Introduction

Microsoft designed Windows XP Professional to meet the business needs of organizations of any size. This operating system is intended for business use as opposed to its sister operating system, Windows XP Home Edition, which is intended to be used on home computers. The Microsoft 70-270 exam assesses your ability to install, configure, and administer Windows XP Professional, and focuses on how to do so in a business environment. This chapter looks at Windows XP Professional's features and history, XP Service Pack 2 (SP2), how to prepare for installation, product activation, and, as the title of this chapter states, the manual installation process itself. These topics provide the foundation for the rest of the book. Not only do you need to recognize the basic features of Windows XP Professional to configure and troubleshoot the operating system, but the manual installation process facilitates your comprehension of unattended deployments, which you learn about in Chapter 2.