We ran a story about this a couple of days ago but now Microsoft has made it official. WindowsXP is slated for release in all its glory on October 25th of this year in two flavors. WindowsXP Home and WindowsXP Professional. Thanks Ryu

Windows XP will be the biggest Windows marketing event in Microsoft history -- doubling the investment of the Windows 95 launch in the first four months of product availability alone. This incredible marketing push by Microsoft and industry partners is expected to unleash tremendous demand for the experiences that Windows XP enables.

Combine all the commercials we're gonna be seeing for XP along with X-Box and that's a lot of damn Microsoft commercials. Hopefully they have dancing monkeys or something. I like the monkeys.

Microsoft has announced a shipping date of WindowsXP and it's this year. They are shooting for the new OS to be available for purchase on October 29th which is about half a year from now.

FiringSquad has gotten a hold of a recent WindowsXP beta and goes over what the OS looks like and functions like etc. Microsoft actually sent me a review copy which I'm hoping to give a whirl in a couple of weeks.

HardOCP has a bit on the WindowsXP authentication stuff that seems to make a bit more sense. You only have to get a key created once and authenticate once no matter how many times you install and the only time you'll run into trouble is if the same key is used like 1,000 times.

Your product key is bound to the hardware in your system. If you change your hardware SIGNIFICANTLY, you can still reactivate. (In fact, only on HIGH volume keys with different hardware will MS stop accepting the pirate key.) ie. Customer has a product key, he can go through a FEW COMPLETE computer overhauls, use the same product key, and be just fine. NOW, if a product key is used in 1000 different hardware configurations, we don’t let THAT product get activated. The PID has then become worthless. Nobody can activate Windows with it. This makes PID sharing (the most common form of Windows piracy) a little more costly

Thats a bit more reasonable than the earlier information we were reading about the WinXP key system. Seems basically like the Half-Life or Quake3 key system except the key is generated dynamically the first time you install.

Good old Microsoft. In a move to get people to buy Windows XP, they will only be offering the new Windows Media Player to those who do have the OS. Only the older WMP 7 will continue to be a free download. Like the tying of IE with Windows a few years ago, Microsoft is now saying again they need WinXP functionality for some features in WMP8

Repeating the company's argument for bundling Internet Explorer with Windows, a Microsoft representative said Media Player 8 includes new features that require close integration with Windows XP for optimal performance.
"There are some features with Windows Media Player that can only be delivered with Windows XP," said Jonathan Usher, Microsoft's group product manager for Windows Media Player. These include CD burning and DVD movie playback, among other features not available with earlier versions of the product.

Although, if WMP8 is the same piece of crap that WMP7 is, I don't really care much.

You guys are gonna love this one. As everyone knows the RIAA and all kinds of other corporations dont really like the MP3 format and have been coming up with their own audio compressed file formats for a while hoping to get people to switch. It hasnt been successful at all though. But guess what?

Microsoft and Seattle-based RealNetworks are working to subtly wean consumers away from MP3 technology, [...] plans to severely limit the quality of music that can be recorded as an MP3 file using software built into the next version of its personal-computer operating system, Windows XP, according to the report.

Uh WHAT?! Cripple your software intentionally because you dont like a particular file format? Thanks Orion

The evil empire and their .NET project is becoming more clear. In fact in case there was any doubt yet another new service for you to give MS money is being developed. the Personal.NET project. It's basically a web based subscription where you pay to get tools that are currently in MS Office and other things of that nature from what I can gather. Still not entirely clear and plans may change.

The company has long received the bulk of its revenue from selling software for personal computers. The .NET effort was formed last year, in part to create Internet-based services that could bring recurring revenue streams to the company.

Speaking of that stuff, Yahoo is doing even more payfor stuff.

Another Windows XP story has made it's way to ZDNet where editor David Coursey takes a look at the system specs that Microsoft would like to see from hardware manufacturers. If the PC makers want to put a Windows XP logo on their systems, they'd have to follow the guidelines. Overall a pretty normal list until you get to this part..

