What is the history of Windows

In 1985 Microsoft released the first version of Windows, a graphical user interface (GUI) for its own operating system (MS-DOS) that had been included on the IBM PC and compatible computers since 1981. It is very similar to that of Apple, using the graphical interface, was created in imitation of Apple’s MacOS.

The first version of Microsoft Windows Premium was never too powerful, nor did it catch on. It was severely limited due to Apple’s legal remedies, which did not allow imitations of its user interfaces. For example, windows could only be tiled on the screen; that is, they could never overlap or hide each other. There was also no “recycle bin” because Apple believed they had a patent on this paradigm or concept. Both limitations were removed when Apple’s appeal was rejected in court. On the other hand, the programs included in the first version were “toy” applications with little appeal to professional users.

Windows 2.0
It appeared in 1987, and was slightly more popular than the initial version. Much of this popularity was derived from the inclusion of new graphics applications from Microsoft, Microsoft Excel and Microsoft Word for Windows, as “run-time” versions. these could be loaded from MS-DOS, running Windows at the same time as the program, and closing Windows when exiting them. Windows 2 still used the 8088 memory model and was therefore limited to 1 megabyte of memory; however, many people managed to make it work under multitasking systems like DesqView.

Windows 3.0
The first really popular version of Windows was version 3.0, released in 1990. It benefited from the improved graphics capabilities for PCs of this era, and also from the 80386 microprocessor, which allowed for improved multitasking capabilities of Windows applications. This would allow older MS-DOS-based applications to run in multitasking mode. Windows 3 made the IBM PC a serious competitor for the Apple Macintosh.

OS/2
OS/2 is an IBM operating system that tried to succeed DOS as the operating system for PCs. It was initially developed jointly between Microsoft and IBM, until the former decided to go its own way with its Windows 3.0 and IBM took care of OS/2 solo.

OS/2 1
During the second half of the 1980s, Microsoft and IBM had been jointly developing OS/2 as a successor to DOS, to take full advantage of the capabilities of the Intel 80286 processor. OS/2 used hardware addressing of available memory. in the Intel 80286 to be able to use up to 16 MB of memory. By contrast, most DOS programs were limited to 640 KB of memory. OS/2 1.x also supported virtual memory and multitasking.

IBM later added, in version 1.1 of OS/2, a graphical system called Presentation Manager (PM). Although in many ways it was superior to Windows, its API (Application Interface Program) was incompatible with the one used by Windows programs. (Among other things, Presentation Manager located the X,Y coordinate axis at the bottom left of the screen as Cartesian coordinates, while Windows located the 0,0 point at the top left of the screen like other computer-based systems). on windows).

In the early 1990s, tensions grew in the relationship between IBM and Microsoft. They cooperated with each other in the development of their PC operating systems and each had access to the other’s code. Microsoft wanted to develop Windows further, while IBM wanted future work to be based on OS/2. In an attempt to resolve these differences, IBM and Microsoft agreed that IBM would develop OS/2 2.0 to replace OS/2 1.3 and Windows 3.0, while Microsoft would develop a new operating system, OS/2 3.0, to later succeed OS/2. 2 2.0.

This agreement was soon shelved and the relationship between IBM and Microsoft ended. IBM continued to develop IBM OS/2 2.0 while Microsoft renamed its (as yet unreleased) OS/2 3.0 to Windows NT.

(Microsoft promoted Windows NT so successfully that most people didn’t realize it was a revamped OS/2.) Both retained the rights to use OS/2 and Windows technology developed up to the termination date of the agreement.

OS/2 2.0
IBM released OS/2 version 2.0 in 1992. This version was a major improvement over OS/2 1.3. It incorporated a new object-oriented window system called Workplace Shell as a replacement for Presentation Manager, a new file system, HPFS, to replace the DOS FAT file system also used in Windows, and took full advantage of 32-bit capabilities. of the Intel 80386 processor. It could also run DOS and Windows programs, as IBM had retained the rights to use the DOS and Windows code as a result of the breakup.

