DETAILS AND SPECIFICATION WINDOWS XP

 
Windows XP was originally brought into being as an operating system which would combine the best features of the latest business operating system of the time, Windows 2000, which by then was quite mature and evolved, having had a few years of use in the business community, and Windows 98 Second Edition (SE), which was far and away the most robust version of a home-use operating system prior to XP. In today's computing environment, Windows XP can be useful for both small business and home users by making system problem recovery and digital media transfer easier. It also features history and Service Pack 2 features a better security for the user.

Many users prefer to remain with Windows XP, rather than upgrade to the latest Microsoft Operating system, Windows Vista

Windows XP came into being around the year 2000/2001.
It came as a logical progression from Windows 98 SE for many users although it had a look and feel about it much like Windows 2000 Professional. XP was originally brought into being as an operating system which would combine the best features of the latest business operating system, Windows 2000, which by then was quite mature and evolved, having had a few years of use in the business community, and Windows 98 Second Edition (SE), which was far and away the most robust version prior to XP. To say that Windows Millenium (ME) was any more than a cut-down version of Windows 2000 Professional would hide some of the inherent problems in that O/S. In fact it stands out from the others, rather like the version of MS-DOS known as version 4.00 (four point oh oh.) See Windows for a more detailed description of all the Microsoft Windows operating systems.
It should be noted that now there are more flavors of Windows in place than ever before, with the introduction of Windows Vista. But there are basically three versions of Windows XP. The two other versions, (apart from Windows XP Professional) are: Windows_XP_Home and Windows_XP_Media_Center_Edition. And all of these three are designed around the same O/S, Windows_XP, and accommodate the NTFS file system, designed by Helen Custer. (See the Wikipedia article on NTFS and its author, Helen Custer).
A more rugged version of Windows XP was launched later with the introduction of Service Pack 2. This added basic security with the introduction of the Windows Firewall and other lock-downs, and support for more multi-media hardware. It provides enhanced security measures that have hopefully improved defenses against viruses, worms and hackers, along with increased manageability and an improved experience for users. In addition to security and bug fixes, it changed many default settings to improve security, but it may have also created some problems for users because of the increased security. Nevertheless, Windows XP Professional is a software product which a lot of users prefer over the latest version, Windows Vista, which introduced still more security features along with the enhanced visual effects.

Microsoft Windows XP Professional can be normally run on a X86 32bit processor PC, and also on a 64bit processor, for which there is special software. It is important to note that only certain software is capable of leveraging the advanced features of 64bit. Among these are Adobe and Microsoft software products which have been extensively developed within the 64bit environment. It is interesting to note that this flavor of Windows can also be run on an Apple Macintosh computer as a sub-process. Also, Windows XP Professional is capable of being run in a dual or triple boot environment where the other OS's are on a separate partition. Other OS's which run multiple-boot with Windows XP Professional are Linux and Windows 98. Generally speaking, Windows XP will not run well with a processor slower than 700 Mhz and there should be at least 512 mbytes of RAM, (even though the specifications allow for much less.) A computer with lower hardware specifications would probably have a better chance of success using Windows 2000 Professional.

Other considerations are the use of USB and IEEE 1394 standards, removing the need for a parallel port for the printer and introducing the concept of a USB hub and transfers over firewire. Wireless networking has been improved considerably with Service Pack 2, allowing for WPA encryption and three other flavors of encryption, too.

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