The system does not allow end-user access to expansion bus cards. This means users will no longer routinely open their PCs to add peripherals

No access to expansion slots? Riiight. Thanks gonk. update Steve: Everyone congratulate ZDNet on excellent context and editing skills!

Beta2 of Windows XP is off to testers, and so the NDA has been lifted for people to talk some more about the first beta. There's a brief write-up at ZDNet and a lengthier one at CNet (thanks to Stomped for both of those). It looks like this "Experience" version of Windows is all that but mainly requires a hefty system to run.

You need, essentially, a new or extremely recent computer, 128MB of RAM (at least; our test laptop was decked out with 320MB), 2GB of free disk space, and, if you're upgrading, you must have Windows 98 or above. In fact, Microsoft says you'll have the best experience only if you buy a brand-new system with XP preinstalled. ... Unless you're planning to buy a new system when Windows XP hits the shelves, your XP experience likely won't be as smooth as Microsoft hopes. Though Windows XP may be, as Gates and company have said, the most important release since Windows 95, it's not an upgrade you should consider lightly

The Windows XP feature being called WPA "Windows Product Activation" has been getting a huge amount of reaction an scrutiny. (Sounds awful shitty to me). The Ars-Technica guys have gotten the scoop on just what the heck this is all about and if we're actually going to be expected to pay a monthly fee for WindowsXP to be on our machines.

... If WPA is in your copy of Windows XP, you'll have 30 days to activate the product [...] enter your Product ID code at installation, just as before. When contacting Microsoft, you will provide that Product ID code and a "hardware code" generated by WPA. Taking these two numbers, Microsoft will then issue you another ID, and it's this ID that will activate Windows [...] The difference now is that the OS, rather than query a device on COM 2, now queries a central storage system run by Microsoft. If the Product ID is sent off to Microsoft from two different computers, it's going to notice this, and deny the registration. Microsoft's method of discerning one computer from another relies on the Hardware ID generated by the OS.

Even more WindowsXP stuff for you guys, the official website is online that you can check out here. Thanks Clay Templeton

CNN has a preview of the Windows XP OS, along with info on the lavish event that's planned to officially launch the product on Tuesday. Windows XP itself (formerly code named Whistler) should be out by the fourth quarter. This Tuesday launch party will also have the official announcement of Microsoft starting to sell subscription-based updates. Thanks wunderbred.

When you purchase Windows XP you will buy it at a low (cost) but will have to agree to pay each year," he said. "Our recommendation on the business side is that organizations not pay any more than 25 percent of the upgrade price. I am sure Microsoft will go over that, but the question is by how much.

As was anticipated last week, Microsoft has announced their new product names. Windows XP and Office XP.  What does Windows XP stand for? They are claiming 'Windows Experience'. I'm betting we can come up with a few more creative possibilities...

"These breakthrough versions of Windows and Office will give people the most powerful end-to-end computing experiences ever available," said Bill Gates, chairman and chief software architect of Microsoft. "The coming generation of Windows XP and Office XP will enable customers to communicate and collaborate more effectively, be more creative and productive, and have more fun with technology."

Well, XP doesnt offend me nearly as much as WindowsME did. Of course when I actually installed WindowsME (once) thats when I got really offended. WindowsXP will be sporting that same kernel as Windows2000 though which is a good thing.

Looks like Microsoft is playing with some new names for future products, looking to change Office 10 and Whistler to Office XP and Windows XP. People are speculating it stands for "experience" or "experienced", others say it's for the whole Microsoft .Net project since XP is also the name of Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) for messaging that Microsoft and others have embraced. All in all, confusing while it shouldn't be?

On the Office side, Microsoft has been wrestling with what to call Office 10, as it is using the Office 2001 name for the forthcoming Mac version of its Office suite. Sources said that Microsoft also did not want to call Office 10 "Office.Net," since the Office 10 suite will be only loosely tied to the company's .Net strategy. Microsoft is, however, using the .Net naming convention with its forthcoming version of its Visual Studio tool suite, which the company has said it will call "Visual Studio.Net."