After hours Toolkit

Rupert Goodwins' Diary

Rupert Goodwins AnchorDesk

Published: 20 Jul 2001 15:41 BST

Monday
16/7/2001

Another announcement from Microsoft which says one thing, means another and quite probably leaves things much as they were anyway. XP, says the announcement, will be the best OS for MP3s.

Hm. Now, XP at the moment doesn't have an MP3 recorder. It did, in an early version, then it didn't and anyway Microsoft is thoroughly set on making its WMA format the most popular on the planet. All the announcement actually says is that Microsoft will have an XP MP3 recording program available to buy. Although the price hasn't been set, it seems likely that it'll be around twenty quid or so on top of the hundred-quiddish tag of XP by itself.

So: XP out of the box won't do MP3s. You can pay for Microsoft's software, or you can download one of the excellent alternatives online. And this is different to any other operating system because... no, got me there.

The day they make product activation optional is the day I start taking notice of Microsoft press releases.