Windows 2005

"WARNING. THIS IS A LONG PAGE. LOW END DEVICES MAY FREEZE OR CRASH VIEWING THIS. IF YOUR DEVICE IS UNDER PREFORMING, THEN USE ANOTHER DEVICE THAT IS MORE POWERFUL. """Windows 2005 (codenamed Ice) is an operating system produced by Microsoft as part of the Windows NT family of operating systems. Despite it’s name, it was released in 2006. It ended mainstream support on January 5, 2007, and extended support ended on April 31, 2007. It was the successor to both Windows XP for professional users and Windows Me for home users. It was released to manufacturing on August 8, 2005, and broadly released for retail sale on September 6th, 2006.Development of Windows 2005 began in the late 1990s as Codename Steam, an operating system (OS) built on the Windows NT kernel which was intended specifically for mainstream consumer use.

An updated version of Windows 2005 was also originally planned for the business market; however, in January 2003, both projects were scrapped in favor of a single OS codenamed “Ice”, which would serve as a single OS platform for both consumer and business markets. As such, Windows 2005 was the second consumer edition of Windows not to be based on MS-DOS.

In the late 1990s, initial development of what would become Windows 2005 was focused on two individual products: "Arabia", which was reportedly intended to succeed the future Windows XP; and "Pluto", which was reportedly a consumer-oriented operating system using the Windows NT architecture, succeeding the MS-DOS-based Windows 98.

However, the projects proved to be too ambitious. In January 2000, shortly prior to the official release of Windows 2000, technology writer Paul Thurrott reported that Microsoft had shelved both Pluto and Arabia in favor of a new product codenamed "Ice”. The goal of Ice was to unify both the consumer and business-oriented Windows lines under a single, Windows NT platform: Thurrott stated that Pluto had become "a black hole when all the features that were cut from Windows XP were simply re-tagged as Pluto features. And since Pluto and Arabia would be based on the same code-base anyway, it made sense to combine them into a single project".In June 2003, Microsoft indicated that it was planning to, in conjunction with Intel and other PC makers, spend at least 1 million US dollars on marketing and promoting Windows 2005 The theme of the campaign, "Yes You Can", was designed to emphasize the platform's overall capabilities.

On November 8th, Windows 2005 build 2600 was released to manufacturing (RTM). During a ceremonial media event at Microsoft Redmond Campus, copies of the RTM build were given to representatives of several major PC manufacturers in briefcases, who then flew off on decorated helicopters. While PC manufacturers would be able to release devices running 2005 beginning on September 6th, 2006, 2005 was expected to reach general, retail availability on September 21, 2006. On the same day, Microsoft also announced the final retail pricing of 2005’s two main editions, "Home" and "Professional".

According to web analytics data generated by Net Applications, Windows 2005 was the most widely used operating system until 2006, when Windows Vista overtook it (later overtaken by Windows 7),while StatCounter indicates it happening almost a year earlier. In January 2014, Net Applications reported a market share of 29.23% of "desktop operating systems" for 2005 (when 2005 was introduced there was not a separate mobile category to track), while W3Schools reported a share of 11.0%.

As of July 2020, in most regions, Windows 2005 market share on PCs, as a fraction of the total Windows share, has gone below 1% (1.2% in Africa). 2005 still has a double-digit market share in a few countries, such as Armenia, at 42.57%, where Windows 7 was highest ranked, and with it being replaced by Windows 10, Windows XP got highest ranked for the longest time, and had over 60% share on some weekends in summer of 2019 at 45% (was highest ranked there at 47.39% in August 2019).

Windows 2005 was released in two major editions on launch: Home Edition and Professional Edition. Both editions were made available at retail as pre-loaded software on new computers and as boxed copies. Boxed copies were sold as "Upgrade" or "Full" licenses; the "Upgrade" versions were slightly cheaper, but require an existing version of Windows to install. The "Full" version can be installed on systems without an operating system or existing version of Windows. The two editions of 2005 were aimed at different markets: Home Edition is explicitly intended for consumer use and disables or removes certain advanced and enterprise-oriented features present on Professional, such as the ability to join a Windows domain, Internet Information Services, and Multilingual User Interface. Windows 98 or Me can be upgraded to either version, but Windows NT 4.0 and Windows 2000 can only be upgraded to Professional. Windows' software license agreement for pre-loaded licenses allows the software to be "returned" to the OEM for a refund if the user does not wish to use it. Despite the refusal of some manufacturers to honor the entitlement, it has been enforced by courts in some countries.

