Just as Silverlight is Microsoft's alternative to Adobe Flash, so is XPS a format designed to rival PDF. On November 4, 2008, Microsoft made available for download an update to version 1.0 of the XML Paper Specification Essentials Pack, a package set up to enable Windows users to access, read and manage XPS files. The original bits for the XML Paper Specification Essentials Pack 1.0 were served in April 2008 as a way to circumvent the need for .NET Framework 3.0.

“The Microsoft XML Paper Specification Essentials Pack, Version 1.0 (XPS Essentials Pack) contains components that enable you to view, generate and index XPS Documents,” Microsoft revealed. However, the April release of the Pack failed to be supported on all Windows versions.

In this context, the Redmond company has labored to add Windows XP Service Pack 3 to the list of supported Windows platforms, in addition to Windows Vista and Windows Server 2003. It was only at the end of October that Microsoft tweaked the Pack's installer in order to resolve a conflict with the Windows Imaging Component (WIC) shipped by default with Windows XP SP3. At this point in time, the updated XML Paper Specification Essentials Pack 1.0 comes with support for no less than 24 languages, and continues to require that end users have Microsoft Core XML Services 6.0 installed on their machines.

"With the XPS Essentials Pack you can quickly begin reading and generating XPS Documents. It contains XPS Viewer EP to read XPS Documents and the Microsoft XPS Document Writer to output files to the XPS Document format. Additionally, the XPS Essentials Pack download includes providers to enable the iPreview and iFilter capabilities found in many Windows applications. Windows shell handlers are also included to enable thumbnail views and file properties for XPS Documents," Microsoft added.

The Microsoft XML Paper Specification Essentials Pack is available for download here.