Windows introduction
Microsoft Windows is currently the most widely used operating system on PCs. Windows has now been around for 30 years, and has there have been many different versions of Windows over this time.
Core featues
All versions of Windows allowed multiple applications to be run concurrently in separate windows. Most Windows applications have a similar look and feel that reduced some of time it took to learn a new Windows application.
Application menus
Traditionally Windows applications have a menu bar at the top of the window that groups related functions together and are in a familiar order like "File", "Edit", "View" etc.and ending with "Help".
Alas, recent Windows applications often hide this menu and require the user to select a special key to make it appear each time they wish to use it. Some applications have replaced simple list of actions under each menu with horizontal "ribbons" of icons with text beside. Unfortunately even within the same ribbon some items are listed horizontally while other are listed vertically. This make its much harder for the eye to scan to list.
Windows did not invent "windows"
The public perception is that Microsoft invented the graphical user interface (GUI) with:
- Multiple programs running at the same time
- A separate window for each program
- Control using the mouse pointer and keyboard
Development strands
There have been two main strands in the developement of Windows:
- DOS based
- NT based
DOS based
Windows versions 1.0 to 3.1 were not complete operating systems. They were really an application that ran under the DOS operating system. Windows 95 incorporated the essential elements of DOS it needed into the Windows product, so it became a full operating system. Windows 98 and Windows Millenium Editioan also did this.
NT based
In 1993 Microsoft released a completely new operating system - Windows NT (New Technology) that:
- was entirely 32 bit
- had no dependency on the old DOS code
- had better security