OS / 2 3.0 and 4.0
IBM continued to sell OS/2, producing later versions as OS/2 3.0 (also called Warp) and 4.0 (Merlin). But with the advent of Windows 95, OS/2 began to lose market share. Although OS/2 still ran Windows 3.0 applications, it lacked support for new applications that required Windows 95. Unlike Windows 3.0, IBM did not have access to the Windows 95 source code; and it also did not have the time or resources to emulate the work of Microsoft programmers with Windows 95, however, OS/2 3.0 (Warp) came on the market before Windows 95 (which was later than the initial release date). launch), as improvements it incorporated a reduction in hardware requirements (it went from asking for 8 Mb of RAM memory from its predecessor OS/2 2. 1 to request only 4 Mb) and as a great addition, it included the so-called BonusPack, a set of office applications, communications, etc. that saved having to buy additional software as in the case of Windows. All this, together with a large advertising campaign and a very low price (the equivalent of €59.40 compared to €100 for Windows) caused many people to try it instead of waiting for the arrival of Windows 95. Unfortunately, the subsequent abandonment by IBM caused it to be relegated (although it continues to be used -less and less- in banking sectors due to its high stability).

Windows 3.1 and Windows 3.11
In response to the release of OS/2 2.0, Microsoft developed Windows 3.1, which included several minor improvements to Windows 3.0 (such as scalable TrueType fonts), but was mainly multimedia support. Microsoft later released Windows 3.11 (called Windows for Workgroups), which included improved drivers and protocols for network communications and support for peer-to-peer networks.

Windows NT
Meanwhile Microsoft continued to develop Windows NT. To do this, they recruited Dave Cutler, one of the chief VMS analysts at Digital Equipment Corporation (today part of Compaq, which was bought by HP in 2005) to turn NT into a more competitive system.

Cutler had been developing a successor to the VMS at DEC (Digital Equipment Corporation) called Mica, and when DEC left the project he took his knowledge and some engineers to Microsoft. DEC also believed that Mica’s code was being taken over to Microsoft and filed a lawsuit. Microsoft eventually paid $150 million and agreed to support DEC’s Alpha microprocessor on NT.
Being an entirely new operating system, Windows NT suffered from compatibility issues with existing hardware and software. It also required a lot of resources and these were only available on large and expensive computers. Because of this, many users were unable to switch to Windows NT. NT GUI was still based on Windows 3.1 which was inferior to OS/2 Workplace Shell

Windows NT 3.1
Windows NT 3.1 (Microsoft’s marketing strategy was to make Windows NT look like a continuation of Windows 3.1) appeared in developer beta at the July 1992 Professional Developers Conference in San Francisco. Microsoft announced at the conference its intention to develop a successor to Windows NT and Chicago (which had not yet been released). This successor would unify both systems into one and his code name was Cairo. (In hindsight Cairo was a more difficult project than Microsoft had anticipated and as a result NT and Chicago would not be unified until Windows XP).

Windows NT 3.5/3.51
It should be noted that the graphical interface of Windows NT 3.5 and Windows 3.51 was the same as its predecessors, Windows NT 3.1 and Windows 3.1, with the Program Manager. On the other hand, Microsoft distributed an add-on called NewShell, whose full name is “Shell Technology Preview Update”, which was nothing more than a Beta version of the new graphical interface of Windows 95 and NT 4.0, with the start button and menu. , but for Windows NT 3.5x. Its main function was for Windows users to evaluate the new graphical interface, which was to be introduced in Windows 95 and NT 4.0, but as “collateral damage” it gave Windows NT 3.5x the new graphical interface.

Windows NT 4.0
Windows NT 4.0 featured various cutting-edge technology components and support for different platforms like MIPS, ALPHA, Intel, etc. The different versions such as Workstation, Server, Terminal server, Advancer server, allowed it to be adapted to various needs. The use of components such as sound cards, modems, etc, had to be specifically designed for this operating system.

Windows 95
Microsoft adopted “Windows 95” as the product name for Chicago when it was released in August 1995. Chicago was on track to incorporate a new graphical interface to compete with OS/2. Although it shared a lot of code with Windows 3.x and even with MS-DOS, it was also intended to introduce 32-bit architecture and support preemptive multitasking, like OS/2 or Windows NT itself. However, only part of Chicago started using 32-bit architecture, most continued to use 16-bit architecture, with Microsoft arguing that a complete conversion would delay the release of Chicago too much and would be too costly.

