History of Microsoft Windows

History Of Microsoft Windows

In 1983, Microsoft announced the development of Windows, a graphical user interface (GUI) for its own operating system (MS-DOS), which had shipped for IBM PC and compatible computers since 1981. The product line has changed from a GUI product to a modern operating system over two families of design, each with its own codebase and default file system.

The 3.x and 4.x family includes Windows 3.0, Windows 3.1x, Windows 95, Windows 98, and Windows Me. Windows for Workgroups 3.11 added 32-bit networking and 32-bit disk access. Windows 95 added additional 32-bit capabilities (however, MS-DOS, some of the kernel, and supplementary utilities such as Disk Defragment remained 16-bit) and implemented a new object oriented user interface, elements of which are still used today.

The Windows NT family started with Windows NT 3.1 in 1993. Modern Windows operating system versions are based on the newer Windows NT kernel that was originally intended for OS/2. Windows runs on IA-32, x86-64, and Itanium processors. Microsoft is also working to bring Windows NT onto ARM in the next release of Windows. Earlier versions also ran on the i860, Alpha, MIPS, Fairchild Clipper, and PowerPC architectures. Some work was done to port it to the SPARC architecture.

With Windows NT 4.0 in 1996, the shell changed from Program Manager to Windows Explorer.