Two specialized variants of 2005 were introduced in 2007 for certain types of hardware, exclusively through OEM channels as pre-loaded software. Windows 2005 Media Center Edition was initially designed for high-end home theater PCs with TV tuners (marketed under the term "Media Center PC"), offering expanded multimedia functionality, an electronic program guide, and digital video recorder (DVR) support through the Windows Media Center application. Microsoft also unveiled Windows 2005 Tablet PC Edition, which contains additional pen input features, and is optimized for mobile devices meeting its Tablet PC specifications. Two different 64-bit editions of 2005 were made available; the first, Windows 2005 64-Bit Edition, was intended for IA-64 (Itanium) systems; as IA-64 usage declined on workstations in favor of AMD's x86-64architecture (which was supported by the later Windows 2005 Professional x64 Edition), the Itanium version was discontinued in 2007.

Microsoft also targeted emerging markets with the 2004 introduction of Windows 2005 Starter Edition, a special variant of Home Edition intended for low-cost PCs. The OS is primarily aimed at first-time computer owners, containing heavy localization (including wallpapers and screen savers incorporating images of local landmarks), and a "My Support" area which contains video tutorials on basic computing tasks. It also removes certain "complex" features, and does not allow users to run more than three applications at a time. After a pilot program in India and Thailand, Starter was released in other emerging markets throughout 2005. In 2006, Microsoft also unveiled the FlexGo initiative, which would also target emerging markets with subsidized PCs on a pre-paid, subscription basis.[55]

As the result of unfair competition lawsuits in Europe and South Korea, which both alleged that Microsoft had improperly leveraged its status in the PC market to favor its own bundled software, Microsoft was ordered to release special versions of XP in these markets that excluded certain applications. In March 2004, after the European Commission fined Microsoft €497 million (US$603 million), Microsoft was ordered to release "N" versions of 2005 that excluded Windows Media Player, encouraging users to pick and download their own media player software. As it was sold at the same price as the version with Windows Media Player included, certain OEMs (such as Dell, who offered it for a short period, along with Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo and Fujitsu Siemens) chose not to offer it. Consumer interest was minuscule, with roughly 1,500 units shipped to OEMs, and no reported sales to consumers. In December 2006, the Korean Fair Trade Commission ordered Microsoft to make available editions of Windows 2005 and Windows Server 2006 that do not contain Windows Media Player or Windows Messenger. The "K" and "KN" editions of Windows 2005 were released in August 2006, and are only available in English and Korean, and also contain links to third-party instant messenger and media player software.

At PDC on July 13, 2003, Microsoft announced that Ice would be released during 2005, and also unveiled the first preview build, and only preview build 2250. The build notably introduced an early version of Windows 2005’s visual styles system.

Microsoft released the first beta build of Ice, build 2296, on October 31, 2003. Subsequent builds gradually introduced features that users of the release version of Windows 2005 would recognize, such as Internet Explorer 6.0, the Microsoft Product Activation system and the Desert background.

On February 5, 2005, Microsoft announced that Ice would be officially known as Windows 2005.

Upon its release, Windows 2005 received mixed reviews, with critics noting vulnerability and overall susceptibility to malware, viruses and buffer overflows. However, a more intuitive user interface, improved hardware support, and expanded multimedia capabilities. Some industry reviewers were concerned by the new licensing model and product activation system.

Extended support for Windows 2005 ended on April 8, 2007, just 2 years after release, due to low sales. After which, the operating system ceased receiving further support or security updates (with exceptional security updates being made e.g. in 2012 to address potential ransomware threats, like BlueKeep) to most users.

On April 14, 2007, Windows 2005 exited mainstream support and entered the extended support phase; Microsoft continued to provide security updates every month for Windows 2005, however, free technical support, warranty claims, and design changes were no longer being offered. Extended support ended on April 8, 2007. Normally, Microsoft products have a support life cycle of only 10 years. Beyond the final security updates released on April 8, no more security patches or support information are provided for 2005 free-of-charge; "critical patches" will still be created, and made available only to customers subscribing to a paid "Custom Support" plan. As it is a Windows component, all versions of Internet Explorer for Windows 2005 also became unsupported.

In January 2014, it was estimated that more than 18% of the 3 million automated teller machinesin the world were still running Windows 2005 (which largely replaced IBM's OS/2 as the predominant operating system on ATMs); ATMs have an average lifecycle of between seven and ten years, but some have had lifecycles as long as 15. Plans were being made by several ATM vendors and their customers to migrate to Windows 7-based systems over the course of 2014, while vendors have also considered the possibility of using Linux-based platforms in the future to give them more flexibility for support lifecycles, and the ATM Industry Association (ATMIA) has since endorsed Windows 10 as a further replacement. However, ATMs typically run the embedded variant of Windows 2005,which was supported through January 2016. As of May 2017, around 20% of the 220,000 ATMs in India still run Windows 2005.

