Windows XP Turns 5

Windows XP is celebrating its fifth birthday! Aren't you happy!

Wait, why did it get so quiet? Is anybody there?

Yes, Microsoft's operating system began arriving on new computers five years ago yesterday. So I used my latest column to revisit the major themes of this software's existence -- the things that have gone right and those that have gone wrong. (XP's formal release date, when it first showed up on store shelves, came on Oct. 25, 2001, but I figured that by the end of October, I'd have too many other column topics to revisit XP in this manner.)

I engaged in the same exercise with Mac OS X this spring, and for the same basic reasons: Some of the most important strengths and failings of an operating system don't emerge until it's been in the field for years.

Plus, I think it's basic accountability to revisit an old review and see if I possessed any foresight at the time, or if re-reading my previous work makes me want to wear a paper bag over my head.

Read my column: If Only We Knew Then What We Know Now About Windows XP.

I'll be online at 2 p.m. ET today to talk about this, and any other tech issues you have on your collective mind. Maybe we can't solve all the world's computing problems, but at least we can enjoy venting about them. Submit a question or comment here.

Five Years (And Change) of Windows XP

I first critiqued XP in April of 2001, when I wrote about the Beta 2 release, the first one available to journalists. I spent most of my time talking about the new interface:

"a garish new look that's as unsubtle as an old Holiday Inn sign. Title bars and the system task bar glow in a radioactive shade of blue, with close-window buttons lighted in red and the Start menu's root spray-painted in green. This isn't the sort of thing I'd want to stare at all day."

And what do I stare at all day? That exact same look. I guess you can get used to anything! (The review also noted that a laptop running XP failed to come out sleep mode -- I'm still having that problem today! -- and that XP ran the "I Love You" virus without hesitation.)

I tried out the "final" release of XP that September (the piece was scheduled to run the week of Sept. 11 until events intervened and bumped it back a couple of weeks). Here's the harshest critique in it:

"The ugliest part of XP, though, is Microsoft's self-promotion -- of its MSN Internet service, its Windows Media format and its ".Net" initiative. The last is an ambitious program to provide users with a single Passport sign-on -- stored by Microsoft itself -- to multiple Web sites and services, starting with Microsoft's Hotmail and Windows Messenger. Before you sign up, please ponder this: Do we need to cede yet another quadrant of the computing universe to Microsoft?"

Seeing as how Hotmail has been far outstripped by Yahoo Mail and Gmail, the MSN Internet service has become a brand offered by other Internet providers and nobody cares about Passport logins -- I guess we didn't need to cede that quadrant to Microsoft after all.

That review seems to have vanished from our site, but you can still read the transcript of my first Web chat about XP.

Note that 9 people asked questions about XP's "product activation" system, but only one asked about XP's security.

The first major update to XP came with Service Pack 1 in 2002, a yawner of a patch; you can read a copy of that review at the Web site of Columbia University law professor (and noted open-source advocate) Eben Moglen. Service Pack 2 brought much more dramatic, and needed, improvements in 2004; I don't think I've written such an unambiguous "install this now" recommendation for anything from Microsoft since then.

With Windows Vista nearing the end of its development cycle (here's my first look at this summer's Beta 2 release), I trust that I've written my last about XP. But I don't want to think about how much I may wind up writing about Vista...

More Great Moments in Government Computing

Need a spare laptop? You might want to stop by the Commerce Department.

Need $106 million of barely used electronic voting hardware? Head over to Annapolis; the state of of Maryland may be able to hook you up.

In Case You Missed It

Elsewhere in the personal-tech pages in Sunday Business, we had the following stories:

* In Web Watch, Frank Ahrens noted the recent contretemps at the social-networking site Facebook, which Yahoo is now reportedly talking about buying for a billion dollars or so.

* Contributor David Betancourt writes about a strange tech-evangelism tour called the Tech Know Overload, sponsored by the Consumer Electronics Association and coming to a college near you.

* And in Help File, I outline how to tell a company by the way it presents itself to users and remind folks about how to get iTunes to finish a download interrupted by a restart.