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Windows XP has several features not in previous versions of Windows. Windows XP is a line of proprietary operating systems developed by Microsoft for use on general-purpose computer systems, including home and business desktops, notebook computers, and media centers. ...
 A standard Windows XP desktop. Windows XP's new theme, Luna, can be seen in this screenshot. Image File history File links Windows_XP.PNG‎ [edit] Summary Author: Ashton Zanecki Source: Windows XP Home Edition SP2 Windows XP Home Edition Service Pack 2 installed on it. ...
Image File history File links Windows_XP.PNG‎ [edit] Summary Author: Ashton Zanecki Source: Windows XP Home Edition SP2 Windows XP Home Edition Service Pack 2 installed on it. ...
Luna is the codename for the default Windows XP theme. ...
Improved device support
 Windows XP offers troubleshooters for various problems with system components. Windows XP provides new and/or improved drivers and user interfaces for devices compared to Windows Me and 98. Image File history File links DeviceProperties. ...
Image File history File links DeviceProperties. ...
Windows Image Acquisition (WIA), originally introduced in Windows Me, replaced the traditional TWAIN support for scanners and digital cameras. [1][2] As TWAIN does not separate the user interface from the driver of a device, it is difficult to provide transparent network access; whenever an application loads a TWAIN driver, it is completely undetachable from the supplied manufacturer's GUI. The Microsoft Windows Image Acquisition (WIA) interface is both an application programming interface (API) and a device driver interface (DDI). ...
TWAIN is a standard for acquiring images from image scanners: an image capture API for Microsoft Windows and Apple Macintosh operating systems. ...
The term scanner has several meanings: In radio, a scanner is a device for searching for and receiving radio broadcasts. ...
This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ...
Still Image (STI) support is provided as a compatibility layer within the WIA subsystem.
On old versions of Windows, when users upgrade a device driver, there is a chance the new driver is less efficient or functional than the original. Reinstalling the old driver can be a major hassle and to avoid this quandary, Windows XP keeps a copy of an old driver when a new version is installed. If the new driver has problems, the user can return to the previous version. This feature does not work with printer drivers. [3]
User interface
Improved interface -
Windows XP includes a new set of visual themes, known by its codename, Luna. Available in three schemes, the interface is more task-based than the basic one included since Windows 95, with options available in Explorer windows to interact with each file. It also includes other modifications, such as grouping of related programs, hiding of taskbar icons, and many other elements. Luna is the codename for the default Windows XP theme. ...
Fast User Switching -
Fast User Switching allows another user to log in and use the system without having to log out the previous user and quit his or her applications. Previously (on both Windows Me and Windows 2000) only one user at a time could be logged in (except through Terminal Services), which was a serious drawback to multi-user activity. Fast User Switching, like Terminal Services, requires more system resources than having only a single user logged in at a time and although more than one user can be logged in, only one user can be actively using their account at a time. This feature is not available when the Welcome Screen is turned off, such as when joined to a Windows Server Domain or with Novell Client installed. [4] [5] Fast user switching is a feature on some modern multi-user operating systems such as Windows XP, Windows Vista and Mac OS X. It allows users to switch between user accounts on a single PC without quitting applications and logging out. ...
Terminal Services or Terminal Server Edition (TSE) is a component of Microsoft Windows operating systems (both client and server versions) that allows a user to access applications or data stored on a remote computer over a network connection. ...
Remote Assistance -
Image:XPRemoteAssistance.png Remote Assistance in Help and Support Center Remote Assistance allows a Windows XP user to temporarily take over a remote Windows XP computer over a network or the internet to resolve issues. [6][4] As it can be a hassle for system administrators to personally visit the affected computer, Remote Assistance allows them to diagnose and possibly even repair problems with a computer without ever personally visiting it. Remote Assistance Software are software applications that allow administrators or helpers to help another user through the communication network to demonstrate, assist and remotely control the computer on the other side. ...
A system administrator, or sysadmin, is a person employed to maintain, and operate a computer system or network. ...
CD burning Image:XP CD Writing Wizard.png CD Writing Wizard dialog box Windows XP included technology from Roxio which allows users to directly burn files to a CD through Windows Explorer. Previously, end users had to install CD burning software, such as Nero Burning ROM. Now, burning has been directly integrated into the Windows interface; users burn files to a CD in the same way they write files to a floppy disk or to the hard drive. Windows XP's CD burning support does not do disk to disk copying or disk images. Creation of audio CDs is integrated into Windows Media Player. Napster, LLC (NASDAQ: NAPS, formerly Roxio, Inc. ...
Nero Burning ROM is a popular optical disc authoring program for Microsoft Windows and Linux by Nero AG, formerly Ahead Software. ...
A disk image is a computer file containing the complete contents and structure of a data storage medium or device. ...
