Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition FULL VERSION with SP2

Other products by Microsoft

Product Features

• Operating system features -
• Create and enjoy home movies with the built-in Video support
• Share your video project with the easy E-mail attachment & mass-mailing features
• Go Mobile with the ability to Communicate anytime, anywhere
• Discover and Download online music, with the easy-to-use Internet features

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 8 x 1 x 6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B00022PTRU
• Item model number: N09-00984
• Date first available at Amazon.com: August 24, 2005
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (103 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #21 in Software (See Bestsellers in Software)

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  Software > Operating Systems > Microsoft Windows > Windows XP

Product Description

Amazon Product Description
With Windows XP Home Edition with Service Pack 2, you get safer browsing and communication, powerful security tools, and improved experiences. Packed with multimedia features, Windows XP Home Edition with Service Pack 2 aims to unlock the full potential of your personal computer. It also looks great, with rounded window corners, larger and more detailed icons, and a clean-look desktop.

The Security Center lets you check the status of your essential security settings.

The best thing about Windows XP is that, because it belongs to the Windows NT/2000 product family, it's designed from the ground up for reliability, security, and networking. XP Home users will soon see the benefits of this. The dreaded Windows crash-and-reboot cycle really is much less common with XP, and, provided the hardware is up to scratch, XP's performance is better, too. The downside is that using a different code base can make compatibility with old applications less assured. Business applications normally run fine, but older games, MIDI software, and system utilities may well cause problems. Windows XP is more customizable than previous versions, including its visual themes that let you change the whole appearance of Windows in an instant. Fast User Switching is a neat feature for computers used by more than one person--it lets another user log on without killing the previous user's session, and when you switch back, running applications and open documents are as you left them. This is impressive, but what really counts is that XP understands how to deal with multiple users. Each user has their own special folders, such as My Documents, which cannot be seen by other users. And for those with more than one computer, the network setup wizard simplifies setting up a network.

Windows XP Home has many strong multimedia features. New Media Player lets you copy music from CD to hard disk, create your own playlist, and write your own music CDs if you have a CD writer. You can also play back DVD-Video (but only if a hardware or software DVD decoder is already installed) and play MP3 audio files and MPEG videos (but sadly not the popular RealMedia formats). Admittedly, Media Player does nothing that you cannot also do with free alternatives, but it is slick and nicely integrated. There is also Windows Movie Maker, a basic tool for capturing and editing videos that's fun to use, although too limited for serious work.

The Information Bar in Windows XP Home Edition with Service Pack 2 notifies you when it blocks ActiveX control or active content and then lets you decide what to do.

For Web browsing, XP Home comes with Internet Explorer 6.0 and MSN Explorer. The most significant new feature for Internet users is the built-in firewall. A firewall protects against one of the most disturbing security risks, in which other users unknown to you might connect to your computer while it is online, reading private files or causing other damage. XP's built-in firewall is a simple affair, but it does prevent most types of unauthorized connections.

Service Pack 2 allows users to instruct Internet Explorer how to handle downloads from a specific publisher

The XP user interface is not a radical departure from earlier versions of Windows, but there are a number of small changes that together add up to a significant improvement. For example, you can add and remove shortcuts from the Start menu by right-clicking on the icon and selecting Pin or Unpin from the pop-up menu. Windows online help is integrated into a Help and Support Center that works like an internal Web site, with searchable help, tutorials, and walkthroughs. Laptop or other flat-screen users can set Windows to use ClearType for screen fonts, for a more readable display. There are, of course, some pitfalls. Windows XP Home is demanding on hardware, and it would be a mistake to install it on less than Microsoft's recommended minimum. Business users note: unlike Windows 98 or Me, XP Home Edition cannot join a Windows server domain, so the networking is peer-to-peer only--see Windows XP Professional Edition for this functionality. There is also no multiprocessor support, and a mildly annoying anti-piracy measure requires you to obtain a code from Microsoft for full installation and any future system changes. But don't let that put you off: this is Microsoft's best Windows yet.

