Take a tour of Windows XP

A Line of operating system, announced by Microsoft is Windows XP. It is used on personal computers including home and business desktops, laptops and media centers. Released in the year 2001, the name Windows XP is the acronym of the term Windows eXperience.

Windows XP is considered to be the descendant of two operating systems called Windows 2000 Professional and Windows ME. It is the first consumer oriented operating system produced by Microsoft to be built on the Windows NT kernel and architecture.

First released on 2001, Windows XP got its use of about 400 million copies in January 2006. Windows XP Home Edition is the most common edition of Windows XP, targeted at home users. Another widespread edition is Windows XP Professional. It offers traditional features such as support for Windows Server domain and two physical processors and is targeted at power users, business and enterprise client. Enhancing the ability to record and watch TV shows, view DVD movies, and listen to music Windows XP Media Center Edition has additional multimedia features.

Windows XP 64-bit Edition and Windows XP Professional x64 Edition are the two additional architectures for which Windows XP was released. Windows XP Embedded is a component version of Windows XP Professional.

Support Life Cycle

Without a service pack, Windows Support ended on September 30, 2004 and support for Windows XP Service Pack 1 and 1a ended on October 10, 2006.

Now it is expected that Windows XP Service Pack 2 will be retired on July, 2010, almost six years after its general availability. According to Microsoft's posted timetable, the company stopped general licensing of Windows XP to OEMs and terminated retail sales of the operating system on June 30, 2008, 17 months after the release of Windows Vista.


Service Pack

Microsoft, to fix problems of the Windows operating systems and add features, occasionally releases service packs. Each contains a superset of all previous service packs and patches so that only the latest service pack needs to be installed. The service packs also offer a new revision.

Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1 has its relevance with Windows XP Professional x64 Edition because the later was based on the former.

Service Pack 1

Service Pack 1, released on September 2002, contains hot-fixes and post RTM security fixes. Additionally for new devices such as Tablet PCs, and a new Windows Messenger 4.7 version compatibility updates are present. With Windows XP service pack 1, the users can control the default application for activities such as web browsing and instant messaging. It posses hide access to some of Microsoft's bundled programs.

Service Pack 2

Service Pack 2 announced its release on August, 2004, with an emphasis on security. SP2 added new functionality to Windows XP, such as WPA encryption compatibility and improved Wi-Fi support, a pop-up ad blocker for Internet Explorer 6, and Bluetooth support. The Wi-Fi support is provided with a wizard utility.

Besides Wi-Fi support Service Pack 2 also added new security enhancements, which included a major revision to the included firewall that was renamed to Windows Firewall. It became enabled by default.