Windows XP Embedded, commonly abbreviated "XPe", is a componentized version of the Professional edition of Windows XP. An OEM is free to choose only the components needed thereby reducing operating system footprint and also reducing attack area as compared with XP Professional. Unlike Windows CE, Microsoft's operating system for portable devices and consumer electronics, XP Embedded provides the full Windows API, and support for the full range of applications and device drivers written for Microsoft Windows. XPe was released on November 28, 2001. As of October 2008, the newest release is Windows XP Embedded Service Pack 3.
Windows Embedded Standard 2009 succeeded XPe in 2H 2008. Windows Embedded Standard 2009 (WES2009) is derived from Windows XP Embedded since Microsoft at the time of its development did not have a componentized version of Windows Vista.Windows Embedded Standard 2009 includes Internet Explorer 7 and (if selected from OEM supplier) Silverlight, .Net Framework 3.5 etc..
Features:
- XPe includes feature components known as write filters, which can be used to filter out disk writes. The volumes can be marked as read-only using these filters and all writes to it can be redirected. Applications in user mode are unaware of this write filtering. XPe ships with two write filters (if provided by OEM image):
- Enhanced Write Filter (EWF) EWF protects a system at volume level. It redirects all disk writes to a protected drive, to RAM or a separate disk. EWF is extremely useful when used in Thin Clients that have flash memory as their primary boot source.
- File Based Write Filter (FBWF) FBWF allows the configuration of individual files as read/write on a protected volume.
- USB Boot XPe adds a USB boot option to Windows. An XPe embedded device can be configured to boot from a USB drive.