- #Windows xp background real life upgrade#
- #Windows xp background real life professional#
- #Windows xp background real life free#
- #Windows xp background real life windows#
The “Bliss” background became an important part of Windows XP’s branding. It aimed to make fonts look better on LCD monitors that were then starting to gain more widespread use at the time. In another visual improvement, Windows XP brought anti-aliasing to system fonts in a significant way with ClearType rendering, which provided sub-pixel rendering for fonts. There was even a “Classic” theme similar to Windows 2000. Former National Geographic photographer Charles O’Rear took the photo near Napa Valley, California in 1996.Īlthough some criticized the new XP theme as looking like a Fisher-Price toy, thanks to a new visual style system, themes could easily be changed. To tie in with the color scheme, Microsoft chose a photograph ( titled “Bliss”) of a gentle grassy hill with a blue sky dotted with clouds as the default XP desktop background image. Thanks to a visual style called Luna, Windows XP defaulted to a colorful design that featured a blue taskbar with a green Start button, blue window title bars, and bright red “X” buttons to close Windows. Windows XP brought eye candy to Windows in a big way, marking the first significant departure from the classic grey Windows theme introduced in Windows 95.
#Windows xp background real life free#
XP required a 233 MHz or higher CPU, 64 MB of RAM, 1.5 GB of free hard disk space, and a video card that supported 800×600 resolution or higher. Microsoft had to make sure people could enjoy the new graphical effects and more complex system processes handling things in the background. Like any new version of Windows, XP upped the system requirements. The two main editions cost about $307 (for Home) and $461 (for Pro) in today’s dollars when adjusted for inflation.
#Windows xp background real life professional#
And Windows XP Professional cost $299-or $199 if you upgraded from a previous professional version of Windows.
#Windows xp background real life upgrade#
MicrosoftĪimed at consumers, Windows XP Home Edition sold for $199 ($99 for an upgrade version). Unlike the divide between operating systems like Windows 95 and NT 4.0 in the past (or Windows Me and Windows 2000), XP would unify Microsoft’s consumer and professional Windows products under one brand, albeit in two different editions. According to Microsoft, the “XP” meant “experience,” with a promise to focus on user experience in the new release. After Windows Me garnered a poor critical and customer response in 2000, Microsoft knew its next consumer OS would need to finally take up the NT mantle.Īfter extensive prototyping, including abandoning earlier attempts at a consumer NT-based operating system, Microsoft settled on a prototype called “Whistler” that would eventually turn into Windows XP. Windows Me (like Windows 95 and 98 before it) ran on technology carried over from MS-DOS that made it prone to frequent, catastrophic crashes. But the company knew the shift to NT was inevitable. With Windows 2000, Microsoft almost brought NT to the consumer market, but decided to hold off and released Windows Millennium Edition (Me) instead. At first, NT proved too hardware intensive to run well on the typical consumer PC, so Microsoft aimed it at the professional and server markets. It incorporated a brand new kernel and other technologies that made it very stable and reliable. In the early 1990s, Microsoft began working on a next-generation operating system called Windows NT that would leave Microsoft’s MS-DOS-based roots behind.
It Brought Windows NT to Consumers, Finally
0 kommentar(er)
