Actually, Microsoft's strategy at this stage is pretty straight-forward. They are going to be replacing (over time) WSH with MSH, the Microsoft Shell, code-named Monad. Monad was one of the technologies that Microsoft previewed around the time that .NET 2.0 BETA 1 timeframe. The shell hosts the .NET runtime and uses a series of ''cmdlets'' ...

Hi Steve, Great question :) Windows XP provides additional features such as file system encryption and access control, as well as some neat things like remote access to the desktop. Here is a pretty full breakdown of the different features: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/howtobuy/choosing2.mspx