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Today Let's Explore The History of Windows. Only Few Engineers or Peoples Know the History of Windows...
A History of Windows
Don’t be surprised if I say that 9
out of 10 computers run some version of the Windows operating system, today.
However, no one could have predicted this outcome when the whole journey
started with MS-DOS and a vision to have every computer on a desktop. Below,
you will find a chronology of events that take you through highlights from the
first 25 years of Windows, more preferably – A History of Windows.
History
of Windows
MS-DOS
It was originally developed by
Microsoft for IBM-compatible personal computers. Although the first
version of OS from Microsoft, MS-DOS was little-used or preferred alternative
to Apple’s Macintosh. Despite witnessing little success, Microsoft continued to
offer support for MS-DOS till the development of Windows XP.
Ever wondered, what MS-DOS stood for?
Microsoft Disk Operating System
Windows
1.0 – 2.0 (1985-1992)
Instead of
typing MS-DOS commands, Windows 1.0 allowed users to point and click
to access the windows.
In 1987 Microsoft released Windows
2.0, which was designed for the designed for the Intel 286 processor. This
version added desktop icons, keyboard shortcuts and improved graphics support.
Why was Windows OS named so?
Microsoft Windows 1.0 was named
so since the computing boxes, or Windows design represented a fundamental
aspect of the operating system.
Windows
3.0 – 3.1 (1990–1994)
Microsoft released Windows 3.0 in
May, 1900 offering better icons, performance and advanced graphics with 16
colors designed for Intel 386 processors. Its popularity grew by manifolds
following the release of SDK that helped software developers focus more on
writing and less on writing device drivers. With Windows 3.0 Microsoft
completely rewrote the application development environment. The OS included
Program Manager, File Manager and Print Manager and games, remember Solitare, a
complete time waster??
What does SDK stands for?
SDK refers to a set of tools that
allows for the creation of applications for certain software.
Windows
95 (August 1995)
A major release of the Microsoft
Windows operating system that caused Apple’s Market share to decline or shrink
was Windows 95. Windows 95 as the name suggests was released in 1995
represented a significant advance over its precursor, Windows 3.1. By the way,
this was also the time when the first version of Microsoft’s proprietary
browser – Internet Explorer 1 was rolled out in August 1995 to catch up the
Internet wave.
Windows
98 (June 1998)
Described as an operating system
that “Works Better & Plays Better, ‘Windows 98’ offered support for a
number of new technologies, including FAT32, AGP, MMX, USB, DVD, and ACPI.
Also, it was the first OS to include a tool called Windows Update. The tool
alerted the customers when software updates became available for their
computers.
Which was the last version based on
MS-DOS application?
Windows 98 indeed, was the last
version based on MS?DOS.
Windows ME – Millennium Edition (September 2000)
The Windows
Millennium Edition, referrd as “Windows Me” was an update to the Windows 98
core that included some features of the Windows 2000 operating system. The
version had the “boot in DOS” option removed but included other enhancements
like Windows Media player and Movie Maker for basic video editing.
System Restore, a feature that rolled your PC
software configuration back to to a date or time before a problem occurred
first appeared in which version of Windows?
Windows ME –
Millennium Edition
Windows NT 3.1 – 4.0 (1993-1996)
A version of
the Windows OS with 32-bit supported for preemptive multitasking. Two versions
of Windows NT:
- Windows NT Server – Designed to
act as a server in networks
- Windows NT – Workstation for
stand-alone or client workstations
Windows 2000 (February 2000)
W2K (abbreviated
form) was an operating system for business desktop and laptop systems to run
software applications, connect to Internet and intranet sites, and access
files, printers, and network resources. Windows 2000 4 versions released by
Microsoft
- Professional (for
business desktop and laptop systems)
- Server (both a Web server
and an office server)
- Advanced Server (for
line-of-business applications)
- Datacenter Server (for
high-traffic computer networks)
Windows XP (October 2001)
This version
of the OS was built on Windows 2000 Kernel and was introduced in 2001 along
with a redesigned look and feel. It was made available to public in 2 versions
- Windows Xp Home
- Windows XP Professional
Microsoft
focused on mobility for both editions, including plug and play features for
connecting to wireless networks was introduced in this version of Windows and
it proved to one of Microsoft’s best-selling products. Its use started
declining with more Windows 7 deployments.
