QuickPlay was a technology pioneered by Hewlett-Packard in 2004 that allows users to directly play multimedia without booting the computer into a main operating system. A media component of HP Pavilion Entertainment laptops, QuickPlay was a feature found in the dv1000 series and above, including the HDX series of notebooks. It is also a feature found in many other HP Compaq notebooks. The technology has also been emulated by other computer manufacturers such as Dell, Alienware, and Toshiba, with various iterations. It is not to be confused with the QuickPlay project hosted by SourceForge.
QuickPlay software, also known as QuickPlay or HP QuickPlay is software custom developed for HP by CyberLink Corp. QuickPlay software revisions up to version 2.3 included in notebooks shipping with Windows XP have two main components. The first component is a "Direct" function that provides instant access upon boot to music CDs, DVD movies, and MP3s stored on the hard drive. It is launched by the QuickPlay external button found on the notebook or included IR remote. QuickPlay "Direct" is possible through software on a separate partition with a custom operating system (Linux for QuickPlay 1.0 and Windows XP Embedded for QuickPlay 2.3) installed. The secondary component of QuickPlay software (all versions) is an application run under Windows with identical functions. Newer versions of the Windows-only component (QuickPlay versions above 2.3) have additional gaming and karaoke functions.
QuickPlay software versions 3.0 and newer included in notebooks shipping with Windows Vista solely retain the Windows-only component as the "Direct" component is no longer implemented due to some unresolved compatibility issues. Instead, users must boot into the operating system in order for the Windows-only version of the QuickPlay software to be run. This occurs regardless of whether QuickPlay is launched externally (via a notebook button or IR remote button) when the notebook is off or when the operating system is running. QuickPlay has since been disconnected, has been replaced by the HP MediaSmart Software on all HP desktops and notebooks shipping with Windows 7 from 2009 onwards.
Windows XP is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It was released to manufacturing on August 24, 2001, and later to retail on October 25, 2001. It is a direct successor to Windows 2000 for high-end and business users and Windows Me for home users.
Windows Media Player is the first media player and media library application that Microsoft developed to play audio and video on personal computers. It has been a component of the Microsoft Windows operating system, including Windows 9x, Windows NT, Pocket PC, and Windows Mobile. Microsoft also released editions of Windows Media Player for classic Mac OS, Mac OS X, and Solaris, but has since discontinued them.
Windows 98 is a consumer-oriented operating system developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows 9x family of Microsoft Windows operating systems. It is the second operating system in the 9x line, as the successor to Windows 95. It was released to manufacturing on May 15, 1998, and generally to retail on June 25, 1998. Like its predecessor, it is a hybrid 16-bit and 32-bit monolithic product with the boot stage based on MS-DOS.
Windows Me is an operating system developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows 9x family of Microsoft Windows operating systems. It is the successor to Windows 98, and was released to manufacturing on June 19, 2000, and then to retail on September 14, 2000. It was Microsoft's main operating system for home users until the introduction of its successor Windows XP on October 25, 2001.
NTLDR is the boot loader for all releases of Windows NT operating system from 1993 with the release of Windows NT 3.1 up until Windows XP and Windows Server 2003. From Windows Vista onwards it was replaced by the BOOTMGR bootloader. NTLDR is typically run from the primary storage device, but it can also run from portable storage devices such as a CD-ROM, USB flash drive, or floppy disk. NTLDR can also load a non NT-based operating system given the appropriate boot sector in a file.
Windows NT 4.0 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft and oriented towards businesses. It is the direct successor to Windows NT 3.51, and was released to manufacturing on July 31, 1996, and then to retail in August 24, 1996, with the Server versions released to retail in September 1996.
In computing, instant-on is the ability to boot nearly instantly, allowing to go online or to use a specific application without waiting for a PC's traditional operating system to launch. Instant-on technology is today mostly used on laptops, netbooks, and nettops because the user can boot up one program, instead of waiting for the PC's operating system to boot. This allows a user to launch a single program, such as a movie-playing program or a web browser, without the need of the whole operating system. There still remain a few true instant-on machines such as the Atari ST, as described in the Booting article. These machines had complete Operating Systems resident in ROM similar to the way in which the BIOS function is conventionally provided on current computer architectures. The "instant-on" concept as used here results from loading an OS, such as a legacy system DOS, with a small hard drive footprint. Latency inherent to mechanical drive performance can also be eliminated by using Live USB or Live SD flash memory to load systems at electronic speeds which are orders of magnitude faster.
