Programming Windows: XP Reloaded (Premium)

Despite the perpetual Longhorn delays, Microsoft decided in early 2004 to forego a new version of Windows XP to bridge the gap. Instead, it plotted a marketing push codenamed “XP Reloaded” that would promote new PCs based on Windows XP with Service Pack 2 (SP2), Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005, Windows XP Tablet PC Edition 2005, and a wide range of multimedia enhancements.

“Despite Microsoft's repeated denials, the company will indeed release an interim version of Windows XP that will bridge the gap between the initial XP release and Windows Longhorn, which is currently due in late 2005 at the earliest,” I wrote in February 2004. “The interim XP version will ship as a new retail product that replaces existing retail boxed copies of XP and as a set of updates, called XP Reloaded, that existing XP users can install separately. According to sources I contacted this morning, XP Reloaded will include all the features from XP Service Pack 2 (SP2), which is due by midyear, as well as a host of other unique features, including Windows Media Player (WMP) 10.”

“Other details about XP Reloaded are unknown at this time, although the update kit apparently will include a web-based installer application that will let users choose optional features. Reports about an XP Version 2 release first cropped up more than a year ago, but Microsoft officials repeatedly denied that the company planned to issue such a release. In early 2004, when the company revealed the new security features that XP SP2 will include, the rumors resurfaced. But the XP Reloaded OS refresh will clearly include a lot more than security updates, possibly in a bid to revive consumer excitement about XP while Microsoft preps the ever-delayed Longhorn release.”

When I asked Microsoft to comment on this news, the software giant was noncommittal.

"We look forward to outlining all the details but at this time we don't have anything to announce," a Microsoft representative told me.

Off the record, I was told that XP Reloaded would be free to all XP users and that “XP Reloaded” would not be the final name for the add-on kit. And for the time being, Microsoft was understandably more interested in concentrating on the security-oriented XP Service Pack 2 (SP2).

That March, I discovered that Microsoft was considering an interim Windows XP update for business users, analogous to Windows Server 2003 R2, called D2. (Get it? R2-D2.) That never happened, of course. Instead, Microsoft pushed Windows XP SP2 on businesses, as it did on consumers, and it made sure that SP2 was integrated into its corporate XP images as quickly as possible.

In April, I learned that Microsoft planned a marketing blitz for Windows XP that would be timed to start with the general availability of XP SP2, then expected in June. But it would also include new digital media enhancements, including “two low-priced Microsoft Plus! packs, one designed for digital media; one...

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