle the change appropriately. This will result in less administration of computers.
Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start Integral to the operating system
Ref. No. WH0152B101800
Feature Name

UDF 2.01 Read-Only

Description UDF is the key media format on all DVD media, including DVD-Read Only Memory (DVD-ROM) and DVD Videos, as well as on CD media (especially packet-written media). There are a number of revisions of the UDF standard. Windows 2000 can only read UDF 1.02 and 1.5 disks; this feature enables reading the soon-to-be-adopted UDF 2.01 standard.
Scenario Consumer electronics companies have announced plans to introduce products such as camcorders and Video Cassette Recorders (VCR) based on DVD-write-able formats such as DVD-Random Access Memory (DVD-RAM) and DVD-Read/Write (DVD-RW). Many of these vendors will use the UDF 2.00 and UDF 2.01 standard in doing this. DVD-RAM and CD-Read/Write (CD-RW) are also increasingly becoming widespread for interchange with PC data and there are third-party tools that generate these formats. The UDF 2.01 feature will support end users who want to take advantage of this new technology.
Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start
Ref. No. WH0228B100400
Feature Name

USB Phone Support

Description IP Telephony currently requires the end user to wear a headset to eliminate echo induced by separate speakers and microphone on the computer being used with this technology. This feature provides support for USB phones so that OEMs can develop and produce telephones that use IP telephony with a familiar form factor.
Scenario
  • With their USB phone connected to a Windows home computer, a user can make long distance calls through their long distance telephone service.
  • A user in an office can use their USB handset on their Windows office computer to access their company’s telephone system and make calls to business partners.
  • An OEM can make IP telephony devices with USB.
Product Personal, Professional, Server
64-Bit Information Applies to 32-bit and 64-bit
How to Start
Ref. No. WH0584N100400