Microsoft Windows – History and Evaluation

Microsoft was established by Bill gates and Allen in 1975. In June 1980, Steve Ballmer (Bill Gates’ former Harvard classmate) was hired by Bill Gates and Allen to help as well run the company. In the same year, IBM approached Microsoft about a project code – named ‘Chess’ for their systems. In response to this approach by IBM, Microsoft worked on a new operating system for the IBM systems that could manage the computer hardware and provide an interface between computer hardware and programs running on it. They named this new operating system ‘MS?DOS’. This OS was fully command based. This operating system provided a good interface between hardware and programs but it was difficult to understand by normal programmers and developers, as there was no Graphical User Interface. Windows 1.0 : Microsoft further worked on the operating system to provide it a GUI support and hence they launched Windows 1.0 in 1983. Windows name was given to the OS because it best describes the boxes or computing “windows” those were the fundamentals of the new operating system. Windows 2.0 : On 9th December, 1987, Microsoft released the next version of Windows. Windows 2.0 was featured with desktop icons as well as expanded memory. In this version, users were able to control overlap windows, the screen layout, and use keyboard shortcuts. Windows 3.0 (Windows NT) : On 22nd May, 1990, Microsoft launched Windows 3.0. The concept of Virtual memory was also introduced. This version was featured with good performance, more advanced graphics in 16 colors, and improved icon quality. Windows 95 : On 24th August, 1995, Microsoft released Windows 95. The concept of Start menu, taskbar, minimize and maximize as well as close buttons on each window was introduced in this version. As it was the era of World Wide Web, Internet Explorer 1.0 was also released with the release of Windows 95. Windows 98 : Windows 98 was released on 25th June, 1998. This version of Windows was not only designed for the professionals but also for consumers as well as home users. It was also the last version which was based on the MS-DOS concept. Windows Me : It was the last Microsoft operating system to be based on the Windows 95 code. After this, Microsoft started manufacturing Windows on the basis of Windows NT and Windows 2000 kernel. Windows 2000 Professional : In this version, the concept of MS-DOS was completely overwritten. Windows 2000 added major improvements in accessibility, ease of use and Internet Explorer. It also provided support for mobile computing. Windows XP : On 25th October, 2001, Windows XP was released. It was focused on a unique Help and Support services center to provide users a ease of use. It was available worldwide in 25 languages. It came in 3 editions – Windows XP Tablet PC Edition, Windows XP Media Center Edition and Windows XP 64-bit Edition. Windows Vista : Windows Vista was released in 2006 featuring the strongest security system yet. User Account Control was also introduced to prevent potentially harmful softwares from making changes to the computer. It was also featured with Bit Locker Drive Encryption. Windows 7 : Windows 7 was featured with some user-loving features. It was designed in such a way that user would love to do work on it. It also started the use of Windows Touch, which let users to fully use the computer by their fingertip only. Windows 8 : This is the latest version of MS-Windows, which introduced interface that could work smoothly for both touch as well as mouse and keyboard users. The main features of Windows 8 are Start screen with resizable tiles and apps that could connect with people, file system and Internet. Windows Store was also introduced in this version, so that users can download and run apps from the store.