It feels surreal writing this, but Windows XP is officially 25 years old today. Microsoft released it to manufacturing on August 24, 2001, and later to retail on October 25 that year. At the time, Microsoft called it the most important Windows release it had ever built, and looking back 25 years later, that claim doesn’t seem particularly outrageous.
XP represented an important milestone for Windows. Microsoft finally brought its consumer and business operating systems together on the Windows NT kernel, replacing the separate Windows 9x-based consumer line with something much closer to the architecture used by Windows 2000. And who could forgetthe service packs, which felt like a much bigger deal than today’s Windows updates.
Windows XP also had a long life. Windows Vista arrived in 2007, followed by the much more successful Windows 7 in 2009, but XP refused to disappear. Microsoftcontinued supporting it until April 8, 2014, almost 13 years after its release. This just tells you how many people refused to give up on XP for as long as they could.
Looking back at its iconic design language, Windows XP looks like the link between the old and new eras of computers. It’s modern enough to feel like a clear step forward from the Windows versions of the 1990s, yet retro enough to look unmistakably dated next to Windows 11.
And indeed, Windows looks different today. Everything is much flatter and more streamlined in design, yet packed with features. It has AI at every corner, with a tendency to keep evolving further away from its roots. Which, in the end, is perfectly normal. After all, if Windows had stayed the samethroughout all these years, we probably wouldn’t appreciate XP the way we do today.
For my generation, Windows XP powered the first computers we’ve ever used in our lives. It was synonymous with the term PC, and back then most of us didn’t even know about other operating systems. Looking back atBlissand that simple blue (or silver) taskbar brings back an entire period of life. A period that, just like Windows XP, has been replaced with something newer, faster, shinier, but not necessarily better.