features of window xp

1. Inbuilt drivers support for devices like Key board, mouse and Pen drives like peripherials.2.Dramatically reduced reboot scenarios3.Windows Firewall4.Windows Security Center5.Search:Microsoft introduced animated “Search Companions” in an attempt to make searching more engaging and friendly; the default character is a puppy named Rover, with three other characters (Merlin the magician, Earl the surfer, and Courtney) also available. These search companions powered by Microsoft Agent technology, bear a great deal of similarity to Microsoft Office’s Office Assistants, even incorporating “tricks” and sound effects. However, search companion can be turned off and the user can revert to using classic search.6.Image handlingFolder thumbnail previewWindows XP improves image preview by offering a Filmstrip view which shows images in a single horizontal row and a large preview of the currently selected image above it. “Back” and “Previous” buttons facilitate navigation through the pictures, and a pair of “Rotate” buttons offer 90-degree clockwise and counter-clockwise rotation of images. Aside from the Filmstrip view mode, there is a 'Thumbnails' view, which displays thumbnail-sized images in the folder and also displays images a subfolder may be containing (4 by default) overlaid on a large folder icon. A folder's thumbnail view can be customized from the Customize tab accessible from its Properties, where users can also change the folder's icon and specify a template type (pictures, music, videos, documents) for that folder and optionally all its subfolders.7. Faster boot and logon:The ability to boot in 30 seconds was a design goal for Windows XP, and Microsoft's developers made efforts to streamline the system as much as possible; The Prefetcher is a significant part of this; it monitors what files are loaded during boot, optimizes the locations of these files on disk so that less time is spent waiting for the hard drive's heads to move and issues large I/O requests that can be overlapped with device detection and initialization. The prefetcher also uses the same algorithms to reduce application startup times. Activities such as system and service cleanup, and layout optimization of files and file metadata take place at idle time.8. Power management improvementsSupport for the Simple Boot Specification Wake-on-Battery support so that the system has time to power off or hibernate LCD dimming when on battery power Processor power and performance control including C-state (run in lower power state when idle) and throttling [11] USB selective suspend feature Significantly noticeable fast boot and resume from hibernation compared to previous Windows versions owing to the boot loader caching file and directory metadata sequentially and in large chunks in a most recently used manner, overlapping device initialization. Hibernation is faster as memory pages are compressed using an improved algorithm, unused memory pages are freed and DMA transfers are used during I/O. Faster resume from standby as the algorithm used by the Power Manager for notifying hardware and software of power state changes by dispatching power IRPs has been rewritten to maximize parallelism and important system drivers (PCMCIA, keyboard, mouse) have been rewritten to eliminate blocking interactions. Built-in support for processor power management technologies such as Intel SpeedStep and AMD PowerNow!. 9.Other hardware improvementsWindows XP's user interface for Plug and Play changed with all messages being shown in the notification area as balloon tips. Generic USB 2.0 EHCI drivers beginning with Windows XP SP1 [12] and support for USB device classes such as Bluetooth, USB video device class, imaging (still image capture device class) and Media Transfer Protocol with Windows Media Player 10 [13] USB audio devices support GFX filters FireWire (IEEE 1394) support for digital video cameras and audio video devices, MPEG-2 and S/PDIF across IEEE 1394. AutoPlay The read-only attribute of files and folders is automatically removed when copying files from optical media using Windows Explorer. Improved mouse pointer ballistics. DualView for multi-monitor setups. The Scanner and Camera Wizard based on Windows Image Acquisition and other common dialogs for WIA devices have been improved in Windows XP to show the media information and metadata, rotate images as necessary, categorize them into subfolders, capture images and video in case of a still or video camera, crop and scan images to a single or multi-page TIFF in case of a scanner. Multichannel audio output and playback of additional audio formats. Volume can be set for each speaker in a multichannel configuration. Acoustic Echo Cancellation for USB microphones Global Effects (GFX) engine Support for reading UDF 2.01 upgradeable to UDF 2.50 by installing Windows Feature Pack for Storage. [18] Sound Blaster 2.0 emulation support in NTVDM 10. System administration improvements10.1 Remote DesktopUsers can log into Windows XP Professional remotely through the Remote Desktop service. It is built on Terminal Services technology (RDP), and is similar to "Remote Assistance", but allows remote users to access local resources such as printers. [19]. Any Terminal Services client, a special "Remote Desktop Connection" client, or a web-based client using an ActiveX control may be used to connect to the Remote Desktop. [20] (Remote Desktop clients for earlier versions of Windows, Windows 95, Windows 98 and 98 Second Edition, Windows Me, Windows NT 4.0, or Windows 2000 have been made available by Microsoft [21]. This permits earlier versions of Windows to connect to a Windows XP system running Remote Desktop, but not vice-versa.)There are several resources that users can redirect from the remote server machine to the local client, depending upon the capabilities of the client software used. For instance, "File System Redirection" allows users to use their local files on a remote desktop within the terminal session, while "Printer Redirection" allows users to use their local printer within the terminal session as they would with a locally or network shared printer. "Port Redirection" allows applications running within the terminal session to access local serial and parallel ports directly, and "Audio" allows users to run an audio program on the remote desktop and have the sound redirected to their local computer. The clipboard can also be shared between the remote computer and the local computer.10.2 Remote AssistanceRemote Assistance allows a Windows XP user to temporarily take over a remote Windows XP computer over a network or the Internet to resolve issues. As it can be a hassle for system administrators to personally visit the affected computer, Remote Assistance allows them to diagnose and possibly even repair problems with a computer without ever personally visiting it. 10.3 Fast user switchingFast user switching allows another user to log in and use the system without having to log out the previous user and quit his or her applications. Previously (on both Windows ME and Windows 2000) only one user at a time could be logged in (except through Terminal Services), which was a serious drawback to multi-user activity. Fast User Switching, like Terminal Services, requires more system resources than having only a single user logged in at a time and although more than one user can be logged in, only one user can be actively using their account at a time. This feature is not available when the Welcome Screen is turned off, such as when joined to a Windows Server Domain or with Novell Client installed. 10.4 Other manageability featuresWindows Disk Defragmenter was updated to alleviate some restrictions.[25]:728 It no longer relies on the Windows NT Cache Manager, which prevented the defragmenter from moving pieces of a file that cross a 256KB boundary within the file. NTFS metadata files can also be defragmented. A command-line tool, defrag.exe, has been included, providing access to the defragmenter from cmd.exe and Task Scheduler. Non-persistent Shadow Copy support NTBackup has a wizard-based interface for ease of use and supports backing up locked files using Shadow Copy. 10.5 Windows Error Reporting Driver Verifier Manager, a GUI for Driver Verifier. Automated System Recovery Unified Registry editor Files and Settings Transfer Wizard and User State Migration Tool Several deployment tools improvements including enhancements to Sysprep, Setup Manager, introduction of WinPE Increased number of Group Policies and Resultant Set of Policy (RSoP) management console which allows administrators to see applied policies in logging mode or simulate policy settings that will be applied before committing to changes to objects in planning mode. A Desktop Cleanup Wizard was introduced to help users reduce clutter on their desktops, by looking at the shortcuts on the Desktop and moving any unused ones into a directory called "Unused Desktop Shortcuts". The Desktop Cleanup Wizard operates as a scheduled task that runs once a day to determine if it's been 60 days since the last time the wizard was run