Windows XP introduced many features not found in previous versions of Windows.
User interface and appearance
GDI+ powered graphics architecture
With the introduction of Windows XP, GDI was deprecated in favor of its successor, the C++ based GDI+ subsystem. GDI+ adds anti-aliased 2D graphics, textures, floating point coordinates, gradient shading, more complex path management, intrinsic support for modern graphics-file formats like JPEG and PNG, and support for composition of affine transformations in the 2D view pipeline. GDI+ uses ARGB values to represent color. Use of these features is apparent in Windows XP's user interface (drop shadows for icon labels on the desktop, shadows under menus, translucent blue selection rectangle in Windows Explorer, sliding task panes and taskbar buttons), and several of its applications such as Microsoft Paint, Windows Picture and Fax Viewer, Photo Printing Wizard , My Pictures Slideshow screensaver, and their presence in the basic graphics layer greatly simplifies implementations of vector-graphics systems such as Flash or SVG. The GDI+ dynamic library can be shipped with an application and used under older versions of Windows.
Start menu and Taskbar
With Windows XP, the taskbar and the Start button have been updated to support Fitt's law. To help the user access a wider range of common destinations more easily from a single location, the Start menu was expanded to two columns; the left column focuses on the user's installed applications, while the right column provides access to the user's documents, and system links which were previously located on the desktop. Links to the My Documents, My Pictures and other special folders are brought to the fore. The My Computer and My Network Places ( Network Neighborhood in Windows 95 and 98) icons were also moved off the Desktop and into the Start menu, making it easier to access these icons while a number of applications are open. Moreover, these links can be configured to expand as a cascading menu. Frequently used programs are automatically displayed in the left column, newly installed programs are highlighted, and the user may opt to "pin" programs to the start menu so that they are always accessible without having to navigate through the Programs folders. The default internet browser and default email program are pinned to the Start menu. The Start menu is fully customizable, links can be added or removed; the number of frequently used programs to display can be set. The All Programs menu expands like the classic Start menu to utilize the entire screen but can be set to scroll programs. The user account picture is also shown on the Start menu.
The taskbar now supports locking and unlocking to prevent itself from being accidentally resizes or elements such as Quick launch and other DeskBands from being moved inadvertently. The Taskbar grouping feature combines multiple buttons of the same application into a single button, which when clicked, pops up a menu listing all the grouped windows and their number. Advanced taskbar grouping options can be configured from the registry . The user can choose to always show, always hide or hide some or all notification area icons if inactive for some time. A button allows the user to reveal all the icons.
Windows Explorer
There are significant changes made to Windows Explorer in Windows XP, both visually and functionally. Microsoft focused especially on making Windows Explorer more discoverable and task-based, as well as adding a number of features to reflect the growing use of a computer as a “digital hub”.
Task pane and navigation pane
The task pane is displayed on the left side of the window instead of the traditional folder tree view when the navigation pane is turned off. It presents the user with a list of common actions and destinations that are relevant to the current directory or file(s) selected. For instance, when in a directory containing mostly pictures, a set of “Picture tasks” is shown, offering the options to display these pictures as a slide show, to print them, or to go online to order prints. Conversely, a folder containing music files would offer options to play those files in a media player, or to go online to purchase music.
Every folder also has “File and Folder Tasks”, offering options to create new folders, share a folder on the local network, publish files or folders to a web site, and other common tasks like copying, renaming, moving, and deleting files or folders. File types that have identified themselves as being printable also have an option listed to print the file.
Underneath “File and Folder Tasks” is “Other Places”, which always lists the parent folder of the folder being viewed and includes additional links to other common locations such as “My Computer”, “Control Panel”, and “My Documents” or previously navigated locations. These change depending on what folder the user was in.
Underneath “Other Places” is a “Details” pane which gives additional information when a file or folder is selected – typically the file type, file size and date modified, but depending on the file type, author, image dimensions, attributes, or other details. If the file type has a Thumbnail image handler installed, its preview also appears in the "Details" task pane. For music files, it might show the artist, album title, and the length of the song. The same information is also shown horizontally on the status bar .
The “Folders” button on the Windows Explorer toolbar toggles between the traditional navigation pane containing the tree view of folders, and the task pane. Users can also close the navigation pane by clicking the Close button in its right corner as well as turn off the task pane from Folder Options.
The navigation pane has been enhanced in Windows XP to support "simple folder view" which when turned on hides the dotted lines that connect folders and subfolders and makes folders browsable with single click while still keeping double clicking on in the the right pane. Single clicking in simple folder view auto expands the folder and clicking another folder automatically expands that folder and collapses the previous one.
Search
Microsoft introduced animated “Search Companions” in an attempt to make searching more engaging and friendly; the default character is a puppy named Rover, with three other characters (Merlin the magician, Earl the surfer, and Courtney) also available. These search companions powered by Microsoft Agent technology, bear a great deal of similarity to Microsoft Office’s Office Assistants, even incorporating “tricks” and sound effects. However, search companion can be turned off and the user can revert to using classic search.
The search capability itself is fairly similar to Windows Me and Windows 2000, with some important additions: Search can also be instructed to search only files that are categorically “Documents” or “Pictures, music and video"; this feature is noteworthy largely because of how Windows determines what types of files can be classified under these categories . Another important addition is that the "Look in" field accepts environment variables. Also, users can configure whether or not Windows XP searches for system and/or hidden files and folders.
Image handling
Windows XP improves image preview by offering a Filmstrip view which shows images in a single horizontal row and a large preview of the currently selected image above it. “Back” and “Previous” buttons facilitate navigation through the pictures, and a pair of “Rotate” buttons offer 90-degree clockwise and counter-clockwise rotation of images. Aside from the Filmstrip view mode, there is a 'Thumbnails' view, which displays thumbnail-sized images in the folder and also displays images a subfolder may be containing (4 by default) overlaid on a large folder icon. A folder's thumbnail view can be customized from the Customize tab accessible from its Properties, where users can also change the folder's icon and specify a template type (pictures, music, videos, documents) for that folder and optionally all its subfolders. The size and quality of thumbnails in "Thumbnails" view can be adjusted using Tweak UI or the registry. Exif metadata stored in the image is also shown in the file's Properties -> Summary tab , in "Details" view and in any view on the status bar. Windows XP optionally caches the thumbnails in a "Thumbs.db" file in the same folder as the pictures so that thumbnails are generated faster the next time.
Other shell improvements
- In Windows XP, a "WebDAV mini-redirector" has been added which is preferred over the old Web folders client, by default. This newer client works as a system service at the network-redirector level (immediately above the file-system), allowing WebDAV shares to be assigned to a drive letter and used by any software. The redirector also allows WebDAV shares to be addressed via UNC paths (e.g. http://host/path/ is converted to \\host\path\ ) for compatib
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