Windows/Office XP Evaluation

We just got back from the ABA Tech show in Chicago and one of the things that almost everybody agreed upon was the fact that there was really nothing very new in any of the tracks. At the Courtroom of the Future site we attempted to present a post September 11th version of the portable electronic courtroom. While it was well received, nobody could call it very exciting. The truth of the matter is, and there was wide agreement at TechShow, we have reached a kind of steady-state in legal technology. What is happening is that the new versions of old applications are only incrementally better than their predecessors. The purveyors of software to the legal industry do not have very much new to contribute and unfortunately many of them simply add bells and whistles to their existing product. Some of the bells ring and some of the whistles whistle but by and large most of the new additions do not add anything of critical value to the computing environment. I know I have said this before, but it has only recently become as clear to me as it has after the ABA TechShow. Windows/Office XP Professional is case in point.

For the last six months I have been running Windows/Office 2000 on one of my computers and Windows/Office XP on another computer next to it. My purpose has been to evaluate the day-to-day differences so that I can suggest to you whether or not you need to make the investment of time and money that is required to move your office into the XP world. A few months ago I advised caution about that transition and I am still cautious of its value and of the new registration/activation system that Microsoft requires. But to be fair, I have found that Windows XP is in fact even more stable than Windows 2000 Professional. More importantly for some of you, Windows XP has some pretty exciting capabilities in regard to digital photography. It has all of the basic software you need to handle digital video and still camera pictures. Since most lawyers don't really need a high-level of functionality in regard to digital photography it may not be worth the trouble. But if you do have a need for that Windows XP is the only game in town. I have a wonderful little USB card reader that connects my flash media from my digital camera directly to Windows XP. When I take the memory card out of the camera and put it into the computer Windows XP immediately gives me a variety of choices. I can copy pictures to a folder on my computer or view of slide show of the images that are on the memory card. I can even choose to view a slide show of the images or print them using the Microsoft photo-printing wizard. This list of choices is presented automatically and can be chosen by a mouse click. These are really powerful features and if you do a lot of work with digital photography than you must have Windows XP or the new Macintosh, which was a huge hit at TechShow. I think that for most of us, however, digital photography is an interesting but not a necessary part of what we do. If you fall into that group then Windows XP may not provide any substantial additional value for you considering the cost and difficulty of making the switch.

The Office XP part of the new Windows regime is, on the other hand, very important. For lawyers the two most important applications in Microsoft Office XP are PowerPoint and Outlook. Both of them are substantially improved over the Windows 2000 versions. PowerPoint has many new features that allow you to create very powerful presentations with utter simplicity. Outlook XP while essentially the same as the older product has a number of enhancements that make it very worthwhile. I highly recommend them both.
There are a number of features in Outlook XP that I find very useful. Since Outlook is my major time management tool I have many calendar entries with prompts that pop up on my screen in advance of an appointment or task. If I am gone from my office for while I collect a large number of pop-up reminders covering my screen and it takes some time to dismiss all of them. For some reason Outlook 2000 continues to send those pop-ups even when you have tried to delete them and that is incredibly annoying. In Outlook XP the messages still occur but they can be dealt with in a much more efficient way. A list of reminders shows up in a dialog box and you can permanently dismiss all or some of them. That is an enormous timesaver and removes one of the major annoyances in the day-to-day operation of Outlook. A second feature that I really like is called "auto complete" addressing. When you start to enter any mail address a dialog box pops up offering you all of the versions of that the mail address that might be applicable. You can click on the one that you want use and move on. This is an enormous timesaver because, unlike the old version of Outlook, incorrect addresses that may still live in your system are displayed in full and you are able to override them thus greatly reducing bounced email. The group scheduling function that existed in Outlook 2000 has been vastly on improved. Unfortunately there is a glitch in the current version that makes it workable only if everybody else is using Outlook XP. That problem will be solved in time but for the moment the group-scheduling feature is virtually unusable. There are many other enhancements to Outlook XP, including a great email verification system that does not require you to force your correspondent to send a "read" receipt. Outlook XP now automatically informs you of delivery without the hated "read receipt" of the old program. All in all, Outlook XP is an extremely valuable upgrade to your system. Fortunately, Outlook XP can be purchased as a stand-alone product for less than $100. And, miracle of miracles, the onerous Microsoft new activation and licensing practices that keep many of us from adopting office XP do not apply when you buy the stand-alone version of Outlook XP.

PowerPoint XP can also be purchased in a stand-alone version. It has greatly enhanced animation possibilities and the new slide design task panel provides a much easier way to design a PowerPoint program. It allows you to quickly preview each selection before you adopt it. In addition, PowerPoint XP has a number of professionally designed animation templates and handles video with ease. The increase in animation capability is certainly worth the price of the single product upgrade. The real enhancements here are, as in Outlook XP, more subtle than pronounced. I find PowerPoint XP to be much easier to work with and much more capable than its predecessor in the handling of video and other images. I strongly recommend the upgrade.

Many new computer builders will give a choice between the Windows 2000 Professional and XP Professional. If you can tolerate the intrusive activation and registration scheme, XP Professional is a better, smoother and easier operating system. It is easier to set up a network and provides many new tools for a variety of tasks. It will eventually replace Windows 2000 Professional, but Win2K will remain a powerful and stable operating system that does not require the use of the new activation limitations. I am keeping Win2K on my main computer with the PowerPoint and Outlook standalone upgrades. But I am keeping my XP computer at the ready just in case! And, for kicks, I am thinking of buying an iMac just for its looks! For an old PC guy that is quite an admission. I have always loved my clunky beige boxes that fill up a desktop. I get the same feeling of power with them that I got driving my father's Oldsmobile 98 sedan. But the new iMac is so svelte, with its monitor appearing to float in space that I am sorely tempted to play around. I'll let you know if I do!