- GDI+ graphics subsystem
- Start Menu and Taskbar improvements
- A number of new features in Windows Explorer
- Faster start-up, logon and logoff and hibernation sequences.
- The ability to discard a newer device driver in favor of the previous one (known as driver rollback), should a driver upgrade not produce desirable results.
- A new, arguably more user-friendly interface, including the framework for developing themes for the desktop environment
- Fast user switching, which allows a user to save the current state and open applications of their desktop and allow another user to log on without losing that information
- The ClearType font rendering mechanism, which is designed to improve text readability on liquid crystal display (LCD) and similar monitors
- Remote Desktop functionality, which allows users to connect to a computer running Windows XP Pro from across a network or the Internet and access their applications, files, printers, and devices.
- Support for most DSL modems and IEEE 802.11 connections, as well as networking over FireWire, and Bluetooth.
- Improved application compatibility compared to Windows 2000
- 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 analyzed 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.[17] Some effects, such as alpha compositing (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.[18] Windows XP added 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. 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.[19]
In addition to the included Windows XP themes, there is one previously unreleased theme with a dark blue taskbar and window bars similar to Windows Vista titled "Royale Noir" available for download, albeit unofficially.[20] Microsoft officially released a modified version of this theme as the "Zune" theme, to celebrate the launch of its Zune portable media player in November 2006. The differences are only visual with a new glassy look along with a black taskbar instead of dark blue and an orange start button instead of green.[21] Additionally, the Media Center "Energy Blue" theme, which was included in the Media Center editions, is also available to download for use on all Windows XP editions.[22]
The default wallpaper, Bliss, is a BMP photograph of a landscape in the Napa Valley outside Napa, California,[23] 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.
Windows XP is an operating system that was produced by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops, and media centers. It was first released in August 2001, and is the most popular version of Windows, based on installed user base. The name "XP" is short for "eXPerience."[3]
Windows XP was the successor to both Windows 2000 and Windows Me, and was the first consumer-oriented operating system produced by Microsoft to be built on the Windows NT kernel andarchitecture. Windows XP was released for retail sale 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.[4] It was 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. Direct OEM and retail sales of Windows XP ceased on June 30, 2008. Microsoft continued to sell Windows XP through their System Builders (smaller OEMs who sell assembled computers) program until January 31, 2009.[5][6] XP may continue to be available as these sources run through their inventory or by purchasing Windows 7 Ultimate, Windows 7 Pro, Windows Vista Ultimate or Windows Vista Business, and thendowngrading to Windows XP.[7][8]
The most common editions of the operating system were Windows XP Home Edition, which was targeted at home users, and Windows XP Professional, which offered additional features such as support for Windows Server domains and two physical processors, and was targeted at power users, business and enterprise 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 Edition was designed to run stylus applications built using the Tablet PCplatform.
Windows XP was eventually released for two additional architectures, Windows XP 64-bit Edition for IA-64 (Itanium) processors and Windows XP Professional x64 Edition for x86-64. There is alsoWindows XP Embedded, a component version of the Windows XP Professional, and editions for specific markets such as Windows XP Starter Edition. By mid 2009, a manufacturer revealed the first Windows XP powered cellular telephone.[9]
The NT-based versions of Windows, which are programmed in C, C++, and assembly,[10] are known for their improved stability and efficiency over the 9x versions of Microsoft Windows.[11][12] Windows XP presented a significantly redesigned graphical user interface, a change Microsoft promoted as more user-friendly than previous versions of Windows. A new software management facility calledSide-by-Side Assembly was introduced to ameliorate the "DLL hell" that plagues 9x versions of Windows.[13][14] It is also the first version of Windows to use product activation to combat illegal copying. Windows XP had also been criticized by some users for security vulnerabilities, tight integration of applications such as Internet Explorer 6 and Windows Media Player, and for aspects of its default user interface. Later versions with Service Pack 2, Service Pack 3, and Internet Explorer 8 addressed some of these concerns.
During development, the project was codenamed "Whistler", after Whistler, British Columbia, as many Microsoft employees skied at the Whistler-Blackcomb ski resort.[15]
According to web analytics data generated by W3Schools, as of December 2010, Windows XP is the most widely used operating system for accessing the Internet in the world with a 47.2% market share, having peaked at 76.1% in January 2007.
Microsoft supports Office for the Windows and Mac platforms. Beginning with Mac Office 4.2, the Mac and Windows versions of Office share the same file format. Consequently, any Mac with Office 4.2 or later can read documents created with Office 4.2 for Windows or later, and vice-versa. Visual Basic for Applications support was dropped in Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac[51] but was restored in Microsoft Office for Mac 2011.[3]
There were efforts in the mid 1990s to port Office to RISC processors such as NEC / MIPS and IBM / PowerPC, but they met problems such as memory access being hampered by data structure alignment requirements. Microsoft Word 97 & Excel 97 however did ship for the DEC Alpha platform. Difficulties in porting Office may have been a factor in discontinuing Windows NT on non-Intel platforms.[citation needed]
There is no mention of support for other operating systems, although Microsoft Office Mobile, which supports the more popular features of Microsoft Office, is available for Windows Mobile and is planned to soon be available for Symbian OS.
