Windows Millennium Edition, or Windows ME (marketed as being pronounced as the pronoun "Me", but commonly pronounced as an initialism, "M-E"), is a graphical operating system from Microsoft released to manufacturing on June 19, 2000 and launched on September 14, 2000. It was the last operating system released in the Windows 9x series.
Windows ME was the successor to Windows 98 and was targeted specifically at home PC users. It included Internet Explorer 5.5, Windows Media Player 7, and the new Windows Movie Maker software, which provided basic video editing and was designed to be easy to use for home users. Microsoft also updated the graphical user interface, shell features, and Windows Explorer in Windows ME with some of those first introduced in Windows 2000, which had been released as a business-oriented operating system seven months earlier. Windows ME could be upgraded to Internet Explorer 6 SP1 (but not to SP2 (SV1) or Internet Explorer 7), Outlook Express 6 SP1 and Windows Media Player 9 Series. Microsoft .NET Framework up to and including version 2.0 is supported; however, versions 2.0 SP1, 3.x, and greater are not. Office XP was the last version of Microsoft Office to be compatible with Windows ME.
Windows ME is a continuation of the Windows 9x model, but with restricted access to real mode MS-DOS in order to decrease system boot time. This was one of the most unpopular changes in Windows ME, because applications that needed real mode DOS to run, such as older disk utilities, did not run under Windows ME (although the system could be booted into real mode DOS using a bootable Windows ME floppy disk).
Compared with other releases of Windows, Windows ME had a short shelf-life of just over a year. Microsoft aimed to make ME the first consumer Windows OS based on the NT kernel. However, this did not happen and ME was rushed to the market after the Neptune project was canceled. Windows ME was often criticized for being buggy, slow and unstable. Windows ME, along with Windows 2000, were soon replaced by the NT-based Windows XP, which was launched on October 25, 2001. Support for Windows ME ended on July 11, 2006.
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Windows XP (codenamed Whistler) is a personal computer operating system produced by Microsoft as part of theWindows NT family of operating systems. The operating system was released to manufacturing on August 24, 2001, and generally 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 kernelwhich 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 useproduct activation in an effort to reduce software piracy.
Upon its release Windows XP received generally positive reviews, with critics noting increased performance (especially in comparison to Windows ME), a more intuitive user interface, improved hardware support, and its expanded multimedia capabilities. Despite some initial concerns over the new licensing model and product activation system, Windows XP eventually proved to be popular and widely used. It is estimated that at least 400 million copies of Windows XP were sold globally within its first five years of availability, and at least one billion copies were sold by April 2014.
Windows XP remained popular even after the release of newer versions, particularly due to the poorly received release of its successor Windows Vista. Vista's 2009 successor, Windows 7, only overtook XP in total market share at the end of 2011.
Sales of Windows XP licenses to original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) ceased on June 30, 2008, but continued fornetbooks until October 2010. Extended support for Windows XP ended on April 8, 2014, after which the operating systemceased receiving further support or security updates to most users.
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