Microsoft developed a new API to replace the 16-bit Windows API. This API was named Win32, since then Microsoft named the old 16-bit API as Win16. This API was developed in three versions: one for Windows NT, one for Chicago, and another called Win32s, which was a subset of Win32 that could be used on systems running Windows 3.1. Microsoft thus tried to ensure some degree of compatibility between Chicago and Windows NT, even though the two systems had radically different architectures. Windows 95 had two big advantages for the average consumer. First, although its interface still ran on top of MS-DOS, it had a built-in installation that made it appear as a single operating system (you no longer needed to buy MS-DOS and install Windows on top of it). Second, introduced a protected mode subsystem that was specially written for 80386 or higher processors, which would prevent new Win32 applications from damaging the memory area of ​​other Win32 applications. Windows 95 was closer to Windows NT in this respect, but at the same time, since it shared Windows 3.x code, applications could still completely crash the system if they invaded the Win16 application area.

It also had the novelty of including support for Plug&Play technology. Windows 95 became the first great success of Redmond worldwide. The evolution of the Internet and the power of computers, increasingly capable, gave rise to a binomial in which Intel and Microsoft dominated the world scene with solvency. Manufacturers began to focus on this system when it came to releasing their device drivers and, although with some unavoidable incompatibility problems, the success of the platform was absolute.

Windows 98 Windows 98
arrived on June 25, 1998. It included new hardware drivers and the FAT32 file system (also supported by Windows 95 OSR 2 and OSR 2.5) that supported partitions larger than the 2 GB allowed by Windows 95. also to new technologies such as DVD, FireWire, USB or AGP. The integration of the Internet browser in all areas of the system was also new.

But the main difference between Windows 98 and Windows 95 was that its kernel had been modified to allow the use of Windows NT drivers in Windows 9x and vice versa. This was achieved by migrating part of the Windows NT kernel to Windows 98, although Windows 98 continued to maintain its MS-DOS/Windows GUI architecture. This allowed production costs to be reduced, since Windows NT and Windows 98 could now use nearly identical drivers.

Windows 98 Second Edition (SE)
In 1999, Microsoft released Windows 98 Second Edition, whose most notable feature was the ability to share an Internet connection through a single telephone line among multiple computers. It also eliminated most of the errors caused by Internet Explorer on the system. This version is the most stable of all the versions in this series, and is still in use on many computers.

Windows Millennium Edition (ME)
In 2000 Microsoft introduced Windows ME which was a copy of Windows 98 with more applications added. Windows ME was a quick one-year project to fill the gap between Windows 98 and the new Windows XP, and it showed a lot in the poor stability of this version. In theory Windows 2000 was going to be the unification between the two families of Windows, business and home, but due to delays this small advance was launched. In this version the system startup was accelerated and officially it was no longer possible to distinguish between MS-DOS and the graphical environment (although patches appeared that allowed it to be separated again as was done in previous versions).

This version did not bring a 16-bit processing unit, focusing only on compatibility with new 32-bit hardware. As a consequence, it only worked correctly on newer computers that had it installed, because if it was installed on an older computer (via a software update) the 16-bit hardware was either more complex to configure, or it didn’t work at all.
  It should be noted that this operating system was very popular due to its continuous errors and many disadvantages of use (bugs).

Windows 2000
In this same year Windows 2000 was released, a new version of Windows NT very useful for system administrators and with a large number of network services and most importantly: it supported Plug&Play devices that had been a problem with Windows NT .

The Windows 2000 family consisted of several versions of the system: one for workstations (Windows 2000 Professional) and several for servers (Windows 2000 server, advanced server, datacenter server).
  Windows 2000 incorporated important technological innovations for Microsoft environments, both in new services and in the improvement of existing ones. Some of the features it has are:

Storage:
• Support for FAT16, FAT32 and NTFS.
  • File encryption (EFS).
  • Indexing service.
  • Distributed File System (DFS).
  • New backup system (ASR).
  • Fault tolerance system (RAID) with dynamic disks (software). 

Communications:
  • Remote access services (RAS, VPN, RADIUS and Routing).
  • New version of IIS with support for HTTP/1.1.
  • Active Directory.
  • Load balancing (clustering)
  • Network unattended installation services (RIS).
  • Native Terminal Services.

These advances mark a before and after in the history of Microsoft.

