Win XP embedded

[68vetteracer]

I was just going over a list of software that is availible through the college that i attend and i found an interesting program that i can seem to find what it does. The Program is called Windows XP embedded and i not really sure if it would be something i could use or not.
Thanks for the help
Ben

[Johanna]

Windows XP Embedded, or XPe, is the componentized version of Microsoft Windows XP Professional. XPe is based on the same binaries as XP Pro, but XPe is marketed towards developers for OEMs, ISVs and IHVs that want the full Win32 API support of Windows but without the overhead of Professional. It runs existing Windows applications and device drivers off-the-shelf on devices with 32MB Compact Flash, 32MB RAM and a P-200 microprocessor. XP Embedded was released November 28, 2001; As of January 2007, the newest release is XP Embedded SP2 Feature Pack 2007.

XPe is not related to Windows CE. They target different devices and they each have their pros and cons which make them attractive to different OEMs for different types of devices. For instance, XPe will never get down to the small footprint that CE works in. However, CE does not have the Win32 APIs XPe has (although CE has an API that is similar to the Win32 API), nor can it run the tens of thousands of drivers and applications that already exist.

The devices targeted for XPe have included ATMs, slot machines, cash registers, arcade games, industrial robotics, thin clients, set-top boxes, network attached storage (NAS), time clocks, navigation devices, etc. Custom versions of the OS can be deployed onto anything but a full-fledged PC; even though XPe supports the same hardware that XP Pro supports (x86 architecture), licensing restrictions prevent it from being deployed on to standard PCs.

Wikopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_XP_Embedded)
Johanna