Tech windows xp pro vs. windows xp media center

Media center is designed to function as a vcr tv, etc. I've heard they took away some things from the user interface also to simplify it like a Tivo. XP Pro is designed to get work done minus a TiVo wacky interface.

If you wanna see Mike, Im gonna load up MCE on one of my machines at the house when my mom leaves... or if you want me to load it up on yur machine, we can play with it... lol I've got both editions MCE and PRO CORP.

probably no different than the normal XP for gaming.

oh dear lord... im gonna have to clarify this... NT series was NOT based off of anything. The interface was similar to the Windows 3.1 series in NT 3.1 but there was NOTHING of the original source tree polluting this environment. And for the love, it was MOST DEFINITELY NOT based of Windows 95.

and for the record, don't anyone try to be a smart ass and argue with me on this shit. I worked at Microsoft on some the latter projects and I know EXACTLY what I'm talking about. Knowledge of the history of the operating system was paramount.


In order starting with DOS.

v1.0 - 1981 - First Operating System of the IBM-PC based systems

v1.25 - Fixed some bugs, was the first major release distributed by OEMs. Double sided disk support was seen first here.

v2.0 - 1983 - File hierarchy support was added and so was hard disk support! WOOT!

v2.01 - international support added

v2.11 - just som bug fixes to 2.0/1

v3.0 - 1984 - Came out with the first AT models, supported 1.2MB floppy (wow!) and larger hard disks (think we were up to a few MB on a HDD at this time)

v3.1 - some minimal support for MS networks added into this release.

v3.2 - 1986 - some new media types were added in this release (basically setting up the pathway for 1.44MB floppies, larger hdd support, etc)

v3.3 - 1987 - actual release for 1.44MB floppies, disks greater than 32MB, multiport serial interfaces.

v4.0 - Dosshell is born! TSR's are now supported, expanded memory support (emm386 anyone?), mem command, etc... etc...

v4.01 - bug fixes

v5.0 - 1992 - Support for upper memory blocks supporting HMA (himem anyone?) and usage of UMB for drivers (yay, we can play doom! with sound!! YAYAYAYAY!), larger partitions (still less than 2GB at this point), qbasic was included here, edit was included, and... dun dun dun! 2.88MB floppy support!
This was also the birth of online help.

v6.0 - 1994 - basically the same features as 5.0, with fixes and better handling of memory support, file system, etc.

v6.22 - 1994 - the final release of DOS... *roll music*


Now, with a little history of DOS. We'll now talk about Windows.

Windows started out life as ' Interface Manager ' in late September 1981 around the same time DOS 1 was released. It used multiplan (kinda like excel) and word-like menus that came up from the bottom of the screen. This however was changed in 1982 basically stealing the concept from XEROX Star and pull down menu's were added into the prototype. The project was renamed to ' Windows ' in 1983 and officially announced. Windows was pressured out by some competition from DESQ (i miss that fuckin thing, was great for BBS's) and Amiga workbench. November 1985 v1.0 hit the shelves.

November 1985:
Windows 1.0 - MS-DOS Executive, Calendar, Cardfile, Notepad, Terminal, Calculator, Clock, Reversi, Control Panel, PIF Editor, Print Spooler, Clipboard, RAMDrive, Windows Write, Windows Paint.

Fall 1987
Windows 2.0 - Included the above plus icons, overlapping windows and now had support for third party applications. Which later spawned support for things like word-perfect, excel, corel draw!, etc. Subsequent releases of the same 2.0 based system were called Windows/386 and Windows/286 for the different platforms.

May 1990
Windows 3.0 - A complete overhaul of its predecessors and the capability to map memory above 640k (thank you, omg thank you) this spawned the rash of independant vendors writing applications like mad for this new interface. This also had a HUGE burst of sales (10 milllion copies or so) and hurled MS into the market like no other.

April 1992
Windows 3.1 - bug fixes, refinements to application environment, etc...

October 1992
Windows 3.1 for Workgroups - networking biatch! printer sharing, microsoft mail, schedule +, omg... my career was about to be defined (about 3-4yrs earlier than i started doin it but okay) networking baby!

August 1993
Windows NT 3.1 - Microsoft's platform of choice for high-end systems. This release was mainly intended for use in network servers, workstations, software developement machines, etc... etc... etc... However, DOS was still in the picture here, and there was no intention to replace DOS with NT. Now, here's the kicker... while the interface was similar to Windows 3.1 it was entirely based off a new operating system kernel. a COMPLETE rewrite.

Feb 1994
Windows 3.11 -- added no new features, but fixed a bunch of problems - mainly network issues from workgroup edition. it was actually available (in upgrade form only) free from ftp.microsoft.com

As you may notice, the internet was now emerging - while it was harder for the common man to get on and download from ftp.microsoft.com oem's would use this method more commonly. BBS's still ruled here!