Windows XP Service Pack 2 Features

Internet Explorer Pop-up Blocker	Makes browsing the Internet more enjoyable by enabling you to reduce unwanted ads and content.
Internet Explorer download monitoring	Warns you about potentially harmful downloads and gives you the option to block files that could be malicious.
Internet Explorer Information Bar	Provides better information about events that are happening as you browse the Web, so it’s easier to know what’s going on and address potential security issues.
Windows Security Center	Allows you to easily view your security status and manage key security settings in one convenient place.
Windows Firewall update	Automatically turned on by default, this improved firewall helps protect Windows XP from viruses, worms, and other security threats that can spread over the Internet.
Improved wireless support	Dramatically improves and simplifies the process of discovering and connecting to wireless networks.
Bluetooth technologies	Enables you to easily connect to the latest Bluetooth-enabled hardware devices such as keyboards, cell phones, and PDAs.
Windows Media Player 9 Series	Makes it easy to enjoy music, video, and broadband content with enhanced security.

Product Description
Windows XP Home makes it easy to use your Computer for those Personal projects you enjoy. Service Packs round up the bug fixes and product updates you need for operating more smoothly. This Service Pack bridges the gaps between the original software and user requests more fully, responding to customer wishes -- and making XP even better.
Share your home computing resources with simple-to-use Networking tools Service Pack features - Security Center offers a central control system for your Windows XP security -- work with the firewalls, auto updates and antivirus tools Great news for people sick of pop-up ads - The built-in pop-up blocker controls them, with a new submenu and status bar icons New Add-Ons manager gives you instant access to all the Browser Helper Objects and extensions, enabling and disabling them easily Firewall now has its own control panel Enhancements to the Windows Update service make installing new updates easy Wireless Networking - Multiple wireless connections to choose from

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

201 of 215 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Windows XP is stable, won't crash is great for plug & play, January 22, 2005

By	Charles Bittner "www.AskACapper.com" (Seacoast New Hampshire) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

If you're reading this. You're thinking of buying Windows XP home edition here are a few things to keep in mind.

First thing is, you might be able to get away with buying just the upgrade edition. The upgrade edition allows you to do a full install. It just asks you for the CD of a previous version of Windows. Also remember you can download service pack two from the Windows update web site. So no need to buy it integrated with XP.

These are what I consider the minimum system requirements:

256 MB of RAM. I have found is adequate more equals better.
500 MHz or higher will do.
7200 rpm hard drive will help a lot.

If you're running Windows millennium edition, or 98 upgrade now the stability is vastly improved. Gone are the blue screens of death.

Frequently asked question: is Windows XP Pro better than home edition?

Windows XP Pro has a more high-end networking features that most home users will never miss or would even know were missing. So for most users Windows home edition is fine. They both are based on the same code and are almost identical.

If you're thinking of upgrading from Windows 2000, I did, because I like the GUI interface better. But Windows XP is as stable as Windows 2000. So it's your call.

The plug-and-play ability of Windows XP is totally great! Windows XP will by default find most drivers for video card sound cards, network cards, etc. that is such a bonus gone in the days of having to search for CDs with drivers.

I recommend upgrading to Windows XP be it professional or home edition. It is a great operating system

Have some fun and get it done

56 of 58 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Apple's Boot Camp and Windows XP, April 7, 2007

By	S. Reeves "Semper Fi!" (SF Bay Area, California) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I took the plunge and downloaded Apple's Boot Camp for the Intel based Macintosh. I had some old PC games so I thought this was worth giving a try. Apple's setup process was seamless for partioning a seperate drive I installed just for Windows XP. Then you get to the Windoze part of installation with the famous blue screen. It does look antiquated, but I followed Boot Camp's instructions to install. Windows XP took about 90 minutes via the "standard" insall method. Apple's OS X as I remember installed in about 10-20 minutes!

Since my installation about four months ago, Windows XP has been running just fine. I have actually gone onto getting additional PC games of my Windows XP disk. So this is great for those who want to have a Mac OS X side for work and a Windows XP side for play. Plus it looks like there won't be many games available in the future for OS X.

Apple's latest version of Boot Camp includes Windows Vista support, however I think I will hold off given the written reviews here on Vista. Windows XP does just fine for gaming.

41 of 43 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Good Software, March 3, 2008

By	Privacy Please (USA) - See all my reviews

This is great for Mac users who want to add Windows to their computers. Please note that you will also need to either download Apple's "Bootcamp" software, or purchase Parallel software (which Amazon also sells) and install it before installing the Windows XP software. It's worth the money.