Because calling it Windows XP Basic Editon wasn’t elaborate enough…

Windows Fundamentals for Legacy PC (FLP for short) is basically Windows XP but for old systems and was intended to be used in an Enterprise environment since it was only offered through this channel. It was not made an option for OEM or Retail channels and was intended to be used for computers that were previously running say Windows NT or 98, who wanted to run an XP-based os but due to the limited specifications were unable to run the ‘Full fat Xp’.
As this was released in 2005, and 98/NT4 was due to lose support the next year, this OS was intended to be an upgrade path for those old PCs that were still running those operating systems but were not capable enough of running Windows XP.

Install

You will notice that this installs differently compared to stock Windows XP, and using a newer Windows Installer. Gone is the blue install screen. This is similar to what Windows Vista would use, and the Longhorn Beta’s (Pre-Reset) would install in a similar method.

After the installation has been completed you are prompted to reboot your PC. After the initial reboot, you are treated to a configuring screen, of which you are prompted to reboot again, and again. There are several reboots needed before the install finished and we are presented with a desktop.

Well, it looks just like a regular Windows XP install, minus the desktop background which has been replaced with a regular solid blue colour.

A lot of personalization themes are missing, there are very few screen savers or desktop backgrounds available, although the desktop styles can be changed.
I’m curious as to why Luna is included and selected by default? Surley an OS intended for low-end usage would use the Windows Classic theme, or maybe there is very little performance difference between the two?

So let’s see what missing and if anything has been removed or added.
On a note, a fresh install is using 1.33GB (post-VMWare addon installed)

The security center from the XP service pack 2 is included and will warn that updates are not enabled and that no antivirus software is installed.

Windows Media Player 10 is included with the OS and was the latest release at the time, Again I’m confused why this is included instead of Media Player 9 or 8, which would have helped reduce the install size

There are no built-in games with this build, and they cannot be optionally installed (The Windows components section is missing)

Windows Messenger 4.7 comes with this build also. Strangely the audio tuning wizard does not work, just giving the error message when we try to open it

An observation I found was how Windows handles an application crashing, an error message appears in the same fashion Windows NT 4 would crash, with no option to generate a useful error report, no apology, just a notification that the program has crashed.

Software Testing

Curious to see how it handles software of the era it was released in. Most 32bit Windows software should run fine, though I wonder how well DirectX games will run. DirectX 9 does come included with the OS preinstalled.

Sonic Stage

Sony’s music player software for their Walkman music player (Think of the iPod but better), this can playback ATARC files, which was Sony’s own file format, and could connect and purchase music from the CONNECT store, which they shut down in 2008

Unreal Tournament

A DirectX-based game, but can run in software rendering instead. Here it works but is prone to graphical glitches, possibly due to the VMWare graphics acceleration

San Francisco Rush 2049

One of my favorite games in the San Franciso Rush series, and only 17 years until it becomes reality. Runs without any issues

Norton Internet Security 2006

Standard Anti-Virus and security software by Symantec

WordPerfect 2006

An alternative basic office suite similar to Microsoft Office suite included a word processor and a spreadsheet application.

Matchware Mediator

Similar to Adobe Dreamweaver, this lets you build rich multimedia pages

Microsoft Intellipoint & Intellitype 6.2

Utility commonly bundled with Microsoft keyboard and mice, adds additional functionality that is not covered by Windows but can be used with third-party keyboards. I like to use it because it adds a volume indicator when using the volume keys on a keyboard that features one.

Upgrades

By default Service Pack 2 is included, and service pack 3 can be installed as an optional upgrade. Internet Explorer 7 and 8 can also be installed as upgrades to Internet Explorer 6.

Support for Windows FLP ended on the same date as Windows XP – April 2014.

Well, I’m not sure what happened but I seem to have broken the OS, at least when it comes to shutting down. A few errors with winlogon.exe come up, before the OS BSODs completely.