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.
The Graphics Device Interface (GDI) is a legacy component of Microsoft Windows responsible for representing graphical objects and transmitting them to output devices such as monitors and printers. It was superseded by DirectDraw API and later Direct2D API. Windows apps use Windows API to interact with GDI, for such tasks as drawing lines and curves, rendering fonts, and handling palettes. The Windows USER subsystem uses GDI to render such UI elements as window frames and menus. Other systems have components that are similar to GDI; for example: Mac OS had QuickDraw, and Linux and Unix have X Window System core protocol.
HP calculators are various calculators manufactured by the Hewlett-Packard company over the years.
Active Desktop was a feature of Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0's optional Windows Desktop Update that allowed users to add HTML content to the desktop, along with some other features. This function was intended to be installed on the then-current Windows 95 operating system. It was also included in Windows 98 and later Windows operating systems up through 32-bit XP, but was absent from XP Professional x64 Edition and all subsequent versions of Windows. Its status on XP 64-bit edition and on both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows Server 2003 is not widely known. This corresponded to version Internet Explorer 4.0 to 6.x, but not Internet Explorer 7.
System Restore is a feature in Microsoft Windows that allows the user to revert their computer's state to that of a previous point in time, which can be used to recover from system malfunctions or other problems. First included in Windows Me, it has been included in all following desktop versions of Windows released since, excluding Windows Server. In Windows 10, System Restore is turned off by default and must be enabled by users in order to function. This does not affect personal files such as documents, music, pictures, and videos.
Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) was an anti-infringement system created by Microsoft used to validate the licences of several Microsoft Windows operating systems upon accessing services such as Windows Update and Microsoft Download Center.
Windows Photo Viewer is an image viewer included with the Windows NT family of operating systems. It was first included with Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 under its former name. It succeeds Imaging for Windows. It was temporarily replaced with Windows Photo Gallery in Windows Vista but was reinstated in Windows 7 with its current name.
Windows Media Center Extenders are devices that are configured to connect over a computer network to a computer running Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition, Windows Vista Home Premium/Ultimate, Windows 7 Home Premium, or Windows 8 with a Pro pack to stream the computer's media center functions to the Extender device. This allows use of the Media Center and its features on a television receiver or other electronic visual display.
Windows XP visual styles are a set of visual customizations of the graphical user interface for Windows XP. They are designed by Microsoft and are compatible with all Windows XP editions except for the Starter edition. Since Windows XP, themes also includes the choice of visual styles as well.
Microsoft Drive Optimizer is a utility in Microsoft Windows designed to increase data access speed by rearranging files stored on a disk to occupy contiguous storage locations, a technique called defragmentation. Microsoft Drive Optimizer was first officially shipped with Windows 95.
Windows Vista, an operating system released by Microsoft for consumers on January 30, 2007, has been widely criticized by reviewers and users. Due to issues with new security features, performance, driver support and product activation, it has been the subject of a number of negative assessments by various groups.
Windows Error Reporting (WER) is a crash reporting technology introduced by Microsoft with Windows XP and included in later Windows versions and Windows Mobile 5.0 and 6.0. Not to be confused with the Dr. Watson debugging tool which left the memory dump on the user's local machine, Windows Error Reporting collects and offers to send post-error debug information using the Internet to Microsoft when an application crashes or stops responding on a user's desktop. No data is sent without the user's consent. When a crash dump reaches the Microsoft server, it is analyzed, and information about a solution is sent back to the user if available. Solutions are served using Windows Error Reporting Responses. Windows Error Reporting runs as a Windows service. Kinshuman Kinshumann is the original architect of WER. WER was also included in the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) hall of fame for its impact on the computing industry.
The Text Services Framework (TSF) is a COM framework and API in Windows XP and later Windows operating systems that supports advanced text input and text processing. The Language Bar is the core user interface for Text Services Framework.
Microsoft PowerToys is a set of freeware system utilities designed for power users developed by Microsoft for use on the Windows operating system. These programs add or change features to maximize productivity or add more customization. PowerToys are available for Windows 95, Windows XP, Windows 10, and Windows 11. The PowerToys for Windows 10 and Windows 11 are free and open-source software licensed under the MIT License and hosted on GitHub.
FastPictureViewer is a freemium image viewer for Windows XP and later. Its aim is to facilitate quick review, rating and annotation of large quantities of digital images in the early steps of the digital workflow, with an emphasis on simplicity and speed. As an app with a freemium license, a basic version is available cost-free for personal, non-profit or educational uses, while a commercial license is required for the professional version with additional features. The basic version starts as a full version trial.
MSWLogo is a programming language which is interpreted, based on the computer language Logo, with a graphical user interface (GUI) front end. George Mills developed it at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Its core is the same as UCBLogo by Brian Harvey. It is free and open-source software, with source code available, in Borland C++.
Windows Desktop Gadgets is a discontinued widget engine for Microsoft Gadgets. Desktop Gadgets have been replaced by Windows 10 Taskbar Widgets. It was introduced with Windows Vista, in which it features a sidebar anchored to the side of the desktop. Its widgets can perform various tasks, such as displaying the time and date. In Windows Vista, the widgets are restricted to a sidebar but in Windows 7, they can be freely moved anywhere on the desktop.
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.