September 1994
Windows NT 3.5 - this release was a build from the NT 3.1 tree but introduced support for the OLE 2.0 system. This release actually reduced the memory requirements for NT (the first and last time this occured, lol). WIndows NT 3.5 Workstations replaced NT 3.1 and NT 3.5 Server replaced NT 3.1 Advanced Server.

June 1995
Windows NT 3.51 - this was the last release of NT 3.x before Cairo (NT 4.0)


August 1995
Windows Fucking 95 - 32 Bit operating system, providing FULL pre-emptive multitasking, advanced file systems, threading, networking, etc.. etc... While this release included a shell backend of DOS 7.0, it takes DOS away from the startup environment (which Windows 3.x still used prior to launch of the Windows system) which meant that now WINDOWS was it's own operating environment on the desktop. A complete revision of the interface was also part of this project. And... the blue screen of death was introduced to the general public. muhahaha!

August 1996
Windows NT 4.0 was released. The first object oriented windows and successor to the 3.51 franchise. While this OS had the look-feel of 95, it lacked in driver support as it was mainly designed for the high-end environments where office workstations/servers were primary. This OS was a bit more stable than 95 was however, due to it's lack of pollution by a ton of home-use drivers, etc...

November 1996
Windows CE 1.0 was released. The first release of an OS for handheld PC's and palm-sized PCS. Kept the look/feel of 95 & NT. While only about 500K devices were sold, it picked up some popularity among geeks.

June 1997 (I joined Microsoft)

November 1997
Windows CE 2.0 was released. It actually didn't really become avail until early 1998 but it was pretty badass. fixed a bunch of the issues found in 1.0 and made it more useful for business reasons rather than the average home user.

June 1998
Windows 98 released. WOW was that a friggin party or what! So much free booze, software to employees, bahah! I couldn't wait to go home and play with it. Integrated web browsing, active desktop, IE 4.0, FAT32, multiple display support (up to 8 monitors), dvd support (even tho it wasn't that popular yet), firewire, usb, etc... Here's some tidbit. The defragger for 98 was actually taken from NT 5.0 (2000). This release included quite a bit of rewrite and overhaul of the original 95 ideals and programming. It was a major improvement for the time.

July 1998
Windows CE 2.1 - just some updates

May 5, 1999
Windows 98/SE was released. OMG they fixed soo much broken stuff.

February 2000
Windows 2000 (NT 5.0) was released. By far one of the best and my favorite release of Window to that date (XP/2003 are my current preference for windows -- however keep in mind I am STILL a FREEBSD bigot, BSD > all). Anyway, this release combined the entire platform of internet, intranet, extranet etc... introduction of Active Directory, VPNs with secure encrypted connections across the internet. Consistent user access to files, objects, other pc's, blah blah blah blah... had all kinda new stuff in it which most of you are all familiar with to date in XP. This would also be the most mainstream version of Windows ever.

June 19, 2000
Windows ME was released. Why in the hell?! Probably the most fucked up OS Microsoft EVER put out. CRAP, total CRAP! Also note this is the DEATH of the 9x tree of sources. It no longer exists PERIOD! Win98 was supposed to be the end, but I think they just wanted to try to continue the project. HORRIBLE mistake.

October 25, 2001
Windows XP is released.

This is a whole new animal. XP was designed to not only replace Windows 2000 workstations, but 98/ME installations as well. Derived DIRECTLY from the windows 2000 source tree (as windows 2000 was derived DIRECTLY from the NT source tree) it was decided that all Windows technologies would come directly down this line from here on out. Now here's something on the editions:

First, XP pro is NOT based off XP home. XP PRO is the continuation of Windows 2000 Professional. XP home is a trimmed down version of XP PRO. XP PRO is the center of everything.

XP HOME - > downlevel version of XP PRO
XP PRO - > original release or next version after 2K PRO
XP MCE - > XP PRO with Multimedia driven additions.

March 28, 2003
Windows Server 2003 is released. While this is basically the next step in the Windows 2000 server evolution, it also marked the split in the source tree. XP series is designed around user level access, pretty GUI, etc... 2003 was almost a mirror image of 2003 in appearance and usability. However, many improvements were made to the AD system and other utilities.

Next on the list:

Windows Longhorn and Longhorn Server. Don't expect to see these until 2006 and 2007 respectively.

that is all.

Actually I think some of it was both 1) XP wasn't ready yet, 2) political reasons - ie, the blending of former 9x team members into the XP project would most definitely mean the cutting of jobs, so rather than do it all at once, they spread it out through the development phase of XP Home.

Just a thought. Once you've been in the environment you tend to pick up on how they tend to do things.