Windows Media Player (WMP) is a digital media player and media library application developed by Microsoft that is used for playing audio, video and images on personal computers running the Microsoft Windows operating system, as well as on Pocket PC and Windows Mobile-based devices. ...
ClearType -
 An example of the effects of ClearType. The left example is with ClearType enabled, the right is not. Windows XP includes ClearType sub-pixel font anti-aliasing, which makes onscreen fonts smoother and more readable on liquid crystal display (LCD) screens, although this causes a minor performance hit. Although ClearType has an effect on cathode ray tube (CRT) monitors, its primary use is for LCD/TFT-based (laptop, notebook and modern 'flatscreen') displays. This said, many users with CRT monitors try ClearType and are impressed with the end result, particularly after using Microsoft's ClearType tuning tool. ClearType is a registered trademark for a technology developed by Microsoft Corporation to improve the appearance of text on certain types of computer display screens, especially flat-panel displays. ...
Image File history File links XP_ClearType_icons. ...
In digital signal processing, anti-aliasing is the technique of minimizing aliasing (jagged or blocky patterns) when representing a high-resolution signal at a lower resolution. ...
Reflective twisted nematic liquid crystal display. ...
Cathode ray tube employing electromagnetic focus and deflection Cutaway rendering of a color CRT Electron guns Electron beams Focusing coils Deflection coils Anode connection Mask for separating beams for red, green, and blue part of displayed image Phosphor layer with red, green, and blue zones Close-up of the phosphor...
Remote Desktop Users can log into Windows XP Professional remotely through the Remote Desktop service. It is built on Terminal Services technology (RDP), and is similar to Remote Assistance, but allows remote users to access local resources such as printers. [7]. Any Terminal Services client, a special "Remote Desktop Connection" client, or a web-based client using an ActiveX control may be used to connect to the Remote Desktop. [8] (Remote Desktop clients for earlier versions of Windows, Windows 95, Windows 98 and 98 Second Edition, Windows Me, Windows NT 4.0, or Windows 2000, have been made available by Microsoft [9]. This permits earlier versions of Windows to connect to a Windows XP system running Remote Desktop, but not vice-versa.) Terminal Services or Terminal Server Edition (TSE) is a component of Microsoft Windows operating systems (both client and server versions) that allows a user to access applications or data stored on a remote computer over a network connection. ...
Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) is a multi-channel protocol that allows a user to connect to a computer running Microsoft Terminal Services. ...
Component Object Model (COM) is a Microsoft platform for software componentry introduced by Microsoft in 1993. ...
There are several resources that users can redirect from the remote server machine to the local client, depending upon the capabilities of the client software used. For instance, File System Redirection allows users to use their local files on a remote desktop within the terminal session, while Printer Redirection allows users to use their local printer within the terminal session as they would with a locally or network shared printer. Port Redirection allows applications running within the terminal session to access local serial and parallel ports directly, and Audio allows users to run an audio program on the remote desktop and have the sound redirected to their local computer. The clipboard can also be shared between the remote computer and the local computer. A wooden clipboard A clipboard is a thin board that is typically slightly larger than a pad of standard sheets of paper, with a large (typically metal) clip at the top. ...
Power management Before Windows 98, power management was based on the Advanced Power Management architecture. It was of limited use to most users and the feature was easily broken by the addition of hardware devices or software. Windows XP's power management architecture is based on the ACPI standard and still supports APM. (In Windows 98 ACPI was supported but disabled by default. Windows ME enabled ACPI by default.) It supports multiple levels of sleep states, including critical sleep states when a mobile (or UPS connected) computer is running out of battery power, processor power control (the ability to adjust the speed of the computer's processor on-the-fly to save energy), selective suspend of externally attached (such as USB) devices, and turning off the power to the screen of a laptop when the lid is closed. In addition, it also dims the screen when the laptop has low battery power. [4] APM can also stand for Automatic People Mover. ...
The Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) specification is an open industry standard first released in December 1996 developed by HP, Intel, Microsoft, Phoenix and Toshiba that defines common interfaces for hardware recognition, motherboard and device configuration and power management. ...
APM can also stand for Automatic People Mover. ...
An uninterruptible power supply (UPS), uninterruptible power source or sometimes called a battery backup is a device which maintains a continuous supply of electric power to connected equipment by supplying power from a separate source when utility power is not available. ...
Hibernate mode When Windows hibernates while dumps the entire contents of the RAM to disk and powers down the entire machine. On startup it quickly reloads the data. It allows the system to be completely powered off while in hibernate mode. This requires a file the size of the installed RAM to be placed in the system's root directory, using up space even when not in hibernate mode. Hibernate mode is enabled by default and can be disabled in order to recover this disk space. Hibernate is a feature seen in many operating systems where the contents of RAM is written to non-volatile storage, such as the hard disk (as either a file or on a separate partition) before powering off the system. ...
