Continuing the tradition begun with the first Plus! add-on, which shipped alongside Windows 95 six years ago, Microsoft is prepping a similar add-on, Plus! for Windows XP (Plus!XP), for its latest operating system. Like its predecessors, Plus!XP is designed for consumers that wish to get the most out of the new OS. But this time around, Plus!XP dispenses with the sort of dry system utilities that populated past Plus! packs and goes right for the entertainment jugular: All of its features are entertainment related, with a heavy emphasis on digital media features (a personal favorite), games, and look and feel customizations.

The cynical might dismiss Plus!XP as a pointless attempt by Microsoft to siphon even more money out of its customers, but I've always thought that the Plus! packs served a valuable service by making the overall computing experience more enjoyable. And since this release is focused so heavily on entertainment, that's more true with Plus!XP than ever before. That's not to say that Plus!XP is a must-have purchase for all XP users, as it's not. But I suspect that digital media enthusiasts like myself, especially, will want to take a closer look at Plus!XP. And of course, anyone who's interested in beautiful desktop themes and photo-realistic screensavers will want to take check out Plus!XP as well.

Plus!XP is neatly divided into four types of accessories: Digital media tools, games, screensavers, and themes. The digital media tools run a wide gamut, from useful add-ons like the MP3 audio converter and CD labeler, to the truly lame, such as the horrific Media Player skins and visualizations. The games in Plus!XP are similar to past Plus! packs, in that they are limited versions of full games from a variety of manufacturers, but I found this collection to be particularly boring; maybe I'm just getting old. The screensavers are interesting because they're mostly photo-realistic, but the standout is Aquarium, which is simply too beautiful for words: You have to see it to believe it. And the themes... well, the themes are a mixed bag as well. I had hoped to see more Luna-style color schemes and visual styles that dramatically altered the XP user interface. Instead, we're treating to some admittedly nice looking Windows 98-style themes, which simply apply pretty wallpaper, icons, and other on-screen elements to the stock XP appearance. They're not bad, but they suffer a bit from an expectation that more was coming.

Overall, the choice with Plus!XP comes down to whether any of its features are compelling enough to justify the cost, which will be about $35-40 at retail. So let's take a look at the individual components of Plus!XP, so that you can decide for yourself.

Digital media features
Windows XP is the premier OS for digital media--music, photos, and video--and Plus!XP simply expands on the capabilities found in the base OS and adds some exciting functionality of its own. I feel that the digital media features in Plus!XP are this product's strongest selling point, despite a few gaffs. Here's what you get:

Plus! MP3 Audio Converter
Windows XP allows you to convert audio CDs into Windows Media Audio (WMA) format, which provides better sound quality and small file sizes than the industry-standard MP3 audio format (add-ons for XP allow you to copy CDs in MP3 format as well). But what about those of us who already made massive MP3 audio collections before moving to XP? The Plus! MP3 Audio Converter tool (Figure) lets you take individual MP3 files or entire directories of MP3s, and convert them to WMA format, saving disk space.

That's good stuff, but you can also use this tool to batch transcode WMA files to a lower quality setting (Figure).