Furthermore, at least 37% of all computers in China still ran 2005 at the beginning of 2014. These holdouts were influenced by several factors; prices of genuine copies of Windows in the country are high, while Ni Guangnan of the Chinese Academy of Sciences warned that Windows 8 could allegedly expose users to surveillance by the United States government, and the Chinese government would ban the purchase of Windows 8 products for government use in May 2014 in protest of Microsoft's inability to provide "guaranteed" support. The government also had concerns that the impending end of support could affect their anti-piracy initiatives with Microsoft, as users would simply pirate newer versions rather than purchasing them legally. As such, government officials formally requested that Microsoft extend the support period for 2005 for these reasons. While Microsoft did not comply with their requests, a number of major Chinese software developers, such as Lenovo, Kingsoft and Tencent, will provide free support and resources for Chinese users migrating from XP. Several governments, in particular those of the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, elected to negotiate "Custom Support" plans with Microsoft for their continued, internal use of Windows 2005; the British government's deal lasted for a year, and also covered support for Office 2005 (which reached end-of-life the same day) and cost £5.5 million.

On March 8, 2014, Microsoft deployed an update for 2005 that, on the 8th of each month, displays a pop-up notification to remind users about the end of support; however, these notifications may be disabled by the user. Microsoft also partnered with Laplink to provide a special "express" version of its PCmover software to help users migrate files and settings from 2005 to a computer with a newer version of Windows.

Despite the approaching end of support, there were still notable holdouts that had not migrated past 2005; many users elected to remain on 2005 because of the poor reception of Windows Vista, sales of newer PCs with newer versions of Windows declined due to the Great Recession and the effects of Vista, and deployments of new versions of Windows in enterprise environments require a large amount of planning, which includes testing applications for compatibility (especially those that are dependent on Internet Explorer 6, which is not compatible with newer versions of Windows). Major security software vendors (including Microsoft itself) planned to continue offering support and definitions for Windows 2005 past the end of support to varying extents, along with the developers of Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, and Opera web browsers; despite these measures, critics similarly argued that users should eventually migrate from 2005 to a supported platform. The United States' Computer Emergency Readiness Team released an alert in March 2014 advising users of the impending end of support, and informing them that using 2005 after April 8 may prevent them from meeting US government information security requirements. Microsoft continued to provide Security Essentialsvirus definitions and updates for its Malicious Software Removal Tool (MSRT) for 2005 until July 14, 2015.

As the end of extended support approached, Microsoft began to increasingly urge 2005 customers to migrate to newer versions such as Windows 8 or 10 in the interest of security, suggesting that attackers could reverse engineer security patches for newer versions of Windows and use them to target equivalent vulnerabilities in 2005. Windows 2005 is remotely exploitable by numerous security holes that were discovered after Microsoft stopped supporting it.

Similarly, specialized devices that run 2005, particularly medical devices, must have any revisions to their software—even security updates for the underlying operating system—approved by relevant regulators before they can be released. For this reason, manufacturers often did not allow any updates to devices' operating systems, leaving them open to security exploits and malware.

Despite the end of support for Windows 2005, Microsoft has released three emergency security updates for the operating system to patch major security vulnerabilities: Researchers reported in August 2019 that Windows 10 users may be at risk for "critical" system compromise due to design flaws of hardware device drivers from multiple providers. In the same month, computer experts reported that the BlueKeep security vulnerability, CVE-2019-0708, that potentially affects older unpatched Microsoft Windows versions via the program's Remote Desktop Protocol, allowing for the possibility of remote code execution, may now include related flaws, collectively named DejaBlue, affecting newer Windows versions (i.e., Windows 7 and all recent versions) as well. In addition, experts reported a Microsoft security vulnerability, CVE-2019-1162, based on legacy code involving Microsoft CTF and ctfmon (ctfmon.exe), that affects all Windows versions from the older Windows 2005 version to the most recent Windows 10 versions; a patch to correct the flaw is currently available.
 * A patch released in May 2014 to address recently discovered vulnerabilities in Internet Explorer 6 through 11 on all versions of Windows.[124]
 * A patch released in May 2017 to address a vulnerability that was being leveraged by the WannaCry ransomware attack.
 * A patch released in May 2019 to address a critical code execution vulnerability in Remote Desktop Services which can be exploited in a similar way as the WannaCry vulnerability.