Windows XP
The union of Windows NT/2000 and the Windows 9.x family was achieved with Windows XP released in 2001 in its Home and Professional versions. Windows XP uses the core of Windows NT. It incorporates a new interface and boasts greater multimedia capabilities. It also has other new features such as improved multitasking, support for wireless networks and remote assistance. It can be added immediately after launching the latest Service Pack (SP2) Microsoft designed a system oriented to Businesses and Corporations called Microsoft Windows XP Corporate Edition, something similar to Windows XP Professional, only specially designed for Businesses. In the multimedia section, XP gives an advance with the Media Center version (2002-2005). This version offers an interface for easy access to everything related to multimedia (TV, photos,

Windows Server 2003
Successor of the Microsoft family of servers to Windows 2000 Server. It is the version of Windows for servers launched by Microsoft in 2003. It is based on the core of Windows XP, to which a series of services have been added, and some of its features have been blocked (to improve performance, or simply because they will not be used).

Windows Vista
Windows Vista appeared on the market on January 30, 2007. It is worth noting the continuous delays in the delivery dates of the operating system. Initially its release to the market was announced in early-mid 2006, later and due to problems during the development process, its release was delayed until the end of 2006. The last delay moved the date until the end of January 2007. These continuous delays have led Microsoft to take various measures to minimize the extra expenses resulting from delays. For example, in Argentina, it will be possible to buy Windows Vista with a “ticket” that the person acquires when buying a new PC that does not yet have Windows Vista installed. They will be able to exchange the “ticket” for a genuine copy of Windows Vista and thus upgrade their system.

The different versions that can be purchased are three for the consumer, Vista Home Basic, Vista Home Premium and Ultimate Edition and two versions for companies, Vista Business and Vista Enterprise, plus Vista Starter, for emerging markets. The minimum requirements for the basic version of Windows Vista (Home Basic – Starter) to work on a computer are the following:
  • 32-bit processor with a minimum speed of 800Mhz
  • 512 MB of RAM (to work at an acceptable speed), 1GB recommended
  • DirectX 9 compatible graphics card with at least 32MB of memory, 128MB recommended, although this version without Aero does not require a very advanced card
  • 40GB hard drive with 15GB available
  • DVD-ROM writer and reader

To get all the features like Aero (Home Premium – Ultimate), you need a computer with these features:
  • 32-bit (x86) processor running at least 1Ghz or a 64-bit (x64) processor running at 1Ghz
  • 1GB RAM
  • DirectX 9 graphics support with a WDDM driver, 128 MB of graphics memory (minimum), Pixel Shader 2.0, and 32 bits per pixel.
  • 40GB hard drive with 15GB available
  • DVD burner and reader
  • Internet connection
  • Audio output

It should be noted that during its development it was known as Windows Longhorn. The Editions of Windows Vista will be the following:
Windows Vista Starter Intended to replace Windows XP Starter Edition. It will be aimed at emerging markets, and it will be very limited.
Windows Vista Home Basic Similar to Windows XP Home Edition. Will not include “Aero Glass” with translucent effects. It will support 8 GB of RAM.
Windows Vista Home Premium More similar to Windows XP Media Center Edition. For example, it will support HDTV and up to 16 GB of RAM.
Windows Vista Business Equivalent to Windows XP Professional. It does not include features of the Media Edition, but instead offers more business-oriented tools, such as Fax support, IIS web server, up to 128 GB. It will not require product activation.
Windows Vista Enterprise Based on the previous version (Windows Vista Business). It has all of the above, plus Virtual PC, multi-language interface, and will be able to support UNIX applications. It will not be sold through traditional means of sale.
Windows Vista Ultimate Combines the features of Home Premium along with those of Enterprise. Like the versions for the professional market, it will not require product activation.

In addition to these versions, the “Home Basic N” and “Business N” editions will be available for the European market, identical to the previous ones, except for not having Windows Media Player.

The Home, Home Premium and Ultimate versions will be sold on the same DVD, and you can upgrade to a higher version simply by paying for a license upgrade through Windows Anytime Upgrade.
  It should also be noted that Windows Vista will bring a new graphical interface called Aero, which is an evolution of the graphical interface called Windows XP.
  Windows Server 2008
  Like its successor, Windows Server 2003 was based on the latest version of the home OS released. it is based on Windows Vista in terms of its much more friendly and simple Aero interface, and on Windows Server 2003 SP2. The commercial version of the product has not yet been released, but Microsoft provides any interested party with unstable versions for testing.

Versiones para Tablet PC
  • Windows XP Tablet PC Edition

Small Device Versions
  • Windows CE
  • Windows Mobile
  • Windows XP Embedded