Windows XP

See Also: Operating Systems | Windows | Windows 2000

Home Page: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows-XP

Microsoft’s update to the Windows 2000 Operating System, in part to compete with the Apple‘s OS X, offering a host of new features, more colorful user interface, and boasting multimedia capabilites. Released October, 2001 in “Home” and “Proffessional” versions.

Features

Some of the new features included:

CD creation
Basic Video edition software
A basic firewall (should not be considered very secure)
VPN tools (for Professional version)
An encrypted/compressed file container system (for Professional version), however this system is insecure. See: Hard Disk Encryption for alternatives.
Optional Faxing capability
Greater compatability with Windows 98
Better use of DirectX for gaming, unlike Windows 2000 and NT

Problems

Implimented a profitable but strongly restrictive license. This license prevented installation on more than one computer (such as a desktop and laptop) but also caused headaches for customers who altered their system hardware, especially network interface cards. You also must register your copy of XP within 30 days or lose use of your computer

1 Hardware Requirements
2 Security
- 2.1 Tools
- 2.2 Links

Hardware Requirements

Windows XP also has higher hardware requirements than Windows 2000. Although a speed increase over Windows 2000 was boasted, some sources claimed it was actually slower. PC gamers, however, almost universally choose Windows XP.

XP Professional vs. XP Home

XP Home edition is essentially a stripped down version of Professional. It lacks many of Professional’s features but nothing most basic users would notice.

Dual-Processors Encouraged

According to this InfoWorld article “Our tests on a dual-CPU system indicate that both Windows XP and Windows 2000 run better on an SMP (symmetric multiprocessing) configuration with relatively slow CPUs than on a single-CPU system with a screamingly fast processor.”

Security

Individuals interested in protecting information on their Windows 2000 computer should not use the included encryption security and not trust the password security as evidence by Advanced EFS Data Recovery (and other tools). This is if (and only if) they have physical access to the computer or hard drive.

(This also affects Windows 2000.)

See: Hard Disk Encryption for alternatives

Press, Web sites

Tools

XP-Antispy – A highly-recommended tool to turn off lots of annoying features in XP, including background programs that interface with Microsoft, and even speed up shutdown. Turn off suspicious, useless, spyware-like stuff that comes in Windows XP by default (and will free up processor time and memory). Note: site requires an e-mail address and will send you spam – use a temporary or barely-used address.
FreshUI – An untested tool to tap many hidden features of Windows XP. Similar to TweakUI for Windows 95/98/NT/Me/2000.

Contents

Hardware Requirements

Security

Tools

Links