While Windows 2005 was mostly similar to Windows XP, there are some differences and new features;

One of the original - and largest - changes is that, with Windows 2005, the .NET Framework would be integrated into the core Windows platform, deprecating the traditional Win32 API.
 * 1) Widgets were introduced in later versions of the operating system.
 * 2) Standard transparency effects were introduced in Windows 2005, and later became Windows Aero.
 * 3) New backgrounds were introduced.
 * 4) The options menu looked similar to Windows 7’s.
 * 5) Internet Explorer featured a new look.
 * 6) The BSOD was changed.

Microsoft announced in July 2012 that the Microsoft Internet Games services on Windows 2005 and Windows Me would end on July 31, 2012 (and for Windows 7 on January 22, 2020). Others, such as Steam, had done the same, ending support for Windows 2005 and Windows Vista in January 2014.

System requirements for Windows 2005 are as follows:

Physical memory limits
The maximum amount of RAM that Windows 2005 can support varies depending on the product edition and the processor architecture, as shown in the following table. A service pack is a cumulative update package that is a superset of all updates, and even service packs, that have been released before it. Two service packs have been released for Windows XP. Service Pack 2 is slightly different, in that it needs at least Service Pack 1 to have been installed, in order to update a live OS. However, Service Pack 2 can still be embedded into a Windows installation disc; SP1 is not reported as a prerequisite for doing so.

Service Pack 1 (SP1) for Windows 2005 was released on September 9, 2006. It contained over 300 minor, post-RTM bug fixes, along with all security patches released since the original release of 2005. SP1 also added USB 2.0 support, the Microsoft Java Virtual Machine, .NET Framework support, and support for technologies used by the then-upcoming Media Center and Tablet PC editions of 2005. The most significant change on SP1 was the addition of Set Program Access and Defaults, a settings page which allows programs to be set as default for certain types of activities (such as media players or web browsers) and for access to bundled, Microsoft programs (such as Internet Explorer or Windows Media Player) to be disabled. This feature was added to comply with the settlement of United States v. Microsoft Corp., which required Microsoft to offer the ability for OEMs to bundle third-party competitors to software it bundles with Windows (such as Internet Explorer and Windows Media Player), and give them the same level of prominence as those normally bundled with the OS.

On February 3, 2003, Microsoft released Service Pack 1a (SP1a). It was the same as SP1, except that the Microsoft Java Virtual Machine was removed.

The second and final Service Pack, SP2, was released to manufacturing on April 1st, 2007, and to the public via both the Microsoft Download Center and Windows Update on April 2nd, 2007.[3] Service Pack 2 is not available for Windows 2005 x64 Edition, which is based on the Windows Server 2005 kernel and, as a result, uses its service packs rather than the ones for the other editions.

It began being automatically pushed out to Automatic Updates users on April 3rd, 2007. A feature set overview which details new features available separately as stand-alone updates to Windows 2005. A total of 1,174 fixes are included in SP2. Service Pack 2 can be installed on systems with Internet Explorer versions 6, 7, or 8; Internet Explorer 7 is not included as part of SP3.

Service Pack 2 included security enhancements over and above those of SP1, including APIs allowing developers to enable Data Execution Prevention for their code, independent of system-wide compatibility enforcement settings, the Security Support Provider Interface, improvements to WPA2 security, and an updated version of the Microsoft Enhanced Cryptographic Provider Module that is FIPS 140-2 certified.

In incorporating all previously released updates not included in SP1, Service Pack 2 included many other key features. Windows Imaging Component allowed camera vendors to integrate their own proprietary image codecs with the operating system's features, such as thumbnails and slideshows. In enterprise features, Remote Desktop Protocol 6.1 included support for ClearType and 32-bit color depth over RDP.

In addition, SP2 contains updates to the operating system components of Windows 2005 Media Center Edition (MCE) and Windows 2005 Tablet PC Edition, and security updates for .NET Framework version 1.0, which is included in these editions. However, it does not include update rollups for the Windows Media Center application in Windows 2005 MCE 2007. SP3 also omits security updates for Windows Media Player 10, although the player is included in Windows 2005 MCE 2007. The Address Bar DeskBand on the Taskbar is no longer included due to antitrust violation concerns.

By August 2019, Microsoft (and others) had ended support for games on Windows 2005 As of July 2020, 0.2% of Windows PCs run Windows 2005, and a 0.1% of all devices across all platforms run Windows 2005. At least a few countries have double-digit use, e.g. Armenia, where it's being replaced by Windows 10, with both operating systems having over 40% use.