Windows Vista (November 2006)
A marketing
flop! People expected too much from its WOW factor. Windows Vista released in
November 2006 was widely criticized for performance related issues.
Windows 7 (October, 2009)
Windows 7
made its official debut on October 22, 2009. The OS included enhancements in
the form of fast start-up time, Aero Snap, Aero Shake, support for virtual hard
disks, a new and improved Windows Media Center, and better security features.
Windows 8
Bill Gates’
vision of the future computing was Touch and voice replacing mouse and
keyboard. We already have the touch with Windows 8, a completely redesigned OS built from
the ground up.
The OS
replaces the more traditional Microsoft Windows OS look and feel with a new
“Modern Interface” consisting of flat tiles that first debuted in the Windows
Phone 7 mobile operating system.
Thanks for taking us down the memory lane. I remember using
WIndows 1 to be installed with 1 5.5″ Floppy drive.
I’m 57, and date — computer industry-wise, at least — back to
the desktop PC industry as it existed back in the 1970s… which means CP/M, then
Apple I and II; then the IBM PC and PC-DOS, then Microsoft’s MS-DOS…
…and somewhere in there I screwed around a bit in the mini-
and mainframe computer world, too. So I definitely remember LOOOONNNNGGG before
Windows; as well as every single moment of Windows, since. Every single one!
So I can say, with authority, that there is one error, and
one slight leaving-out of something in this otherwise excellent piece!
First, the leaving-out: Remember that there were actually two
versions of Win98, the second being SE. And, technically, there was kinda’ the
same thing with Win95, but it was just less official.
Second, the error: Windows 98 was *NOT* the last FAT-32,
MS-DOS-based version. Windows ME was. Windows ME was nothing more than Windows
98, but with Windows 2000-like graphics and icons. Of course that’s an
oversimplification, but it pretty much captures the essence of it. ME was
entirely based on the 98 kernel. It was the last version of Windows before all
versions became NTFS-based.
It’s confusing, I know, because Microsoft, from the outset of
Windows 9x, tried, in how talk about Windows in a way that blurred the line
between Windows and DOS, calling Windows an “operating system,” when, in fact,
all versions of Windows prior to NTFS-based NT — including ME — were nothing
more than graphical user interfaces sitting atop FAT-based MS-DOS… and no
amount of Microsoft’s wishing, either then or now, changes that. What made it a
little more confusing in ME’s case was how MS-DOS was… well… the word “hidden”
is too much; but there’s no question that Microsoft thought it could get away,
with ME, with just pretending that DOS didn’t exist; that ME, alas, really was
an operating system… and that was just bunk.
Only with the advent of NTFS-based Windows NT did Windows,
itself, finally become a operating system, in its own right; and with that came
that the command line only actually approximated — faked, in effect — the look
and feel of the old FAT-based MS-DOS C:: prompt.
The easiest way to think of Windows 2000 was that it was
nothing more than Windows NT, but with fancy-dancy Windows ME-like graphics and
icons to spruce it up a bit. One thing Win2K had, though, that was REALLY nice,
was a TCP/IP stack straight from Sun Microsystems… the only time Microsoft ever
did anything like that, thereby making it the best one in any version of
Windows, ever! Too bad Microsoft decided it didn’t want to pay Sun Microsystems
a little tiny piece of every copy of Windows it sold, and went back to the
glitchy-to-this-day Microsoft TCP/IP stack with all subsequent version. Ugh.
The dark and dirty little secret of Windows 2000 was that Microsoft realized
its mistake, and succumbed to its own greed, so soon after Win2K’s release that
that, in reality, is why Win2K lasted so short a time. It was like a flash in
the pan… here, today; gone, tomorrow. The truth is that it was originally
SUPPOSED to be what XP ended-up being; but Microsoft killed it, in effect, so
it could stop paying Sun and get XP out.
Microsoft basically rushed Vista onto and off the market,
too, if you think about it; and one can argue that all of Vista’s service packs
were really just to finally get Win7 where they wanted it so that THAT could
become the new flagship to finally allow Microsoft to retire XP.
