QuickPlay was a technology pioneered by Hewlett-Packard in 2004 that allows users to directly play multimedia without booting the computer into a main operating system.

The first component is a "Direct" function that provides instant access upon boot to music CDs, DVD movies, and MP3s stored on the hard drive.

It is launched by the QuickPlay external button found on the notebook or included IR remote.

The secondary component of QuickPlay software (all versions) is an application run under Windows with identical functions.

Instead, users must boot into the operating system in order for the Windows-only version of the QuickPlay software to be run.