Windows XP

Windows XP (stylised as Windowsxp; codenamed Whistler) is a personal computer operating system that was produced by Microsoft as part of the Windows NT family of operating systems. The operating system was released to manufacturing on August 24, 2001, and generally released for retail sale on October 25, 2001.

Development of Windows XP began in the late 1990s as "Neptune", an operating system built on the Windows NT kernel which was intended specifically for mainstream consumer use—an updated version of Windows 2000 was also originally planned for the business market. However, in January 2000, both projects were shelved in favor of a single OS codenamed "Whistler", which would serve as a single OS platform for both consumer and business markets. Windows XP was a major advance from the MS-DOS based versions of Windows in security, stability and efficiency due to its use of Windows NT underpinnings. It introduced a significantly redesigned graphical user interface and was the first version of Windows to use product activation in an effort to reduce its copyright infringement.

Windows XP editions

Windows XP has been released in several editions since its original release in 2001.

Windows XP is available in many languages. In addition, add-ons translating the user interface are also available for certain languages.

Home and Professional

The first two editions released by Microsoft are Windows XP Home Edition, designed for home users, and Windows XP Professional, designed for business and power users.

Windows XP Professional offers a number of features unavailable in the Home Edition, including:

  • The ability to become part of a Windows Server domain, a group of computers that are remotely managed by one or more central servers.
  • An access control scheme that allows specific permissions on files to be granted to specific users under normal circumstances. However, users can use tools other than Windows Explorer (like cacls or File Manager), or restart to Safe Mode to modify access control lists.
  • Remote Desktop server, which allows a PC to be operated by another Windows XP user over a local area network or the Internet.
  • Windows XP Professional x64 Edition

    Microsoft Windows XP Professional x64 Edition released on April 25, 2005 is an edition of Windows XP for x86-64 personal computers. It is designed to use the expanded 64-bit memory address space provided by the x86-64 architecture.

    The primary benefit of moving to 64-bit is the increase in the maximum allocatable random access memory (RAM). Windows XP 32-bit is limited to a total of 4 gigabytes. Although the theoretical memory limit of a 64-bit computer is about 18 exabytes (18 billion gigabytes), Windows XP x64 is limited to 128 GB of physical memory and 16 terabytes of virtual memory.

    Windows XP Professional x64 Edition uses the same kernel and code tree as Windows Server 2003 and is serviced by the same service pack. However, it includes client features of Windows XP such as System Restore, Windows Messenger, Fast User Switching, Welcome Screen, Security Center and games, which Windows Server 2003 does not have.

    Windows XP Professional x64 Edition is not to be confused with Windows XP 64-bit Edition, as the latter was designed for Itanium architecture. During the initial development phases, Windows XP Professional x64 Edition was named Windows XP 64-Bit Edition for 64-Bit Extended Systems.

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