Windows XP is a line of operating systems developed by Microsoft for use on general-purpose computer systems, including home and business desktops, notebook computers, and media centers. The letters "XP" is an abbreviation for eXPerience. It was codenamed "Whistler", after Whistler, British Columbia, as many Microsoft employees skied at the Whistler-Blackcomb ski resort during its development. Windows XP is the successor to both Windows 2000 Professionaland Windows Me, and is the first consumer-oriented operating system produced by Microsoft to be built on the Windows NT kernel and architecture. Windows XP was first released on October 25, 2001, and over 400 million copies were in use in January 2006 according to an estimate in that month by an IDC analyst.It is succeeded by Windows Vista, which was released to volume license customers on November 8, 2006, and worldwide to the general public on January 30 2007.
The most common editions of the operating system are Windows XP Home Edition, which is targeted at home users, and Windows XP Professional, which has additional features such as support for Windows Server domainsand two physical processors, and is targeted at power users and business clients. Windows XP Media Center Edition has additional multimedia features enhancing the ability to record and watch TV shows, view DVD movies, and listen to music. Windows XP Tablet PC Editions designed to run the ink-aware Tablet PC platform. Two separate 64-bit versions of Windows XP were also released, Windows XP 64-bit Editionfor IA-64 (Itanium) processors and Windows XP Professional x64 Edition for x86-64.
Windows XP is known for its improved stability and efficiency over the 9x versions of Microsoft Windows. It presents a significantly redesigned graphical user interface, a change Microsoft promoted as more user-friendly than previous versions of Windows. New software management capabilities were introduced to avoid the "DLL hell" that plagued older consumer-oriented 9x versions of Windows. It is also the first version of Windows to use product activation to combat software piracy, a restriction that did not sit well with some users and privacy advocates. Windows XP has also been criticized by some users for security vulnerabilities, tight integration of applications such as Internet Explorer and Windows Media Player, and for aspects of its default user interface.
Windows XP had been in development since early 1999, when Microsoft started working on Windows Neptune, an operating system intended to be the "Home Edition" equivalent to Windows 2000 Professional. It was eventually merged into the Whistler project, which later became Windows XP.Windows XP features a new task-based graphical user interface. The Start menu and search capability were redesigned and many visual effects were added, including:
A translucent blue selection rectangle in Explorer
Drop shadows for icon labels on the desktop
Task-based sidebars in Explorer windows ("common tasks")
The ability to group the taskbar buttons of the windows of one application into one button
The ability to lock the taskbar and other toolbars to prevent accidental changes
The highlighting of recently added programs on the Start menu
Shadows under menus (Windows 2000 had shadows under mouse pointers, but not menus)
Windows XP analyses the performance impact of visual effects and uses this to determine whether to enable them, so as to prevent the new functionality from consuming excessive additional processing overhead. Users can further customize these settings. Some effects, such as alpha blending (transparency and fading), are handled entirely by many newer video cards. However, if the video card is not capable of hardware alpha blending, performance can be substantially hurt and Microsoft recommends the feature should be turned off manually.[ Windows XP adds the ability for Windows to use "Visual Styles" to change the user interface. However, visual styles must be cryptographically signed by Microsoft to run. Luna is the name of the new visual style that ships with Windows XP, and is enabled by default for machines with more than 64 MiB of RAM. Luna refers only to one particular visual style, not to all of the new user interface features of Windows XP as a whole. In order to use unsigned visual styles, many users turn to software such as TGTSoft's StyleXP or Stardocks WindowBlinds. Some users "patch" the uxtheme.dll file that restricts the ability to use visual styles, created by the general public or the user, on Windows XP.
The default wallpaper, Bliss is a BMP photograph of a landscape in the Napa Valley outside Napa, California[citation needed], with rolling green hills and a blue sky with stratocumulus and cirrus clouds.
The Windows 2000 "classic" interface can be used instead if preferred. Several third party utilities exist that provide hundreds of different visual styles. In addition, another Microsoft-created theme, called "Royale", was included with Windows
The most common editions of the operating system are Windows XP Home Edition, which is targeted at home users, and Windows XP Professional, which has additional features such as support for Windows Server domainsand two physical processors, and is targeted at power users and business clients. Windows XP Media Center Edition has additional multimedia features enhancing the ability to record and watch TV shows, view DVD movies, and listen to music. Windows XP Tablet PC Editions designed to run the ink-aware Tablet PC platform. Two separate 64-bit versions of Windows XP were also released, Windows XP 64-bit Editionfor IA-64 (Itanium) processors and Windows XP Professional x64 Edition for x86-64.
Windows XP is known for its improved stability and efficiency over the 9x versions of Microsoft Windows. It presents a significantly redesigned graphical user interface, a change Microsoft promoted as more user-friendly than previous versions of Windows. New software management capabilities were introduced to avoid the "DLL hell" that plagued older consumer-oriented 9x versions of Windows. It is also the first version of Windows to use product activation to combat software piracy, a restriction that did not sit well with some users and privacy advocates. Windows XP has also been criticized by some users for security vulnerabilities, tight integration of applications such as Internet Explorer and Windows Media Player, and for aspects of its default user interface.
Windows XP had been in development since early 1999, when Microsoft started working on Windows Neptune, an operating system intended to be the "Home Edition" equivalent to Windows 2000 Professional. It was eventually merged into the Whistler project, which later became Windows XP.Windows XP features a new task-based graphical user interface. The Start menu and search capability were redesigned and many visual effects were added, including:
A translucent blue selection rectangle in Explorer
Drop shadows for icon labels on the desktop
Task-based sidebars in Explorer windows ("common tasks")
The ability to group the taskbar buttons of the windows of one application into one button
The ability to lock the taskbar and other toolbars to prevent accidental changes
The highlighting of recently added programs on the Start menu
Shadows under menus (Windows 2000 had shadows under mouse pointers, but not menus)
Windows XP analyses the performance impact of visual effects and uses this to determine whether to enable them, so as to prevent the new functionality from consuming excessive additional processing overhead. Users can further customize these settings. Some effects, such as alpha blending (transparency and fading), are handled entirely by many newer video cards. However, if the video card is not capable of hardware alpha blending, performance can be substantially hurt and Microsoft recommends the feature should be turned off manually.[ Windows XP adds the ability for Windows to use "Visual Styles" to change the user interface. However, visual styles must be cryptographically signed by Microsoft to run. Luna is the name of the new visual style that ships with Windows XP, and is enabled by default for machines with more than 64 MiB of RAM. Luna refers only to one particular visual style, not to all of the new user interface features of Windows XP as a whole. In order to use unsigned visual styles, many users turn to software such as TGTSoft's StyleXP or Stardocks WindowBlinds. Some users "patch" the uxtheme.dll file that restricts the ability to use visual styles, created by the general public or the user, on Windows XP.
The default wallpaper, Bliss is a BMP photograph of a landscape in the Napa Valley outside Napa, California[citation needed], with rolling green hills and a blue sky with stratocumulus and cirrus clouds.
The Windows 2000 "classic" interface can be used instead if preferred. Several third party utilities exist that provide hundreds of different visual styles. In addition, another Microsoft-created theme, called "Royale", was included with Windows
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