Random Access Memory (usually known by its acronym, RAM) is a type of data storage used in computers. ...
The Windows hibernation feature conforms to the S4 Sleep State in the ACPI standard.
Standby mode When Windows starts to standby, it turns off all nonessential hardware, including the monitor, hard drives, and removable drives. This means that the system reactivates itself very quickly when "woken up". It does not allow the system to be powered down. In order to save power without user intervention, a system can be configured to go to standby when idle and then hibernate if not re-activated.
The Windows Standby feature conforms to the S1 and S3 Sleep States in the ACPI standard.
Kernel improvements The Windows XP kernel is not directly comparable to the kernel in Windows 95 derivatives. As an upgrade of the Windows 2000 kernel, the improvements are minor. They include some enhancements to the scalability and performance of the system. [10] A kernel connects the application software to the hardware of a computer. ...
Windows XP includes Simultaneous Multithreading Support, or the ability to utilize the Hyper-Threading feature of newer Intel Pentium 4 processors. Simultaneous Multithreading is a processor's ability to process more than one data thread at a time. Intel has described the effect as being more or less 70% that of having the processing power of two processors. A thread in computer science is short for a thread of execution. ...
Hyper-Threading (HTT = Hyper Threading Technology) is Intels trademark for their implementation of the simultaneous multithreading technology on the Pentium 4 microarchitecture. ...
Intel Corporation (NASDAQ: INTC, SEHK: 4335), founded in 1968 as Integrated Electronics Corporation, is an American multinational corporation that is best known for designing and manufacturing microprocessors and specialized integrated circuits. ...
The Pentium 4 was a seventh-generation x86 architecture microprocessor produced by Intel and was the companys first all-new CPU design since the Pentium Pro of 1995. ...
The ability to boot in 30 seconds was a design goal for Windows XP, and Microsoft's developers made efforts to streamline the system as much as possible; many people have found that without extra services Windows XP can boot from the PC's power on self-test (POST) to the Windows GUI in about 30 seconds. The Prefetcher is a significant part of this; it monitors what files are loaded during boot, and optimizes the locations of these files on disk so that less time is spent waiting for the hard drive's heads to move. A graphical user interface (or GUI, often pronounced gooey), is a particular case of user interface for interacting with a computer which employs graphical images and widgets in addition to text to represent the information and actions available to the user. ...
The Prefetcher is a component of versions of Microsoft Windows starting with Windows XP. It is a component of the Memory manager that speeds up the Windows boot process, and shortens the amount of time it takes to start up programs. ...
Application compatibility When Windows 95 was released consumers were anxious to maintain compatibility with their applications that had been designed with a 16-bit operating system in mind. The memory constraints of the typical consumer computer ruled out a full 16-bit compatibility layer as Windows NT had done with Windows on Windows (WoW). Windows on Windows, commonly referred to as Wow, is an abstraction component of Microsoft Windows operating system. ...
As Windows XP merged the consumer and enterprise versions of Windows into one, it folded the user-friendly interface of Windows Me onto the kernel of Windows 2000. A drawback of this is that older software designed for previous versions of Windows may not function. Microsoft addressed this by going to great lengths to improve the WoW with application specific tweaks and shims and providing tools to allow users to try these tweaks and shims on their own applications. [11]
Another common issue in previous versions of Windows was that users frequently suffered from DLL hell, where more than one version of the same Dynamically Linked Library (DLL) was installed on the computer. As software relies on DLLs, using the wrong version could result in non-functional applications, or worse. Windows XP solved this problem by developing a "Side by Side" technology which keeps multiple versions of a DLL in the WinSxS folder and runs them on demand to the appropriate application. DLL hell is a colorful term given to any problem based on a difficulty in managing Dynamically Linked Libraries (DLLs) installed on a particular copy of an operating system. ...
Illustration of an application which may use libvorbisfile. ...
Windows XP also introduced a new mode of COM object registration called "Registration-free COM" that was lost in the .NET hype. This facility makes it possible for applications that need to install COM objects to store all the required COM registry information in the application's directory, instead of in the global registry, where, strictly speaking, only a single application will ever use it. Component Object Model (COM) is a Microsoft platform for software componentry introduced by Microsoft in 1993. ...
.net is a generic top-level domain (gTLD) used on the Internets Domain Name System. ...
See also Microsoft is one of few companies engaging itself in the console wars Where they are up against sony, nintendo, and of course sharps new console which may cause a threat. ...
Windows XP is a line of proprietary operating systems developed by Microsoft for use on general-purpose computer systems, including home and business desktops, notebook computers, and media centers. ...
Microsoft Windows is the name of several families of proprietary software operating systems by Microsoft. ...
The Windows logo used since November 2006. ...
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