Windows XP is an operating system produced by Microsoft for
use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops and
media centers. First released to computer manufacturers on August 24, 2001, it
is the most popular version of Windows, based on installed user base The name "XP"
is short for "eXPerience."
Windows XP, the successor to Windows 2000 and Windows Me, was
the first consumer-oriented operating system produced by Microsoft to be built
on the Windows NT kernel. Windows XP was released for retail sale on October 25,
2001, and over 400 million copies were in use in January 2006.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.
Service Pack 3
Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3) was released to
manufacturing on April 21, 2008, and to the public via both the Microsoft
Download Center and Windows Update on May 6, 2008.
It began being automatically pushed out to Automatic Update
users on July 10, 2008.A feature set overview which details new features
available separately as standalone updates to Windows XP, as well as backported
features from Windows Vista has been posted by Microsoft.A total of 1,174 fixes
have been included in SP3.Service Pack 3 can be installed on systems with
Internet Explorer versions 6, 7 or 8 Internet Explorer 7 and 8 are not included
as part of SP3.
New features in
Service Pack 3
- NX APIs for application developers to enable Data Execution
Prevention for their code, independent of system-wide compatibility enforcement
settings
- Turns black hole router detection on by default
- Support for SHA-2 signatures in X.509 certificates
- Network Access Protection client
- Group Policy support for IEEE 802.1X authentication for
wired network adapters.
- Credentials Security Service Provider
- Descriptive Security options in Group Policy/Local Security
Policy user interface
- An updated version of the Microsoft Enhanced Cryptographic
Provider Module (RSAENH) that is FIPS 140-2 certified (SHA-256, SHA-384 and SHA-512
algorithms)
- Installing without requiring a product key during setup for
retail and OEM versions.