Users were given the ability to switch back to the older Windows Classic visual style from previous versions of Windows and customize the preset Windows Classic color schemes. It had three color schemes, which were based on blue, green, and silver. Users could change the way windows and buttons looked with the new Luna visual style.

Windows XP received a major UI overhaul during development through the introduction of visual styles.

6.1 Additional products in the source code.

Windows XP lost full support on 9 April 2019 when the extended lifecycle for its last remaining derivative, Windows Embedded POSReady 2009, had ended.

mitigations for the BlueKeep RDP vulnerability released in 2019.

mitigations for the ETERNALBLUE SMB vulnerability, notably used by the WannaCry ransomware released in 2017.

a high-risk Internet Explorer vulnerability released in 2014.

Despite this, a total of three out-of-band updates were released for the operating system, fixing the following issues: Mainstream and extended support ended on 14 April 2009 and 8 April 2014 respectively. It is one of Microsoft's longest-lasting operating systems, with almost 13 years of support (both mainstream and extended) and still runs on 0.4% of computers worldwide as of March 2023. There were two individual versions of the tool to create boot disks for either XP Home Edition or Professional. The boot disks had to be created manually using a tool, which could be downloaded from the Microsoft web page. Unlike prior releases, Windows XP no longer ships with a set of bootable floppy disks by default. It is the final client version of Windows to support computers without ACPI and the last client version of Windows NT to use NTLDR to boot the system. It also succeeded Windows Me after the end of the Windows 9x kernel. It is the sixth operating system in the Windows NT operating system line, succeeding both Windows 2000 as a Professional edition and Windows Me as a Home edition and preceding Windows Vista for both consumer and media center editions. It was released to manufacturing on 24 August 2001 and later made generally available on 25 October 2001.

Windows XP, codenamed Whistler, is an operating system developed by Microsoft.

Windows xp service pack 2 support tools