Fans of retro tech, including me, often get nostalgic about Windows XP. I used it in my childhood but didn’t think it was anything special, until a few months ago when I came across a project that modified Windows 11 to look exactly like XP. I’ve been down the XP rabbit hole since and learned some cool things you might not know.
1 Some People Hated the XP Design
With Windows XP, Microsoft reinvented the entire theme of Windows. For many people coming from Windows 2000, with its straightforward boxy beige design, the bright and colorful look-and-feel of XP felt plasticity and ugly.
The basic, flat design of Windows 2000 made the candy colors of XP feel like it was designed for kids. People in online forums called it the Fisher-Price OS (like the toy company) and the Teletubby OS. Check out threads on forums like Ars, they’re a fun read.
People also compared it to the old school Aqua interface of macOS and wished Microsoft had gone in that direction. Weirdly enough, Microsoft did experiment with an Aqua-style XP theme (as reported by The Verge). It never made it to public release, but the XP source code was leaked and the theme is included in that. It looks more like Windows 2K than XP.
Happily, the classic old theme was still bundled with every release of Windows XP, so the redesign wasn’t a real problem for people who had a gripe with it.
2 The Activation System Controversy
Before Windows XP, you could buy a copy of Windows and install it on as many machines as you wanted. It was never locked down at any point. With Windows XP, Microsoft introduced a new activation feature which linked the copy of Windows to the hardware it was installed on. So you needed to buy one copy of Windows for each machine.
It sounds pretty routine now, but back then it was a very controversial move. You had to either go online (and not everyone had the internet back then) or call Microsoft. While on the phone, you’d have to relay a 50-digit code to the support staff to identify your machine, and then you’d have to punch in the 42-digit key they gave you. You can imagine why it didn’t go over well with customers.
3 Many Computers Still Run Windows XP
Microsoft has long cut off support for Windows XP. The last XP release, the Service Pack 3, came out in 2008 and the extended support for it ended in 2014. Per Statcounter, even a decade later, almost a quarter of a percent of all Windows PCs are running XP. That comes out to some 5.5 million Windows XP boxes in the world right now.
Who’s using this 20-year-old operating system today? The answer is legacy systems. Industrial, commercial, and scientific equipment that’s too expensive to upgrade or runs some special legacy software that only works on old versions of Windows. ComputerWorld claims that NASA might still be running XP systems over at the Goddard Space Flight Center. The same goes for some U.S. defense systems.
Then there are retro enthusiasts who just enjoy the nostalgia and the simplicity of Windows XP. You can’t really browse the internet well on XP anymore because all browsers have dropped support for it. But, you can play retro games to your heart’s content. Shout out to readers who remember 3D Pinball: Space Cadet.
4 XP at One Point Had More Users Than Windows 8
Windows 7 was originally released in 2009 and Windows 8 came out in 2012. Even two versions later, Windows XP was still more popular than Windows 8, according to VentureBeat.
One year after its release, Windows 8 was only running on 12.26% of all Windows computers. During the same period, Windows XP was still holding on to 17.18% of the market share. Windows 8, on the other hand, struggled to get off the ground. Even after support for XP ended, Windows 8 never saw the wide adoption other versions of Windows did.
5 XP’s Default Wallpaper Bliss Could Be the Most Viewed Photo Ever
Microsoft sold some 400 million copies of Windows XP in just the first five years of its release. These millions of Windows XP copies had all the iconic default wallpaper. Some argue that it makes that wallpaper, officially called Bliss, the most viewed photograph in the world. Some say it’s the most famous photograph in the world.
It was taken in California by the Nat Geo photographer Charles O’Rear, shot on film and submitted without any modifications or editing. According to an official documentary, Microsoft potentially bought it for $100,000 (the actual sum is kept confidential).
6 Merging 9X and NT Codebases
Before Windows XP, Microsoft had two separate lines of operating systems. One for home desktops and one for businesses and professionals. The home version, called Windows 9x, was more user-friendly and the pro version, Windows NT, was more robust and stable.
Instead of maintaining two separate codebases, Microsoft decided to ditch Win 9x and shift Windows XP to the NT kernel. This core has powered every subsequent release of Windows, including Windows 11.
7 Windows XP Had a 64-Bit Version
You couldn’t use more than 4GB of RAM on Windows ME, Win2K or other older versions of Windows. That’s because they were built on a 32-bit architecture, which had limited memory support.
With Windows XP, Microsoft released an additional 64-bit edition that supported up to 128GB of memory. It was compatible with 32-bit apps and introduced some performance improvements over the 32-bit edition.
8 Microsoft Was Forced to Add a Firewall in Windows XP Post Release
Windows XP was the target of some serious worm attacks that spread across a lot of networks, crashing systems in the process. These worms (malware that automatically copies itself from one computer to another) could be stopped with a properly configured firewall. However, the firewall shipped with XP was disabled by default, and it wasn’t equipped to deal with sophisticated attacks.
Following many security incidents at airports, hospitals, and the British Coastguard, Microsoft was forced to include a fully-featured firewall called the Windows Firewall in Windows XP Service Pack 2.
In retrospect, Windows XP has become my favorite version of Windows. If Microsoft still supported it, I’d be running it instead of modern Windows! But I’ll make do with theming Windows 11 to look like XP.