As such, Windows XP was the first consumer edition of Windows not to be based on the Windows 95 kernel and MS-DOS. An updated version of Windows 2000 was also originally planned for the business market however, in January 2000, both projects were scrapped in favor of a single OS codenamed 'Whistler', which would serve as a single OS platform for both consumer and business markets. It was the direct successor to both Windows 2000 for professional users and Windows Me for home users, and it was released to manufacturing on August 24, 2001, with retail sales beginning on October 25, 2001.ĭevelopment of Windows XP began in the late 1990s as ' Neptune', an operating system (OS) built on the Windows NT kernel which was intended specifically for mainstream consumer use. Windows XP is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft.
