However, more advances are planned for the final release, which is expected in the second half of 2001. Whistler Beta 1, released Oct. 31 without complete features, is currently 32-bit. Microsoft expects to ship 64-bit Whistler at the same time that Itanium becomes available. As expected with most beta code, however, Whistler's interface felt a little slow. With the exception of a few important evolutionary additions, including headless server support and a useful snapshot-based backup utility, we found that Whistler is not very different from its predecessor, Windows 2000 Advanced Server.
All bets are off, however, if there is a lengthy product delay.
Considering the legions of companies providing backup utilities for Windows NT and Windows 2000, it is surprising to see the addition of snapshot-based backup and disaster recovery in this release of Whistler. One of the biggest hindrances to Windows deployment is the long time and high bandwidth consumed during the setup of domain controllers. The next beta of Whistler will feature expanded command-line functions and scripting capabilities, eventually eliminating the need to use GUI tools. This is ironic, considering that Microsoft has long emphasized ease of use via GUIs as a competitive advantage over Unix, but it might also be a sign that Microsoft is more willing to heed the requests of its customers.