Review: Windows XP N Editions
After much hemming and hawing, Microsoft finally shipped its so-called N Editions of Windows XP--Windows XP Home Edition N and Windows XP Professional Edition N--to European Union (EU) countries in mid-June. The N Editions, as you may recall, were designed to satisfy an EU antitrust ruling against the software giant which stipulated that Microsoft must ship a version of Windows XP that did not include Windows Media Player (WMP) or any associated files.
Microsoft's documentation about the N Editions explains what files where left out to meet this requirement. In total, almost 200 files were removed from XP Home and Professional Editions, though most of them are ancillary or support files. The most crucial missing pieces, of course, are Windows Media Player itself (WMPLAYER.EXE) and the "classic" version of WMP (MPLAYER2.EXE) that Microsoft still inexplicably ships in other XP versions.
If you're wondering what the XP N Editions are like, wonder no more. I got my hands on both XP Home N and XP Pro N this week and gave them both a spin. The results were pretty uneventful.