A diskless node is a workstation or personal computer without disk drives, which employs network booting to load its operating system from a server.
The Apple Remote is a remote control introduced in October 2005 by Apple Inc. for use with a number of its products with infrared capability. It was originally designed to control the Front Row media center program on the iMac G5 and is compatible with many subsequent Macintosh computers. The first three generations of Apple TV used the Apple Remote as their primary control mechanism. It has now been replaced with the Siri Remote in the fourth generation. Prior to the Apple Remote, Apple produced several nameless IR remotes for products such as the Macintosh TV, TV tuner expansion boards, and the PowerCD drive.
As the next version of Windows NT after Windows 2000, as well as the successor to Windows Me, Windows XP introduced many new features but it also removed some others.
The Apple–Intel architecture, or Mactel, is an unofficial name used for Macintosh personal computers developed and manufactured by Apple Inc. that use Intel x86 processors, rather than the PowerPC and Motorola 68000 ("68k") series processors used in their predecessors or the ARM-based Apple silicon SoCs used in their successors. As Apple changed the architecture of its products, they changed the firmware from the Open Firmware used on PowerPC-based Macs to the Intel-designed Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI). With the change in processor architecture to x86, Macs gained the ability to boot into x86-native operating systems, while Intel VT-x brought near-native virtualization with macOS as the host OS.
The Windows shell is the graphical user interface for the Microsoft Windows operating system. Its readily identifiable elements consist of the desktop, the taskbar, the Start menu, the task switcher and the AutoPlay feature. On some versions of Windows, it also includes Flip 3D and the charms. In Windows 10, the Windows Shell Experience Host interface drives visuals like the Start Menu, Action Center, Taskbar, and Task View/Timeline. However, the Windows shell also implements a shell namespace that enables computer programs running on Windows to access the computer's resources via the hierarchy of shell objects. "Desktop" is the top object of the hierarchy; below it there are a number of files and folders stored on the disk, as well as a number of special folders whose contents are either virtual or dynamically created. Recycle Bin, Libraries, Control Panel, This PC and Network are examples of such shell objects.
RIS, Remote Installation Services is a Microsoft-supplied server that allows PXE BIOS-enabled computers to remotely execute boot environment variables.
AMD Live! is the name of AMD's initiative in 2005 aimed at gathering the support of professional musicians and other media producers behind its hardware products. The primary focus of this initiative was the Opteron server- and workstation-class central processing units (CPUs).
Windows Vista contains a range of new technologies and features that are intended to help network administrators and power users better manage their systems. Notable changes include a complete replacement of both the Windows Setup and the Windows startup processes, completely rewritten deployment mechanisms, new diagnostic and health monitoring tools such as random access memory diagnostic program, support for per-application Remote Desktop sessions, a completely new Task Scheduler, and a range of new Group Policy settings covering many of the features new to Windows Vista. Subsystem for UNIX Applications, which provides a POSIX-compatible environment is also introduced.
Windows XP, which is the next version of Windows NT after Windows 2000 and the successor to the consumer-oriented Windows Me, has been released in several editions since its original release in 2001.
Dell MediaDirect is a software application that is published by Dell, Inc. and is pre-installed on the computers they sell. It attempts to provide DVD and CD playback and recent editions include features such as an address book and calendar. It is a custom version of CyberLink PowerCinema developed and licensed to Dell by CyberLink. MediaDirect works in conjunction with the operating system and the Dell QuickSet application.
ThinkVantage Technologies is a set of system support utilities to reduce total cost of ownership of Lenovo brand desktop and laptop computers.
Some of the new features included in Windows 7 are advancements in touch, speech and handwriting recognition, support for virtual hard disks, support for additional file formats, improved performance on multi-core processors, improved boot performance, and kernel improvements.
Microsoft Tablet PC is a term coined by Microsoft for tablet computers conforming to hardware specifications, devised by Microsoft, and announced in 2001 for a pen-enabled personal computer and running a licensed copy of the Windows XP Tablet PC Edition operating system or a derivative thereof.
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