Crossover for Linux, by CodeWeavers, makes it possible to run Microsoft Office on the Linux platform. Doing so, however, requires a license for Microsoft Office for Windows, as well as a license for Crossover for Linux. Crossover is a computer code translation layer.
A major feature of the Office suite is the ability for users and third party companies to write add-ins (plug-ins) that extend the capabilities of an application by adding custom commands and specialized features. The type of add-ins supported differ by Office versions:
- Office 97 onwards (standard Windows DLLs i.e. Word WLLs and Excel XLLs)
- Office 2000 onwards (COM add-ins)[48]
- Office XP onwards (COM/OLE Automation add-ins)[49]
- Office 2003 onwards (Managed code add-ins - VSTO solutions)
Microsoft Office prior to Office 2007 used proprietary file formats. This forced users who share data to adopt the same software platform.[42] In 2008, Microsoft made the entire documentation for the binary Office formats freely available for download and granted any possible patents rights for use or implementations of those binary format for free under the Open Specification Promise.[43] Previously, Microsoft had supplied such documentation freely but only on request.
Starting with Office 2007, the default file format has been a version of Office Open XML, not directly the same as the one which has been standardized and published by Ecma International and by ISO/IEC. Microsoft has granted patent rights to the formats technology under the Open Specification Promise[44] and has made available free downloadable converters for previous versions of Microsoft Office including Office 2003, Office XP, Office 2000[45] and Office 2004 for the Mac. Third-party implementations of Office Open XML exist on the Mac platform (iWork '08) and Linux (OpenOffice.org 3.0). In addition, Service Pack 2 for Office 2007 supports the OpenDocument Format (ODF) for opening and saving documents.
Microsoft provides the ability to remove metadata from Office documents. This was in response to highly publicized incidents where sensitive data about a document was leaked via its metadata.[46] Metadata removal was first available in 2004, when Microsoft released a tool called Remove Hidden Data Add-in for Office 2003/XP for this purpose[47] It was directly integrated into Office 2007 in a feature called the Document Inspector.
- Microsoft SharePoint Server — collaboration server
- Microsoft Lync Server (formerly Office Communications Server and Live Communications Server) — real time communications server
- Microsoft Office Forms Server — allows InfoPath forms to be accessed and filled out using any browser. Office Forms Server is a standalone server installation of InfoPath Forms Services.
- Microsoft Office Groove Server — centrally managing all deployments of Microsoft Office Groove in the enterprise
- Microsoft Office Project Server — project management server
- Microsoft Office Project Portfolio Server — allows creation of a project portfolio, including workflows, hosted centrally
- Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server — allows customers to monitor, analyze, and plan their business
Microsoft PowerPoint is a popular presentation program for Windows and Mac. It is used to create slideshows, composed of text, graphics, movies and other objects, which can be displayed on-screen and navigated through by the presenter or printed out on transparencies or slides.
Other desktop applications (Windows version only)
- Microsoft Access — database manager
- Microsoft InfoPath — an application to design rich XML-based forms
- Microsoft OneNote — note-taking software for use with both tablet and conventional PCs
- Microsoft Project — project management software to keep track of events and to create network charts and Gantt charts (not bundled in any Office suite)
- Microsoft Publisher — desktop publishing software mostly used for designing brochures, labels, calendars, greeting cards, business cards, newsletters, and postcards.
- Microsoft SharePoint Workspace (formerly known as Groove) — a proprietary peer-to-peer collaboration software leveled at businesses
- Microsoft Visio — diagram and flowcharting software (not bundled in any Office suite)
- Microsoft Office InterConnect — business-relationship database available only in Japan
- Microsoft Office Picture Manager — basic photo management software (similar to Google's Picasa or Adobe's Photoshop Elements), replaced Microsoft Photo Editor
The following applications are no longer branded as part of Microsoft Office:
- Microsoft SharePoint Designer — a WYSIWYG HTML editor and web design program for customizing SharePoint applications, it replaces Microsoft FrontPage (not bundled in any Office suite)
- Microsoft Lync — Integrated communications client for conferences and meetings in real time (known as Microsoft Office Communicator in Office 2007, bundled with Professional Plus and Enterprise editions.
Microsoft Excel is a spreadsheet program which originally competed with the dominant Lotus 1-2-3, but eventually outsold it. It is available for the Windows and Mac platforms. Microsoft released the first version of Excel for the Mac in 1985, and the first Windows version (numbered 2.05 to line up with the Mac and bundled with a standalone Windows run-time environment) in November 1987.
[edit]Outlook/Entourage
Main articles: Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft Entourage
Microsoft Outlook (not to be confused with Outlook Express) is a personal information manager and e-mail communication software. The replacement for Windows Messaging, Microsoft Mail and Schedule+ starting in Office 97, it includes an e-mail client, calendar, task manager and address book.
On the Mac, Microsoft offered several versions of Outlook in the late 1990s, but only for use with Microsoft Exchange Server. In Office 2001, it introduced an alternative application with a slightly different feature set called Microsoft Entourage. It reintroduced Outlook in Office 2011, replacing Entourage.