Windows XP is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It was released to manufacturing on August 24, 2001, and later to retail on October 25, 2001. It is a direct upgrade to its predecessors, Windows 2000 for high-end and business users and Windows Me for home users, and is available for any devices running Windows NT 4.0, Windows 98, Windows 2000, or Windows Me that meet the new Windows XP system requirements.
An electroencephalograph running on Windows XP. The medical industry's continued use of Windows XP is partly due to medical applications being incompatible with later versions of Windows.
Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Microsoft's best-known software products are the Windows line of operating systems, the Microsoft 365 suite of productivity applications, and the Edge web browser. Its flagship hardware products are the Xbox video game consoles and the Microsoft Surface lineup of touchscreen personal computers. Microsoft ranked No. 14 in the 2022 Fortune 500 rankings of the largest United States corporations by total revenue; and it was the world's largest software maker by revenue in 2022 according to Forbes Global 2000. It is considered one of the Big Five American information technology companies, alongside Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, and Meta.
Aerial view of the Microsoft Redmond campus
An Altair 8800 computer (left) with the popular Model 33 ASR Teletype as terminal, paper tape reader, and paper tape punch
Paul Allen and Bill Gates on October 19, 1981, after signing a pivotal contract with IBM
Bill Gates and Paul Allen's Original Business Cards located in the Microsoft Visitor Center.
