Windows XP First Released

October 25, 2001

Released on October 25th 2001, Microsoft Windows XP which stands for eXPerience, codename “Whistler” after Whistler, British Columbia. This operating software was generally built for home and business desktops. By January 2006, over 400 million copies were in use.

There’re two versions of Windows XP, one was the Home edition targeted at home users and the other one was the Professional Edition targeted at business users, both intended to update from the previous editions of Windows operating system such as: Windows 95, 98, 2000, NT and ME although XP Professional offers more features and it’s intended for use in a professional environment (examples include a business office, a graphic design company, a centrally administered corporation or educational organization).

New Features:

New feature that were never before bundled with Windows are now included with XP. The new feature includes the Remote Desktop, which allows the XP user to log into another computer running XP and control it from the first computer. Also Remote Assistance would also allow the user to invite someone to connect to your computer to give help over the network and even to control it if the user allows it to. Other amazing features include a built-in firewall, driver singing, and fast switching between different user files.

Visual Effects

In Microsoft Windows XP, there have been many improved features such as the task-based graphical user interface. The start menu included the My Computer and My documents file instead of showing it on the desktop. The Search ability has also been redesigned and many visual effects were added giving a more nice and simple look.

Some visual effects include:

Translucent blue selection rectangle colour in explorer

Drop shadows for icon labels on the desktop

Task-based sidebars in Explorer windows

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)  

Stability:

The new and improved Windows XP is much stablised and uses the NT conventions of protecting memory which prevents the system from crashing by running programs with their own RAM locations. This will allow operating system to keep an unstable system from crashing and/or crashing Windows XP itself.

System Requirements:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Anti-Piracy:

In every Windows XP retail box there will be a serial number for registration your Windows XP operating system, this would prevent many copies of Windows XP from pirated and used as Windows XP would define the software to be not genuine and there would be no Updates and Software downloads from the Microsoft website.

Overall:

Windows XP has upgraded many features as well as making it more user friendly with graphical user interfaces. It also provides two types of editions for Home and Business users which make it much easier to handle. Windows XP surely enhanced the Windows eXPerience by making XP communicative with simple pictures and videos and effectively made it very entertaining.

By Maggie Zhang