Truth be known, Windows XP was the first truly new and
different version of Windows since Windows NT, and Windows 95 before it, and
Windows 1.0 before that. In fact, those are the real “new and different”
demarcation points…
1) Windows 1.0 (of which 2.0, 3.1 and 4.0 are family members)
2) Windows 95 (of which Win98 and WinME are family membes)
3) Windows NT (of which Win2K is a family member)
4) Windows XP (truly unique among Windows versions)
…followed, of course by Vista (of which Win7 is a family
member… most, in fact, think of Win7 as little more than Vista, but finally
fixed); and then, now, finally, Windows 8 and 8.1, which is an animal unto
itself… unique, like WinXP.
And so the complete list of “new and different” demarcation
points is:
1) Windows 1.0 (of which 2.0, 3.1 and 4.0 are family members)
2) Windows 95 (of which Win98 and WinME are family membes)
3) Windows NT (of which Win2K is a family member)
4) Windows XP (truly unique among Windows versions)
5) Windows Vista (of which Win7 is a family member)
6) Windows 8 (and its, in effect, service pack Win8.1)
That’s really the way to think of it.
All versions described it items “1)” and “2)” above are FAT,
and/or FAT-16, and/or FAT-32 based; and all versions described in item “3)” and
onward are NTFS-based.
Hope that helps!
_________________________________
Regarding Win8, I also beg to differ with “[t]he OS replaces
the more traditional Microsoft Windows OS look and feel with a new “Modern
Interface” consisting of flat tiles that first debuted in the Windows Phone 7
mobile operating system.”
That’s actually not exactly accurate. What’s accurate is that
Win8 contains almost exactly the same basic interface as Win7, sans (more
accurately, crippled by the absence of) the “Start” button (which button even
Win8.1 didn’t completely properly replace).
However, what Win8 *ALSO* has, which no previous Windows
version had, is an alternative interface — actually, the default interface…
that is, until Win8.1 allowed the user to easily change it, and Win8 allowed
the user to more difficultly change it — which caters to the world of touch
screen (primarily mobile) devices like tablets and phones.
That’s really the truth of it. Saying it any other way is
playing right into Microsoft’s classic manipulations of truth for purely
marketing purposes… just as it did with ME; and just as it did with Win9x
before it, whenever it tried to call them “operating systems,” when, in fact,
MS-DOS was the operating system, and Win9x and ME were but graphical user
interfaces (GUI) sitting atop.
It’s important that we give Microsoft its due; but it’s even
MORE important that we call it — and its disciples — on it’s trying to pull the
wool over our eyes. Remember that Microsoft is the same company which once
insisted that the Internet’s Worldwide Web was just a passing fad, and so made
no browser for it, leaving, initially, Netscape to be pretty much all there was
at first; and then when Microsoft finally realized how desperately wrong it
was, it came-out with Internet Explorer; but in its arrogance, thought that it
could make-up its own Internet standards in it.
Microsoft has always been a bad-boy bully, and it’s important
that that fact is never lost to history; and it’s eye-witnesses like me who are
just the people to help us all never forget.
It’s one of being old’s few advantages.
Actually, Compuguru4u, they were 5.25-inches in size. But
they were, indeed, “floppy”… the last disks (actually “diskettes”), in fact,
that were truly “floppy.” The later 3. 5-inch ones were actually quite firm… at
least on the outside.
Were you around to see the even LARGER truly floppy ones
BEFORE the 5.25-inch ones; the ones commonly used in DEC and other machines?
Yikes! I remember working for Automatic Data Processing (ADP) Dealer Services
Division, and installing some of the first “factory communication systems” into
GM dealerships using the old…
which, as you can see, was almost bigger than
today’s laser printers. Those are 8-inch floppy (truly floppy) diskette drives
you see, there, with the red handles on the front.
Windows 2000 -> No visual effect, no non sense pure
computing for work.
Windows XP -> 500MB, CD based installation had everything we needed, work
play, what ever
Windows Vista / 7 -> almost 4gigs, still you can have both
world of simple no non sense computing and work.
Windows 8 / 8.1 -> Man, its all play .why with 4 gigs of
OS had to omit classic computing feels and looks ?? I mean with even 4 gigs of
space, you cant keep the classic windows feel, basic start menu and all that??
Seriously, I find it easy now a days to teach Ubuntu compare
to Windows 8 as Xp / or 7 had that classic Windows feel and was much easy to
explain to new users compare to Windows 8..
Surely things are going more complicated and now a days for
basic work and Internet, ubuntu feels easy
