Whois & Analysis for winsite.com

Windows XP (stylized as Windowsxp and codenamed Whistler) is a personal computer operating system that was produced by Microsoft as part of the Windows NT family of operating systems.

It was released to manufacturing on August 24, 2001, and broadly released for retail sale on October 25, 2001.

Development of Windows XP began in the late 1990s as "Neptune", an operating system built on the Windows NT kernel which was intended specifically for mainstream consumer use—an updated version of Windows 2000 was also originally planned for the business market.

However, in January 2000, both projects were shelved in favor of a single OS codenamed "Whistler", which would serve as a single OS platform for both consumer and business markets.

Windows XP was a major advance from the MS-DOS based versions of Windows in security, stability and efficiency due to its use of Windows NT underpinnings.

It introduced a significantly redesigned graphical user interface and was the first version of Windows to use product activation in an effort to reduce its copyright infringement.

Windows Millennium Edition, or Windows ME (marketed with the pronunciation of the pronoun "me", but commonly pronounced as an initialism, "M-E"), is a graphical operating system from Microsoft released to manufacturing in June 2000, and launched in September 2000.

It was the last operating system released in the Windows 9x series.

Windows NT is a family of operating systems produced by Microsoft, the first version of which was released in July 1993.

It is a processor-independent, multiprocessing, multi-user operating system.

Shareware is a type of proprietary software which is initially provided free of charge to users, who are allowed and encouraged to make and share copies of the program.

Shareware is often offered as a download from an Internet website or as a compact disc included with a magazine.

Shareware is available on all major personal computer platforms.

The term shareware is used in contrast to open-source software, in which the source code is available for anyone to inspect and alter; and freeware, which is software distributed at no cost to the user but without source code being made available.

A screensaver (or screen saver) is a computer program that blanks the screen or fills it with moving images or patterns when the computer is not in use.

Initially designed to prevent phosphor burn-in on CRT and plasma computer monitors (hence the name), screensavers are now used primarily for entertainment, security or to display system status information.